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MIT Organizational Learning Center Emphasizes Collaboration
Early in March, fifty managers and executives convened in Cambridge, Massachusetts to inaugurate a new research partnership between business and academia — the MIT Organizational…
Scenario-Based Planning: Managing by Foresight
In the early 1980s, Royal Dutch/ Shell’s planning group uncovered some startling statistics: one-third of the companies listed in the Fortune 500 in 1970 had…
Déjà vu in Advertising
The year is 1986 and the advertising industry — which prides itself on being immune to economic slowdowns — is experiencing a sharp slowdown of…
1990 System Dynamics Conference Focuses on Learning
Learning emerged as the key topic at the 1990 International System Dynamics Conference. The conference, held July 10-13 in Massachusetts, brought together people from over…
Are Budgets Bad for Business?
Budgets are great for tracking money as it flows through a company. But when they are used for other purposes — long-range planning or gauging…
The Vocabulary of Systems Thinking: A Pocket Guide
Systems thinking can be thought of as a language for communicating about complexity and interdependencies (see “Systems Thinking as a Language,” Viewpoint, April 1991). To…
Revitalizing the Schools: A Systems Thinking Approach
Fortune magazine recently labeled the U.S. school system “our most endangered institution,” highlighting a growing national concern about the quality of education in America. Steadily…
“Flying” People Express Again
The year is 1980 and the U.S. post-deregulation airline industry is still taking shape. While the established carriers are making adjustments in the new competitive…
Productivity Press: Integrating System Dynamics and Japanese Management
In recent years, Japanese management practices have been applied to U.S. companies with varying degrees of success. Although in principle such practices should work, the…
Learning Organizations: From Invention to Innovation
“Forget your old, tired ideas about leadership. The most successful corporation of the 1990s will be something called a learning organization,” intoned a recent Fortune…