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Definitions and Development of Systems Thinking Chapter 2 Definitions and Development of Systems Thinking The goal of this chapter is to explain what systems thinking is—to furnish the reader with the basics of systems-thinking “language.” Considering that the first systemic ideas were expressed by Aristotle, who coined the dictum that a whole is more than the sum of its parts (Metaphysica 10f-1045a), systems thinking can be said to date back to ancient Greek philosophy. Our focus, however, lies on the contemporary meaning of systems thinking. Accordingly, our review concentrates on the development of systems thinking over the last century, while tracing its earlier influences. Indeed, as seen below, deeper analysis of the roots of systems thinking reveals that its emergence in the last century represented a powerful shift in how systems were conceptualized—a shift that forsook the previously dominant approach of reductionism. The scattering of the literature pertaining to systems thinking among various fields hinders any one accurate definition of systems thinking. Inasmuch as no single central ongoing discussion exists concerning the construct, systems thinking has not secured a well-accepted single definition. Hence we first present and discuss several systems-thinking definitions that sprouted in different domains, and we then attempt to draw some central conclusions about the major meanings of systems thinking, as a foundation for the educational approach proposed in the current book. 2.1 Definition of Systems Thinking Simply, systems thinking is a way for human beings to understand systems. Unfortunately, the word “system” is one of the most loosely used expressions employed in everyday discourse as well as in academic literatures. For our pur- poses, a system can be defined as a functionally related assemblage of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. The variety of systems falling under such a definition is endless, encompassing natural systems such as the human body, the earth, and space; human-made systems ranging from © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 9 H. Shaked and C. Schechter, Systems Thinking for School Leaders, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-53571-5_2 10 2 Definitions and Development of Systems Thinking tiny hi-tech chips to global commercial conglomerates; conceptual systems like ethics and policy; and many more. What is important to emphasize about systems thinking is that it examines systems holistically. It does not try to break systems down into parts in order to understand them; instead, it focuses attention on how the system’s constituent parts act together in networks of interactions as well as on how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. Put differently, systems thinking provides a means of seeing the system as an integrated, complex composition of many interconnected components that need to work together for the whole to function successfully. Systems thinking is a way of thinking about systems of all kinds. It is not a discipline with defined borders but rather comprises an interdisciplinary conceptual framework that can be adapted to an exceptionally wide range of areas. This advantageous flexibility and versatility for systems thinking, however, has led to a wide range of definitions for it. Indeed, there is no single agreed-upon definition for systems thinking. Forrester (1994) even claimed that “systems thinking is coming to mean little more than thinking about systems, talking about systems, and acknowledging that systems are important. In other words, systems thinking implies a rather general and superficial awareness of systems” (p. 251). Nevertheless, for years, numerous intellectuals and researchers around the world have attempted to devise definitions and refine explanations for systems thinking. Here are some such attempts made by scholars in recent decades, presenting in chronological order: • A discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static ‘snapshots.’ It is a set of general principles… It is also a set of specific tools and techniques (Senge 1990, p. 68). • The art and science of making reliable inferences about behavior by developing an increasingly deep understanding of underlying structure (Richmond 1994, p. 141). • A way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. This discipline helps us to see how to change systems more effectively, and to act more in tune with the natural processes of the natural and economic world (Senge et al. 1994, p. 6). • Seeing beyond what appear to be isolated and independent incidents to deeper patterns. You recognize connections between events, to better understand and influence them (O’Connor and McDermott 1997, p. 7). • An epistemology which, when applied to human activity, is based upon the four basic ideas: emergence, hierarchy, communication, and control as characteristics of systems. When applied to natural or designed systems, the crucial characteristic is the emergent properties of the whole (Checkland 1999, p. 318). • The ability to see the world as a complex system, in which we understand that ‘you can’t just do one thing,’ and that ‘everything is connected to everything else’ (Sterman 2000, p. 4). 