feedback loops – The Key Point

Systems Thinking for Business and Management
by Umit S. Bititci and Agnessa Spanellis

Organizations, markets, and economies are systems, analogous to ecosystems. This clearly-written, 278-page textbook written by professors from Edinburgh Business School and the University of Edinburgh introduces key concepts in systems thinking, including methods for modeling them and analyzing their behavior.

It is said that the purpose of higher education is to teach students to think. In this spirit, I believe future decisionmakers and policymakers would be well served by a course in systems thinking. I think every business school should include this subject in its curriculum.

“To understand the real value of systems thinking, we need to recognize that nothing in this world exists in isolation and that everything is connected to something else. Everything is affected by something and potentially affects something else. With systems thinking, one can begin to understand, explain, and predict why complex systems such as organizations, people, and societies behave the way they do.”

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It’s Not Complicated: The Art and Science of Complexity in Business
by Rick Nason

This book may fundamentally change the way you think. Or it may give you a framework to understand why you intuitively know that conventional management practices are sometimes incongruent with reality.

“This book is about systems thinking, and more specifically the important distinction between simple, complicated, and complex systems as applied to common business problems… The world of business is usually complex rather than complicated. That may seem like word play, but the difference between ‘complicated thinking’ and ‘complexity thinking’ is profound. This important distinction is well accepted in the scientific community but is virtually unknown in business.” Nason explains, “The ability to manage complexity is the key to competitive advantage.”

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