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System Thinking Intro

In: Business and Management

Submitted By dianegoetz1
Words 1501
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Systems Thinking and Tools
Darthula Diane Goetz
MOL504A Systems Thinking and the Learning Organization
Dr. Roger Martin
Warner Pacific College
August 31, 2012

System Thinking and Linear Thinking Systems Thinking is a process of viewing the entire entity and the paths or connections that allow each part of the entity or process connecting to the whole to be followed and analyzed as each decision affects the whole scheme of the social system/process or organization. This process of thought and understanding is different from the traditional process in that it no longer focuses on the individual piece or person, but the dynamics of the entire organization as the individual piece or person interacts and travels through the system. A system can be anything or any process. As stated by Donella Meadows in Thinking in Systems “words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in a linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once.” (Meadows, 2008, p. 5). The system being studied may be human or non-human. The concept of System Thinking is not the what is being studied but the how that something interacts with all the various other whats within the entire system. System thinking will frequently allow the individual studying any situation or process to come up with entirely different conclusions than when the same situation or process is studied using the traditional analysis of linear thinking which focuses on tracing a direct path to cause and effect (Meadows, 2008). Traditional analysis frequently allows one to focus the cause of a problem or issue onto an individual or group of individuals instead of seeing the problem or issue as a piece of a larger issue/system with possibly a systemic problem that is far more difficult to pin onto any one individual or group (Bolman & Deal, 2008) Linear thinking is what one learns throughout

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