2.1 Definition of Systems Thinking 11 • The art of systems thinking involves the ability to represent and assess dynamic com- plexity (e.g., behavior that arises from the interaction of a system’s agents over time), both textually and graphically (Sweeney and Sterman 2000, p. 2). • Utilizing modal elements to consider the componential, relational, contextual, and dynamic elements of the system of interest (Davidz 2006, p. 119). • System thinking—includes holism, an ability to think about the system as a whole; focus, an ability to address the important system level issues; emergence, recognition that there are latent properties in systems; and trade-offs, judgment and balance, which enable one to juggle all the various considerations and make a proper choice (Engineering Systems Division 2007, p. 6). • Systems thinking is thinking, scientifically, about phenomena, events, situations, etc., from a system perspective, i.e., using systems methods, systems theory and systems tools. Systems thinking, then, looks at wholes, and at parts of wholes in the context of their respective whole. It looks at wholes as open systems, interacting with other systems in their environment (Hitchins 2007, p. 17). • Systems thinking can be thought of in two ways. First, and the obvious one, is to think about systems… A second and crucial way to exhibit systems thinking is to think from systems (Boardman and Sauser 2008, p. xix). • The art of simplifying complexity. It is about seeing through chaos, managing interde- pendency, and understanding choice (Gharajedaghi 2011, p. 335). • A set of synergistic analytic skills used to improve the capability of identifying and understanding systems, predicting their behaviors, and devising modifications to them in order to produce desired effects. These skills work together as a system (Arnold and Wade 2015, p. 675). Although these explanations do reveal some differences, it is quite clear that, overall, definitions of systems thinking share two common features. Namely, sys- tems thinking may be conceived as involving the following two main meanings, which complement each other: On the one hand, systems thinking rises above the separate components to see the whole system, and, on the other hand, systems thinking views each separate component as a part of the whole system. These two central meanings of systems thinking—seeing the whole beyond the parts and seeing the parts in the context of the whole—are used in this book as the foundation upon which to examine the characteristics, sources, and development of systems thinking. TWO MAJOR MEANINGS SHARED BY SYSTEMS-THINKING DEFINITIONS: • Seeing the whole beyond the parts • Seeing the parts in the context of the whole 12 2 Definitions and Development of Systems Thinking 2.2 Systems Thinking Versus Reductionism Systems thinking, as it developed in the last century, is a major departure from the longstanding way in which scholars traditionally attempted to understand systems. In particular, systems thinking as it emerged in the 20th century stands in staunch contrast to its predecessor—the scientific reductionist approach that pervaded Western thinking since the time of René Descartes in 17th century Europe. 2.2.1 Reductionist Paradigms for Systems Considered to be one of the most influential thinkers in Western history, Descartes (1985) developed the notion of reductionism in the 1600s as an approach for understanding systems by reducing them to their simpler basic parts. According to this approach, the best strategy for examining any complex entity would be to attempt to explain its smallest possible component entities, thus aiming to explain macroscopic properties in terms of its microscopic constituents. In other words, the reductionist answer to every What is this? question would always be “This” is what it is made of. Using such reductionist methodology, Descartes asserted that the world was like a machine, whose pieces could be taken apart and put back together in order to understand its underlying mechanisms and its larger picture. Likewise, Descartes (1985, pp. 58–59) compared a healthy person’s body to a well-made clock, “con- structed with wheels and weights… a kind of machine equipped with and made up of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood and skin.” In turn, he compared a sick person’s body that “suffers from dropsy, for example” to a badly constructed clock that tells the wrong time. Both the broken clock and the ill person were described as deviating from their natural, normative, smoothly working condition: When I consider the purpose of the clock, I may say that it is departing from its nature when it does not tell the right time; and similarly when I consider the mechanism of the human body, I may think that, in relation to the movements which normally occur in it, it too is deviating from its nature (Descartes 1985, pp.
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