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New England Fishing Industry: Who’s Minding the Fish?
New England fishermen are in trouble, victims of a “get-it-while-you-can mentality” that could exhaust fish stocks beyond recovery and threaten the existence of one of…
Mergers and New Entrants Mark a New Era in Systems Thinking
Although the field of systems thinking has been around for several decades, the last several years have marked unprecedented growth. New entrants have spurred the…
Many Cyclical Markets Share Common Underlying Structure
Pork production, engineering student enrollments, the oil tanker industry, real estate. What do they all have in common? They experience “boom and bust” cycles at…
The Ladder of Inference
How we act depends on how we understand the situation we are in. Our understandings often seem obvious to us, as if they were…
Reader Response to “Moonlighting in Germany”
In the October “Systems Thinking Workout,” we presented a scenario involving part-time employment in Germany. The article explored the potential ramifications of a new…
Reader’s Response to “The Dynamics of Good to Great”
Ifrequently work with clients who want to improve their company’s performance—they essentially seek to set into motion the “Flywheel” of ever-increasing success that Jim…
Readers’ Response to “Built to Flip”
The Internet Revolution In the past, Initial Purchase Offerings (IPOs) and other lucrative investments in up-and-coming companies were available only to large institutions, to those…
Reader Response to “European Wine Regulations”
This workout seems to be a classic example of the systemic structure “Interdependent Opposites” (see V8N9). The “Interdependent Opposites” structure reflects the view that…
Reader Response to “Online Shopping: Can the Holiday Boom Last?”
In the February issue of THE SYSTEMS THINKER (Volume 10, Number 1), we launched the new Systems Thinking Workout column. In the column, we…