Thinking in Systems Book Report

Thinking in Systems

• Coming back to this book after years away from it. I first read it when I was learning about technology and product, building txt_blaster (a group SMS service) at University Pipeline (a collegiate marketing agency).
• Since then I've mostly taken the knowledge as almost apocryphal best practices. It was really about time to jump back in.
• For background, some of my favorite books that have guided my product thinking are from outside the discipline - one that stands out that I highly recommend is Understanding Comics. It captures so much about media theory, storytelling + narrative, user experience, etc. - but this post is not about that.

Thinking in Systems is an especially valuable book for anybody working in an area that gets increased value from collaboration, cross-team and -system dependencies - basically any system where you can get some form of compounding effects across multiple steps. That's pretty much every system.

I appreciate that this book doesn't say that it's existence is a guarantee in it being used for good - its theories can be used for ill just as easily as they can be used for good; perhaps even easier. That being said, the author of the book and this author, both hope that the information contained therein and herein is used to improve the overall wellbeing of humanity and earth.

1. The structure of the book makes it a simple, but practical read. It's more of a pamphlet / workbook than anything else. Chapters are logically broken up in understandable chunks, with simple, easy-to-follow, and adequate, charts and diagrams.
2. The consistent and simple flow chart terminology (stock, inflow, outflow, balancing feedback loops, reinforcing feedback loops) and how the author builds this concept from it's core components (starting with stock + inflow + outflow, then introducing feedback loops, single stock → multi-stock, renewable vs. non-renewable stocks/resources), is excellent. Key point: end of Ch. 1, pg. 33 in my book, Hint on Reinforcing Loops and Doubling Time: “Because we bump into reinforcing loops so often, it is handdy to know this shortcut: The time itakes for an exponentially growing stock to double in size, the ”doubling time," equals approximately 70 divided by the growth rate (expressed as a percentage). Example: If you put $100 in the bank at &a 5 interest per year, you will doble your money in 10 year (70/7=10). If you get only 5% interest, your momney will take 14 years to double.
   1. Not rocket science, but just another sign of what differentiates excellent teachers (breaking down concepts into digestible, logical chunks) from the average human. They really are super heroes with super powers.
3. Nugget from Ch. 2: (pg. 59 in my book) “In phsycai, exponentially growing systems, there must be at least one reinforcing loop driving the growth and at least one balncing loop constraining the growth, because no physical system can grow forever in a finitie envorinment.”
4. Nuggest from Ch. 2: (pg. 71 in my book) "Nonrenewable resources are stock-limited. The entire stock is avaialble at once, and can be extracted at any rate (limited mainly b extractio capital). But since the stock is not renewed, the faster the extraction rate, the shorter the lifetime of the resource. Renewable resources are flow-limited. They can support extraction or harvest indefinitely, but only at a finite flow rate equal to their referneration rate. If they are extracted faster than they refenerate, they may eventurally be driven below a critical threhold and bceom, for all practical purposes, nonrenewable.
5. Nugget from Ch. 3 (pg. 78 in my book) - Systems need to be managed not only for productivity or stability, they also need to be managed for esilience — the ability to recover from perturbation, the ability to restore or repair themselves.
6. Nugget from Ch. 4 (pg. 89) System structure is the source of system behavior. System behavior reveals itself as a series of events over time.
   1. Looks at your company's business model. This reflects its values. This system structure with this business model is going to drive the behavior of the system (the company), so you can look to the business model for companies you align with (how are they exchanging value?).
7. Nugget from Ch. 4 (pg. 106) - “…”Fishermen overfish and destory their own livelihood. Corporations collectively make investment decisions that cause business-cycle downturns. Poorpeople have more babies than they can support. Why? Because of what World Bank economist Herman Daly calls the “inviisble foot” or what Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon calls bounded rationality. Bounded rationality means that people make quite reasonable decisions based on the information they have. They don't have perfect information, especially a bout more distant parts of the system. Fishermen don't know how many fish there are, much less how many fish will be cuaght by other fishermen that same day… ….We are not omniscient, rational optimizers, says Simon, rather we are blundering “satisficers," attempting to meet (satisfy) our needs well enough to further our own nearby interests in a rational way…"
   1. See: Tragedy of the commons (referenced later on p.116 in Ch. 5). Taking into account emotional impact of decision making. Also reference Determined by Sapolsky.
   2. P. 130 - trap: Success to the Successful and how this applies to the widening wealth gap. Diversification is key → policies that devise rewards for success that do not bias the next round of competition.
8. Nugget from Ch. 5 (pg 132): re: examples of depdence and burden-shifting systems… “Modern medicine in general has shifted the responsibility for health away from the practices and lifestyle of each individual and onto intervening doctors and medicines”
   1. I really questioned this quote. What is the source of the health issues and how does that tie to the responsible party? I feel like this might be a slow-responding effect of industrialization and health issues from modern living.

Overall, can't recommend this book highly enough. Hopefully it gets you to think about things beyond your immediate circle - the impact you can you have on broader systems, where you fit inside of them, and the agency you can create to have a leveraged-impact on that system.