innovation and disruptive thinking

mental models, frameworks, and other systems of thinking

Program Effectiveness

You notice clients aren’t completing your job training program. Linear thinking blames client motivation. Systems thinking reveals that participants often drop out when their children get sick because they lack childcare backup, can’t afford program materials due to unexpected expenses, or face transportation issues during wint

systems thinking

Amateurs obsess over strategy, Irjah had once told their class. Professionals obsess over logistics.

R. F. Kuang • The Poppy War

systems thinking

First, let’s talk a little human psychology. In basic terms, people’s emotions have two levels: the “presenting” behavior is the part above the surface you can see and hear; beneath, the “underlying” feeling is what motivates the behavior. Imagine a grandfather who’s grumbly at a family holiday dinner: the presenting behavior is that he’s cranky, b

Tahl Raz • Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Here are some ways to put second-order thinking into practice today.

Always ask yourself, “And then what?”

Think across time — What do the consequences look like in 10 minutes? 10 months? 10 Years?

Create templates like the second image above with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order consequences. Identify your decision, think it through, and write down the conseq

Farnam Street • Second-Order Thinking: What Smart People Use to Outperform

second-order thinking

Staff Turnover Patterns

Rather than treating each resignation as an isolated incident, you map the interconnections. High turnover in program staff creates more work for remaining staff, leading to burnout and more turnover. This forces the executive director to spend more time on HR issues, less time on strategic work, which creates organizational

systems thinking

leaving behind the burdens of one’s preconceived opinions and conclusions—had in itself a liberating power.

Shannon Lee • Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee

The "Bronx is Burning" Era

——

The phenomenon you're describing has deep historical roots in the Bronx. During the 1970s and 1980s, the South Bronx experienced one of the most devastating periods of arson-for-insurance fraud in American urban history:

Scale of Historical Arson: In total, over 80% of the South Bronx was burned or abandoned between 1970

second-order thinking