Archetypes
Authority
Community
Intimacy
Learning
Mental Models
System
Systemic Structure
Systems Thinking
Teams
Theory, Method, Tool
Vision
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At its broadest level, systems thinking encompasses a large and fairly amorphous
body of methods, tools, and principles, all oriented to looking at the interrelatedness of
forces, and seeing them as part of a common process. The field includes cybernetics and
chaos theory; gestalt therapy; the work of Gregory Bateson, Russell Ackoff, Eric Trist,
Ludwig von Bertallanfy, and the Santa Fe Institute; and the dozen or so practical techniques
for "process mapping" flows of activity at work. All of these diverse approaches have one
guiding idea in common: that the behavior of all systems follows certain common principles,
the nature of which are being discovered and articulated. But one form of systems thinking
has become particularly valuable as a language for describing how to achieve fruitful change
in organizations. This form, called "system dynamics," has been developed by Professor Jay
Forrester and his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology over the past forty
years. "Links and loops," archetypes, and stock-and-flow modeling-- all have their roots in
the system dynamics understanding of how complex feedback processes can generate problematic
patterns of behavior within organizations and large-scale human systems. (Peter Senge and
Art Kleiner) Related Terms: System and
Systemic Structure.
Excerpted from The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook.
Copyright 1994 by Peter M. Senge, Art Kleiner, Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross,
and Bryan J. Smith. Reprinted with permission.
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