There are systems all around us, if we know where to look. A family unit is one system, while the community in which we live is another. That community is part of a bigger system of a county or city.

We live in a world of complex, interconnected systems. They range from big corporations and the Earth’s biosphere to social networks and our own bodies. Complex systems have many components that ...

For public officials, the law of unintended consequences should need no introduction. It would be hard to find a better example of that law at work than in what happened to Somerville, Mass., after ...

In recent years, systems thinking—a discipline that helps us understand interdependent structures of dynamic systems—has emerged as a powerful force for change in the philanthropic world. Borne out of ...

Years ago, I was working in the corporate organizational development office at an international electronics company in South Korea. I was at the beginning of my career and excited for the adventure of ...

A “one size fits all” approach to large-scale, global problems relies on what’s sometimes called linear or reductionist thinking. But many experts question whether it’s the right approach when it ...

For the last few years, design thinking has been in vogue. I’ve worked for three years as a member of the team designing and running +Acumen courses. In 2013, we launched an “Introduction to ...

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The term "systems thinking" refers to a management and operations approach where single business decisions are analyzed based on the systematic consequences they have. If a company invests in a new ...

The goal of this project was to develop and conduct psychometric testing of a measure of systems thinking, the Systems Thinking Scale (STS). For this project, we: Generated an initial bank of test ...