Category: Articles
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Learning About Connection Circles
The topics elementary- and middle-school students today study are complex and often difficult to understand. Seldom is an issue as simple as it appears…
From Causal Loops to Graphical Functions: Articulating Chaos
This month we continue our look at Graphical Function Diagrams (GFD). GFD’s help us visually see how two variables are interrelated by plotting the relationship…
The Common Flaw of All Problem-Solving Models
We suspect that every reader of this newsletter has been steeped in articles and classes on a myriad of problem-solving techniques. We have all…
Future Thinking by Middle Managers: A Neglected Necessity
This is a story about what happened to a group of technical managers working in a multinational corporation, the Big Can Corporation (BCC)*, when…
Weaving Systems Thinking into the K–12 Curriculum
Thanks to the recently revised science and environmental sustainability education standards in the Washington State K–12 system, teachers are now required to teach and…
Leading from the Future: A New Social Technology for Our Times
We live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants. Climate change. AIDS. Hunger. Poverty. Violence. Terrorism. Destruction of…
Making It Happen: The Implementation Challenge
About seven years ago, a Fortune 100 corporation began a three-year, $2 million organizational experiment. The goal was to gain a sustainable competitive advantage…
Acting and Thinking Systemically
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…
A Lifetime of Systems Thinking
When one reaches 80, one is considered to be ripe and ready for picking. Picking usually consists of the pickers asking the pickee to…
The “Thinking” in Systems Thinking: Honing Your Skills
Why is it so challenging to develop systems thinking ability? It’s because thinking systemically involves a rather large number of different skills—seven, at least—that…