Organizing Systems
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Derek Cabrera, PhD
Derek Cabrera (PhD, Cornell) is an internationally known systems scientist and serves on the faculty of Cornell University where he teaches systems thinking, systems leadership, and systems mapping and is Program Director for the Graduate Certification Program in Systems Thinking, Modeling, and Leadership (STML). He is a senior scientist at Cabrera Research Lab. He’s authored 8 books including, Systems Thinking Made Simple and Flock Not Clock.
More posts by Derek Cabrera, PhD
Derek Cabrera, PhD

How we organize the parts of a system into a whole matters. Every whole has parts. Every part is a whole which has parts. And, every whole is a part of a larger whole. The way we group things is a function of our perspective and the parts we identify a function of distinctions making. Relationships are part of the whole, too, which makes them parts of the whole.
Also see The Dark Side of Categorical Thinking to learn more about Systems, part-whole.
From the book: Cabrera, D and Cabrera L. 2015. Systems Thinking Made Simple Odyssean.