xvii I think that one of the most important messages in the book is indeed
that systems thinking is about what, with hindsight, seems obvious.
xviii Dennis [Sherwood] has set out to show that the ideas in the book do
not just apply to business organizations and business decisions... Wherever an organization has targets, and constraints,
and complex interrelationships between the various elements that affect its performance, it is possible to apply systems thinking
and draw causal loop diagrams. They may be more difficult... but they can still be used to great benefit.
p.1 This book is about systems thinking. Systems thinking is a big idea
- the idea that you really can understand and tame the complexity of the real world. This complexity cannot be wished
away, but if you look at the world in the right way, and have confidence to embrace complexity rather than being
cowed by it, it can indeed be tamed.
p.1 The essence of systems thinking is that the complexity of the
real world can best be tamed by seeing things in the round [JLJ - to be viewed from all sides], as a
whole... The prize you get from doing this is better, more robust, and wiser decisions. Decisions that are better
because they have been taken by considering the problem in the round, in all its complexity; decisions that are more robust
because they have been taken in the full understanding of their consequences, so that you will not be surprised by unforeseen
circumstances; decisions that are wiser, because they stand the toughest test there is, the test of time.
p.3 The study of systems is therefore the study of the connectedness between
those systems' component parts...
If you wish to understand a system, and so be in a position to predict
its behavior, it is necessary to study the system as a whole. Cutting it up into bits for study is likely to destroy
the system's connectedness, and hence the system itself.
If you wish to influence or control the behavior of a system, you
must act on the system as a whole. Tweaking it in one place in the hope that nothing will happen in another is doomed
to failure - that's what connectedness is all about.
p.3 Far from being an academic, ivory-tower activity, systems thinking
is profoundly practical and pragmatic, and can apply to all aspects of business and organized life. [JLJ - perhaps
even to game theory.]
p.7 Much of this book is about how you can use causal loop diagrams to describe
a complex system, truly capturing its essence clearly and succinctly, so providing a platform for discussion, communication,
and policy formulation.
p.7 Systems thinking can help you tame the complexity of real-world problems
by providing a structured way of balancing a broad, complete view with the selection of the right level of detail... System
dynamics modeling is a computer modeling technique that allows you to simulate how a complex system, as expressed as a causal
loop diagram, is likely to evolve over time. This provides you with a "laboratory of the future," so that you can test the
likely consequences of actions, decisions, or policies before you are obligated to commit.
p.12 A system is composed of a number of connected entities. If you wish
to understand - and therefore be in a position to predict, influence, and ultimately control - the behavior of the system
as a whole, can you achieve this solely on the basis of knowledge of the individual entities?
... there is an enormous temptation to answer this question with a "yes,"
p.13 if you want to understand a system, and so put yourself in
a position to be able to influence its behavior or even control it, you must seek to understand the system as a whole.
p.14 Another reason why the "understand the bits" approach does not work
when applied to systems is that systems display characteristics that are properties of the system as a whole, and
are not characteristics of any of the individual component parts. Since these special properties exist only at the
level of the system, no amount of study of the component parts will even identify their existence.
p.15 The emergence of a stable dynamic structure is known as self-organization,
another important property of many complex systems... it is the connectedness of the component parts of the system
with each other, and of the system as a whole with its environment, that is the central reason for order being maintained,
and indeed created.
p.16 The flow of information within a system is known as feedback
p.17 Many biological systems are self-correcting; biologists and
psychologists call this "homeostasis." ... These mechanisms are all driven by feedback, in which information concerning
the external environment is fed back to our internal physiological processes; they all serve to maintain the self-organization
of ourselves as systems.
p.47 Using causal loop diagrams helps the group [involved in business decision
making] think through the range of potential policies and the likely consequences of the various alternatives.
p.47-48 Wisdom is all about identifying all the possible ways and determining
the best. In my view, one of them most powerful ways of encouraging that wisdom is to look at complex problems holistically;
teasing out how all the parts are mutually interconnected, and representing that complexity in a succinct, meaningful way
in a well-constructed causal loop diagram.
p.50-51 As outlined in part I, systems thinking provides a suitably broad
perspective and causal loop diagrams are a very powerful way of capturing the essence of complex systems. As we have already
seen from the diagrams shown so far, causal loop diagrams portray cause-and-effect relationships,
but they do so in a way that emphasizes the complete, highly interconnected nature of the problem of interest; they
capture the way everything is connected to everything else.
p.119 As this example shows, the dynamic behavior of many systems
over time can be very complex and quite bewildering to understand.
p.203 What are the levers in your business?
Pause for a moment and think through the decisions and actions taken
in your business. What are the levers that are pulled or pushed for each of these? What are their names? And what are the
current values for the target settings and the actual settings?
p.204 What is strategy?
... strategy can be defined in terms of the target settings of all
your levers.
Any business, at any time, has its levers positioned at particular
target settings. Strategy formulation is the process by which the senior management team decides how these lever target settings
should be reset, if at all. Once these policy decisions are taken, the implementation of the strategy is the execution of
all the corresponding actions, so that the actual settings of the levers can come into line with their target settings.
Strategy is all about resetting levers. Determining where
a lever should be set, and then taking the corresponding actions, are - quite literally - the only things a manager can actually
do.
p.272-273 The job of management, however, is to... take [JLJ - make?] decisions
now, in order to influence the future as much as we possibly can to meet our overall goals and objectives. Managing
the dynamic behavior of our business and organizational systems is our primary objective... very few of us
can envisage how the dynamic behaviors of key variables... are likely to evolve over time, in a highly complex environment...
This is where computer-based simulation modeling can really add value, turbo-charging your thinking, because the computer
model can act as your "laboratory of the future," enabling you to test the consequences of different policies and decision
before you have to commit.
p.273 The use of computer models to support systems thinking has
its own name, system dynamics.
