Imagine you are part of a healthcare team that has developed a computer model to grapple with the complex and often conflicting factors involved…

Corporations today face many pressures to become “lean.” Unfortunately, most people also attach “mean” to lean, which can lead us to confuse leanness with…

Managers in today’s organizations are continually confronted with new challenges and increased performance expectations. At the same time, they are bombarded by a bewildering…

People who are raised in the industrial world and who get enthused about systems thinking are likely to make a terrible mistake. They are…

In the summer of 2006, a group of local foundations supported the leaders of Calhoun County Michigan (population 100,000), in developing a 10-year plan…

Causal loop diagrams are an important tool for representing the feedback structure of systems. They are excellent for Quickly capturing your hypotheses about…

Think of a conversation you’ve been putting off. Got it? Great. Then let’s go. There are dozens of books on the topic of difficult,…

Imagine you were suddenly struck with a strange illness that affected your vision. While you were still able to “see” everything around you, somehow…

In a causal loop diagram of a systemic issue, variables are connected in cause-and-effect relationships. But often the implicit thought processes behind those links…

When first beginning to draw a causal loop diagram, don’t spend a lot of time up front trying to select the “perfect” variable name.