M12: Systems Thinking

Aim

This module provides a brief introduction to Systems Thinking and Systems Practice.

Introduction

Systems thinking is a large and complex alternative to the linear and mechanistic thinking than has dominated Western science and technology for centuries. The topic can be enormously broad, ranging from General System Thinking, through complexity theory, pragmatics of communication to systems practice, which includes systems design, continuous improvement and facilitating change. We cannot hope to cover this entire scope in one module. You will find more information in other AROW modules, and in books.

Read Part 1 (Chapters 2 to 8) of the Unit text:
Flood, R.L. (1999) Rethinking the Fifth Discipline: Learning within the unknowable. London: Routledge. Chapters 2 and 8 are perhaps the most important.

If you have bought
Reason P & Bradbury H (2001) Handbook of Action Research, London: Sage,
then read
Flood R L (2001) The relationship of ‘systems thinking’ to action research in Reason P & Bradbury H Handbook of Action Research, London: Sage pp 133-144

Even though they are now a decade old, and superseded by Flood's work, Senge's fifth discipline books remain very useful:

Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organisation. New York: Doubleday-Currency.

and/or

Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., B., & Smith, B. J. (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. London: Nicholas Brealey.

Systems theory, thinking and practice is relatively new as a serious force in scientific thinking. People often cite a 1950 paper by Ludwig von Bertalanffy  as a seminal work, though there were important precursors, such as Koehler's (1938) work on open and closed systems.

The ideas contained in systems thinking approaches are not new. In the East, they have a very long history. A Chinese classic text reputed to date back to the fifth Century BC, the I Ching, teaches the patterns of linear change, cyclical change and no-change in interactions between people, nature and spiritual things. From the Fifth Century AD Buddhist philosophy has been grounded in the interdependence of all things.

The notion that everything depends on everything else is central to systems thinking. And modern theories of complexity give scientific support to the idea that 'from little things, big things grow'.

In the development of scientific thinking there have been two strong arguments in favour of systems thinking. Biological organisms (as well as other entities) form wholes, or gestalten. This principle is summed up by Senge and his colleagues in his tenth law of the Fifth Discipline: 'Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants' (1990: 66). Living systems have integrity. Their character depends on their being whole.

Secondly, many of the properties of whole beings are common across different levels of organisation of living beings, from bacteria to human societies. A jingle I learned as a child illustrates this:

Big fleas have little fleas on their backs to bit 'em
Little fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum'

It is possible to arrange systems into a hierarchy, with highly complex systems at the top and relatively simpler systems at each level, as we go down. If we do this, each level in the hierarchy contains all the properties of all the levels below it, and perhaps additional properties, which are said to be 'emergent'.

But, we are getting ahead of ourselves. These are big, complex ideas. it may be best to approach them more gradually.

References

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