Thinking in Systems: International Bestseller

A system* is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something. If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.

Is there anything that is not a system? Yes—a conglomeration without any particular interconnections or function.

Donella Meadows, the mother of systems thinking, put interconnectedness in a more explicit explanation: “A system is a set of related components that work together in a particular environment to perform whatever functions are required to achieve the systems objective.”

Systems thinkers see the world as a collection of stocks along with the mechanisms for regulating the levels in the stocks by manipulating flows. That means system thinkers see the world as a collection of “feedback processes.”

THINK ABOUT THIS How to know whether you are looking at a system or just a bunch of stuff: A) Can you identify parts? … and B) Do the parts affect each other? … and C) Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own? … and perhaps D) Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of c