Overview of Systems Thinking

Systems thinking is a way of seeing the whole — the set of interacting parts that produce a behavior — rather than isolating the pieces one by one. On the hardest problems, that shift in view leads to strikingly different, and better, conclusions.

Systems thinking has its foundation in the field of system dynamics, founded in the mid-1950s by MIT professor Jay Forrester. Professor Forrester recognized the need for a better way of testing new ideas about social systems, in the same way we can test ideas in engineering. Systems thinking allows people to make their understanding of social systems explicit and improve them, in the same way that engineering principles let people make explicit and improve their understanding of mechanical systems.

The systems thinking approach

The approach of systems thinking is fundamentally different from that of traditional analysis. Traditional analysis focuses on separating the individual pieces of what is being studied — in fact, the word analysis comes from a root meaning “to break into constituent parts.” Systems thinking, in contrast, focuses on how the thing being studied interacts with the other constituents of the system.

This means that instead of isolating smaller and smaller parts, systems thinking works by expanding its view to take into account larger and larger numbers of interactions as an issue is studied. The result is sometimes strikingly different conclusions than those generated by traditional forms of analysis — especially when what is being studied is dynamically complex or has a great deal of feedback from other sources, internal or external.

That character makes systems thinking extremely effective on the most difficult problems to solve: those involving complex issues, those that depend heavily on the past or on the actions of others, and those stemming from ineffective coordination among those involved. Areas where it has proven its value include:

• Complex problems that involve helping many actors see the “big picture” — and not just their part of it.
• Recurring problems, or those that have been made worse by past attempts to fix them.
• Issues where an action affects, or is affected by, the surrounding environment — natural or competitive.
• Problems whose solutions are not obvious.

Use of systems thinking

An example that illustrates the difference between the two perspectives is the action taken to reduce crop damage by insects. When an insect is eating a crop, the conventional response is to spray a pesticide designed to kill that insect. Set aside the limited effectiveness of real pesticides and the pollution they cause, and imagine a perfect pesticide — one that kills every insect it targets with no side effects on air, water, or soil. Is using it likely to make the farmer better off?

According to the conventional way of thinking, the more pesticide applied, the fewer insects there will be damaging the crop, and the less total damage:

The temptation is to say that eliminating the insects will solve the problem. Often, it does, in the short term. In following years, though, the damage frequently gets worse and worse, and the pesticide that once seemed so effective no longer seems to help.

What happened? The insect being sprayed had been keeping a second insect in check, by preying on it or competing with it. Kill the first, and after a delay the second surges, sometimes doing more crop damage than the pesticide prevented in the first place. Many of the insects that do the most crop damage today are secondary pests of this kind: species that became serious problems only after spraying removed the natural enemies once holding them down.¹

An action intended to solve the problem can make it worse.

With this fuller picture in mind, approaches with better long-term results have been developed, such as Integrated Pest Management, which controls the crop-eating insect partly by introducing more of its predators into the area rather than spraying. In field studies, IPM has been shown to cut insecticide use sharply while keeping crop yields steady or higher, and it avoids much of the risk of soil and water pollution.²

Seeing the whole picture

The same broader perspective was evident in work I did with a company whose industry was being deregulated. They seemed to be doing everything right on a customer-relations problem: a capable team, a process that had succeeded many times, even affected customers giving feedback on proposed fixes. But they were having difficulty seeing the big picture of how the way they historically did things was contributing to the problem. Working together over two days, I was able to help them see how the problem was being exacerbated — and the most powerful actions they could take to solve it. The session ended with a strategy unanimously supported by both the team and the customers.

By seeing the whole picture, the team was able to think of new possibilities they had not come up with previously, in spite of their best efforts. Systems thinking has the power to help teams create insights like these when applied well to a suitable problem.

A better way to deal with our most difficult problems

So many of the important problems that plague us today are complex, involve multiple actors, and are at least partly the result of past actions taken to alleviate them. Dealing with such problems is notoriously difficult, and the results of conventional solutions are often poor enough to create real discouragement about ever addressing them effectively. One of the key benefits of systems thinking is its ability to deal with exactly these problems — to raise our thinking to the level at which we create the results we want, as individuals and organizations, even in situations marked by complexity, great numbers of interactions, and the absence of any immediately apparent solution.

Notes

1. This is an example of what came to be called the “pesticide treadmill”: broad-spectrum spraying can remove the predators, competitors, or parasites that had kept a pest in check, so that pest or a previously minor one surges. The dynamic has been documented since the 1950s. For a recent treatment, see Bakker et al., “Neonicotinoids in global agriculture: evidence for a new pesticide treadmill?” Ecology and Society 25(3):26 (2020). ↩
2. For example, a multi-year field trial found that Integrated Pest Management cut insecticide applications by about 95% while maintaining or increasing yields: Pecenka, J. R., L. L. Ingwell, R. E. Foster, C. H. Krupke, and I. Kaplan, “IPM reduces insecticide applications by 95% while maintaining or enhancing crop yields through wild pollinator conservation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(44):e2108429118 (2021). ↩