Tropes

Another System Thinking trope that gets my dander up. Not because it's ill intentioned but because so many well-intentioned people do it. In discussions on systems thinking we often hear, "well, it's all about the context." Or, "what about the environment." Recently, our lab posted this post (and poster).

Systems Exist

This isn't a blog post, but more of a blog-collection. 8 common things that systems thinkers like to say that are bupkis. We call them sacred cows of systems thinking because it is almost blasphemous to disagree with them, even though most have a much bigger bark than bite. Click on the links below (in the right column) to red the blogs on each sacred cow. And, one thing is for sure, dare to challenge any one of these sacred cows 🐮, and you'll take a rash of shit 💩for it. People will come out of the woodwork to defend them with great fanfare and handwaving 👋. But stay steady, the logic of nature 🌱 and science 🔬 eventually win them over, but it can take time ⌛. Ug. 😛 In the list below, click on the links to go to articles on the sacred cow and its scientifically-valid replacement.

This post is adapted from Chapter 4 of Flock Not Clock.

The discussion of emergence is always one that gets tempers roiled in the systems thinking community. Indeed, it is one of a few of what I call "sacred cows

There are a number of folks in the systems thinking world who are of the opinion that when discussing what is universal to all attempts at thinking systemically, it all

Recent discussion prompted by the query "What is systems thinking?" has motivated me to write this blog, in part because there is no simple, widely agreed upon answer

Let’s deconstruct this often made claim that systems thinking (ST) stands in contrast to (in this case on opposite ends of a continuum from) reductionism. This claim appears reasonable