The drive toward improvement has become a way of life in corporations today. Total Quality Management, Business Process Reengineering, and other improvement techniques have…

You have probably already learned about the importance of distinguishing among events, patterns, and structure. But still, you may be finding it difficult to…

We live in an era of massive institutional failure,” says Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa International. We need only look around…

There are many possible starting points for drawing a systems diagram. One way to begin is by telling the story behind the problem, and…

There is much agreement that one of the key characteristics of the 21st-century organization will be its ongoing ability to learn. In fact, it…

One of the primary benefits of modeling with systems tools—whether causal loops or computer simulations—is the intense discussion it can generate around important variables…

Systems thinking began as a set of analytic tools, but perhaps its greatest impact is as a language for collective inquiry, learning, and action.

Imagine an organization in which all the records disintegrated overnight. Suddenly, there are no more reports, no computer files, no employee records, no operating manuals,…

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…

Decision-makers often turn to computer models when they face a problem too “big” to grasp all at once. Having the computer keep track of…