Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows and Diana Wright

A clear, thoughtful, and wide-reaching exploration of complex systems, in theory and in practice. Meadows was a masterful and elegant writer and researcher, and an early voice in systems analysis at MIT and elsewhere. This book, completed from draft manuscript after Meadows' death, is both accessible and deeply thought-provoking. She connects the dots between careful descriptions of systems analysis and systems insights, and the personal, social, societal, and political implications of systems thinking.

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.

This collection of writings provides a basic understanding of systems thinking, starting from first principles. It's referenced in a number of management and engineering books I've read, and references in blog posts are starting to appear more frequently.

One thing to understand about systems thinking is that it's really, really hard to get right in complex systems, and especially when people form an integral component of the system.