We live in the world of events. Things happen and we respond—a machine breaks down, we buy anew machine; sales drop, we launch an ad campaign; profits fall, we layoff workers. Each event creates another event, in an endless stream of cause-and-effect relationships. At this level of understanding,all we can do is react to things that are happening to us. If we begin to see the world as patterns of behavior over time, we can anticipate problems (patterns of machine breakdowns, cycles of sales slumps, periodic profit squeeze s) and accommodate them (schedule maintenance work, institutionalize ad cycles, sharpen cost-cutting skills ). Managing at this level allows us to anticipate trends and accommodate them. At this level, we are still responding to events, but in a more proactive manner. If we go deeper to the level of systemic structure, however,we can begin to see what creates the behaviors we observe, and then take actions to change the structures. This allows us to alter the source of a problem rather than just deal with the symptoms. The power of systems thinking comes from this focus on the level of systemic structure, where the greatest leverage lies for solving problems. Read More

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