Chichakly, K.J. (2016). Practical Systems Thinking: Guidance to Effect Change. Solutions 7(1): 62–64. thesolutionsjournal.com/2016/1/how-do-we-get-from-here-to-there
Reviews Book Review
Practical Systems Thinking: Guidance to Effect Change by Karim J. Chichakly REVIEWING Systems Thinking for Social Change by David Peter Stroh
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s readers of Solutions, we are well aware of the large social, economic, and environmental challenges that face us. Einstein told us we will need to use new ways of thinking to solve these problems. One of those ways comes from system dynamics.1 At its heart is a new way of thinking, dubbed “Systems Thinking” by Barry Richmond.2 To many, systems thinking may not seem like a new way of thinking, as most people have been exposed to the basic concepts. However, knowing about it is very different from integrating it into your thinking and behavior every day—what Barry Richmond dubbed being a “Systems Citizen.”3 The latter takes commitment, guidance, and a lot of practice. At its heart, systems thinking has four basic elements: • Look at the whole rather than its parts • The state of any system is determined by its accumulations • Cause and effect relationships are circular, not linear (known as feedback) • Time delays are inherent and lead to counterintuitive results Feedback itself comes in two basic types: (i) reinforcing, which can generate either virtuous or vicious cycles, and (ii) balancing, which stabilizes a system, making it resistant to change.
Most successful systems have strong balancing feedbacks that push back when you try to change the system, often after a time delay, so a remediation may seem to be effective, but its effectiveness turns out to be short lived. Or, you may successfully change the system by pushing it, so you try to push it again. However, each successive time you push it, the change is less effective. A simple example of the latter would be using credit card debt to live beyond your means. Assuming a rational credit universe, each successive credit card you procure will have a lower and lower limit until you are cut off completely. These ideas make it clear that social change, while necessary, is a difficult enterprise. Maybe if we focus on the issues through a systems thinking lens, we can make it easier. David Peter Stroh does exactly this in his excellent book, Systems Thinking for Social Change. I was pleasantly surprised by both the practicality and applicability of his method. Stroh does not assume you are familiar with systems thinking, and carefully introduces you to the concepts in his well-written introduction. If you have heard of “systems archetypes,” introduced in The Fifth Discipline,4 but have not yet worked out what they are or how to use them, this book is for you. Stroh carefully describes eight of them, giving them the more accessible name “systems
62 | Solutions | January-February 2016 | www.thesolutionsjournal.org
Chelsea Green Publishing
stories,” including clear examples of how they arise, how to recognize them, and what we can learn from them. The eight stories covered are reinforcing feedback, balancing feedback, fixes that backfire (or fail), shifting the burden, limits to growth, success to the successful, accidental adversaries, and the bathtub analogy. He also briefly describes the other five commonly occurring systems stories. Throughout the rest of the book, he refers to these eight, detailing how they apply to real social change initiatives, as well as ways to escape them when they are working against you. In this section, Stroh also introduces us to the dangers of looking only at our immediate responsibilities and trying to improve our performance without consideration of the whole. He makes the point a number of times that organizations that work in the social sphere have limited budgets and resources, so they need to work together to find the best way to meet the overall objective. In my opinion,