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4.18 AVERAGE
4.18 AVERAGE
A fantastic primer to systems thinking that has really changed the way I think about the world around me. This book provides the language and several frameworks to think about the interconnected nature of various systems and decision-making processes that occur everywhere. From processes on the individual to cities/countries/global scale, from small businesses to political arenas, this book applies to everything. This book wasn't perfect, though. As thorough as it was in providing complex explanations and frameworks to various scenarios, there were a few sections in the Systems Traps and Opportunities chapters where the advice or response was just to "avoid them." While it makes sense just to avoid them, there must be more that we can do to intervene and break those feedback loops and traps.
Besides that, this was an awesome book and I recommend to everyone!
Besides that, this was an awesome book and I recommend to everyone!
Learning systems and how they affect policymakers decisions and our daily lives.
slow-paced
informative
fast-paced
The book enables us to build new perspectives, not just new thinking styles. As we understand how to see systems in everything around us and begin thinking in terms of stock and feedback loops, we see the events and causes in a different light.
That said, this book is a primer in this direction. It covers the essentials of how to approach thinking in systems but it cannot possibly cover all the intricacies in all the systems we see around us and in us. This book left me wanting more but also strangely content.
That said, this book is a primer in this direction. It covers the essentials of how to approach thinking in systems but it cannot possibly cover all the intricacies in all the systems we see around us and in us. This book left me wanting more but also strangely content.
I don't think I can add anything in this review that hasn't already been said but I just want to say that this book is amazing and should be read by anyone working in human systems of any scale and size. It's easy for us to think we're experts in our one little niche, but if we want to create real change or progress in our fields it's important to understand how broad and interconnected everything in these systems are. This book helps us not fully understand dynamic, complex systems, but teaches us that we can never fully understand them.
informative
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
This is an intro book to systems (a body is a system, so is a business or an economy). It covers how to deal with some common problems you see in systems. I really liked it a lot. It was a good introduction. It was pretty dense, though.
informative
Required reading for any designer, entrepreneur, manager, politician…everyone. I think there are two fundamental disciplines that people need to understand an learn to apply: Design Thinking and Systems Thinking. One to understand the process of problem solving, the other the technique of mapping relationships. Dana Meadows explains the complexity of systems thinking in easy-to-understand terms. Each chapter builds upon the previous one to bring home a sense of the incredible complexity of the world we inhabit and the incredible risks we take when we oversimplify and/or overestimate our understanding of it.
The paradox is that systems thinking provides invaluable tools to map the complex interrelations that give rise to societal, economic and environmental problems, so that we are better equipped to solve these problems effectively -by removing or adding feedback loops using leverage points in the system, for example, in stead of fighting symptoms. On the other hand systems thinking makes us aware of the unfathomable complexity of the world and instills in its users a sense of humility and awe. A sense that the more you know, the more you know what you don’t know. If done with the correct mindset that is. A humble one. Systems thinking requires a ‘beginner’s mind’ to do well. Which interestingly enough links it to Zen buddhism. But that’s another book.
The paradox is that systems thinking provides invaluable tools to map the complex interrelations that give rise to societal, economic and environmental problems, so that we are better equipped to solve these problems effectively -by removing or adding feedback loops using leverage points in the system, for example, in stead of fighting symptoms. On the other hand systems thinking makes us aware of the unfathomable complexity of the world and instills in its users a sense of humility and awe. A sense that the more you know, the more you know what you don’t know. If done with the correct mindset that is. A humble one. Systems thinking requires a ‘beginner’s mind’ to do well. Which interestingly enough links it to Zen buddhism. But that’s another book.