Think In Systems: The Theory and Practice of Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, and Creating Lasting Results - Complexity Made Simple

Emergence is often the most difficult part to detect and understand, but once you understand it, you’ll be able to think about and predict outcomes from seemingly unrelated things.

Donella Meadows, the mother of systems thinking, put interconnectedness in a more explicit explanation: “A system is a set of related components that work together in a particular environment to perform whatever functions are required to achieve the systems objective.”

Professor John Gerber at the University of Massachusetts identifies the following four structures: “1. Physical things — like vending machines, roads, traffic lights, or terrain. 2. Organizations — like corporations, governments, and schools. 3. Policies — like laws, regulations, and tax structures. 4. Ritual — habitual behaviors so ingrained that

Systems thinking, in a sense, presents the fundamental principle of life — that everything in this world is interconnected; the actors affect each other directly or indirectly. As they say, a “butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil could set off a tornado in Texas.”

focus on three things, according to Balle, the author of Managing with Systems Thinking: Making Dynamics Work for You in Business Decision Making. Detect patterns, not just events. Use circular causality (feedback loops, which I will present later in this book). Focus on the relationships, rather than the parts.[v]

systems thinking, which is deemed to look at things in their complex nature.

the actors have an effect on each other. These effects create certain feedback loops. To put it very simply, what goes around comes around.

Emergence is the natural way things come together. When we talk about emergence, we are talking about the outcome that happens when different items interact with each other.

The interconnections are usually a bit more difficult to determine, but they’re everything that brings the function of a system to life.