Ifirst learned about Appreciative Inquiry in the late 1980s when David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney developed their model, echoing Maslow’s idea that we look…

Bijou Bottling Company is a fictitous beverage bottler with an all too real problem: chronic late shipments. Its customers—major chain retailers—are looking for orders…

For the medical informatics unit of a major health services organization, the vision was clear and compelling: assure that the most advanced current knowledge…

In 2010, IBM’s Institute for Business Value surveyed 1,500 chief executives from 60 counties and 33 industries to determine the foremost issue confronting them…

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…

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…

Systems thinking has been described as a language for talking about the complex, interdependent issues managers face every day. Within that framework, causal loop…

Few would argue that an effective human resources (HR) practice can be a real source of competitive advantage to a company. Acres of research…

A common principle of systems thinking is that “there is no away.” Every material thing we make and use must come from somewhere and…

I recently heard about a piece of software that I could use on my iPad to build causal loop diagrams. As a Mac user,…