A few words from the father of system dynamics on organizational decision making, human frailty and the reasons that managers trying to solve problems so often just make them worse.
ay Forrester, professor emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management
Image courtesy of Melanie Stetson Freeman.
You’ve already looked at the photograph here, so you already know that Jay Forrester must have seen some things. But the legions who’ve built on Forrester’s work would be quick to tell you that it’s not how many things Forrester has seen, but how he’s seen them, that counts. He’s seen them as the most intricate and interactive of puzzles.
The leading question
How does a renowned “systems” thinker look at the challenges of sustainability?
Findings
The biggest challenge facing leaders: how to manage a successful nongrowing company.
The biggest problem with how sustainability is being addressed is that we’re treating symptoms, not causes — the same as in most attempts by managers to solve problems.
The downturn will likely push real sustainability issues to the rear.
Forrester is famously the originator of the field of system dynamics. It’s helpful (not entirely accurate, but helpful) to think of the approach as an extremely grown-up version of the popular computer game SimCity. Here’s Forrester’s description: “System dynamics deals with how the structure of a system and its information flows determine behavior — the control of growth, stability, decay, success and failure.
3 Comments On: The Loop You Can’t Get Out Of
I share the same thoughts as Forrester. The two greatest threats to our sustainability are ever increasing population in certain parts of the world and at the same time ever increasing use of technology to make everything more efficiently leading to elimination of work for more through automation. The net effect of these two opposing phenomena will be more people on the earth but less and less of those working and living meaningfully.
System Dynamics remains a terribly underutilized tool for understanding messy social problems and looking at potential policy solutions. If we are to survive and thrive in the twenty first century, Jay Forrester’s ideas must be embraced and built-upon — not only by tomorrow’s managers, but by tomorrow’s activists, policymakers, citizens, teenagers, program coordinators, philanthropic foundations, etc.
Very profound and analytical thinking here. Sometimes business owners have to think outside the box, take a step outside there daily objectives and operate from that level. This kind of reminds me a quote that went something like “Dont’ work in your business, work on your business”.