The Systemic Thinking Process

 

 The Systemic Thinking Process

 The systemic thinking process is very simple:

1- List as many system elements (of the type you're interested) or as you can think of. (e.g. problems, ideas, opportunities, desired outcomes, solutions, needs etc)

 2- Start to group similar elements together and describe what each group has in common.

 3- Start to find the common theme across the group descriptions, as shown in Figure 3.2.

 

  The systemic thinking process

 

The common theme is the systemic pattern across the entire situation - the genius level insight into the entire situation.

 

 learn more : Barrier to Systemic Thinking

 Barrier to Systemic Thinking

In a sense, systemic thinking is the reverse of analytical thinking.

Analytical thinking breaks things apart in stages- systemic thinking groups things together in stages.

Thus grouping of things together in stages is the first trick for dealing with the greatest barrier to systemic thinking- the cognitive dissonance from the conditioned belief that there is no pattern. 

A second trick is to realize that the message from your brain saying "there is no theme and it's pointless looking for one!" is really nothing more than an indication that your brain hasn't found the theme yet.

 

next: is to develop a library of systemic solutions- they all follow a similar pattern, so once you've seen or developed a few, things get much easier.

Finally, it's worth noting that progress is better than perfection with systemic thinking. The benefit of the feedback generated when you try a solution conceptually or for real - is inestimable