Thinking in Systems: A Primer
Ratings27
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings27
Average rating4.2
Meadows’ *Thinking in Systems*, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.
Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.
While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.
In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, *Thinking in Systems* helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.
Reviews with the most likes.
Thinking in Systems takes a LONG time to get going and deliver its value. All of the super insightful content is buried behind a LOT of lead-up.
The first half of the book is 3 stars. It dives into the fundamentals of systems thinking, describing numerous commonly found systems in detail. It's more of a reference and primer to set up the terminology and concepts for the second half of the book.
The second half of the book is 5 stars. It broadly describes how and why massive complex real-world systems operate the way they do. Using lots of real world examples from politics, economics, the environment, etc to explain common patterns, traps, and thoughts for remedies.
Best sections: Resiliency, bounded rationality, systems traps and opportunities, leverage points—places to intervene in a system, living in a world of systems.
It's worth considering reading these sections first, or jumping forward to them if the first half of the book begins to get tiring. The appendix is really good too, serving as an index to each of the best sections (strange and suboptimal way to structure the book, you almost want to read it backwards).
I'm thankful that the editor was able to pick up the manuscript and drive this book to completion after Donella's unexpected death. Such an incredible, experienced, caring worldview that Donella shared.
All about the interconectedness within a system - useful way of looking at how the world around us works.
I know it said it was a primer but expected it to go into a little more detail than basic system dynamics. Disappointing
This was great. It's a recommended book for August Bradley's Pillars, Pipelines and Vaults course for Notion. I'm part of the first cohort of that course and it's all about mindset and systems thinking, two concepts that I'm hoping I can use to get my health and wealth in better positions.
It's a little scientific, but not so scientific that I got lost. I did try listening to the audiobook first and found that that didn't really work for me, so I got the Kindle Edition and that made a lot more sense. I have made a lot of highlights and they have been sucked into my knowledge vault in Notion, so I may well come back to this and write a longer review with some quotes and thoughts that they triggered, or maybe even a YouTube video as that's another area where I see some growth for me. That's exactly the sort of area where I see systems helping me in a big way.
