Systems Thinkers make sense of the world differently to most other people. Causation is recognized as circular, relational and systemic, often cutting across boundaries.

Systems Thinkers understand the difference between their spheres of control, influence and concern. Individuals who try to remain in complete control may therefore resist Systems Thinking.

Systems Thinkers seek and absorb data that is concrete, conceptual, quantitative and qualitative.

Mental maps are drawn and shared so that relationships are visible and systemic changes over time create an unfolding, evidence-based story.

Systems Thinkers recognize that some problems are better dissolved than resolved.

Understanding complex systems requires a hunger to learn, the humility to listen and lots of hard work.

System Thinkers, Designers, Engineers and Leaders

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants"
Isaac Newton 15th February 1676 in letter to Robert Hooke.

Prof John Seddon: A Systems Psychologist

John Seddon (1950- ) trained as a psychologist and learned about Intervention Theory and later got into quality and service improvement. He founded Vanguard Consulting on the back of what he learned in call centres in the 1980s and the normative approach of changing behaviours through unlearning counterproductive assumptions and habits. Here is a recent video of him talking about his career in public and private sector service improvement using his study-then-redesign-the-system approach.

Dr Don Berwick: A Doctor

Don Berwick (1946- ) is a doctor and long-time champion of safety and quality in healthcare. He co-founded the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in 1989 which ushered in the modern era of the Science of Improvement applied in a healthcare context. Here is a recent video of him demonstrating Deming's Red Bead Game and describing Deming's System of Profound Knowledge.

Dana Meadows: A Global System Dynamicist

Donella Meadows (1941-2001) wrote "Limits To Growth" in 1972 which used the system dynamics approach to explore what might happen globally if the current political and economic growth policies were continued.

The book was denounced by many academics at the time, but 40 years later the predictions have been confirmed to be worryingly accurate.

Russell Ackoff: A Systems Thinker

The late Russell Ackoff (1919-2009) was one of the leading lights of Systems Thinking. This video of him being interviewed in 2001 reveals his deep insight into the principles of Improvement Science.

This video of him presenting at a conference in 1994 reveals his ability to summarise deep understanding in a simple and understandable story.

Jay Wright Forrester: Creator of System Dynamics

Jay Wright Forrester (1918-2016), the originator of the concept of system dynamics (SD), realised that we are not biologically equipped to track the complex interdependencies of real systems over time. We find it difficult to explain past behaviour and even more difficult to predict future system behaviour. However, we are very good at developing tools to help extend our capabilities; flints, fire, levers, wheels, arches, machines, and computers. The tool we need here is one that allows us to explain and predict the behaviour of a real system accurately enough to be useful. That tool is called a system dynamics simulator.

Here is a rare archive video of Jay Forrester describing the Whirlwind computer that was developed by the US Navy and was used in 1951 to simulate system behaviour.

Joseph Juran: A Quality By Design Teacher

Joseph Juran (1904-2008) was trained as an electical engineer before joining the famous Western Electric, Hawthorne Works in Chicago in 1924. Here he learned, developed and applied quality improvement methods and rapidly climbed the career ladder by delivering tangible results by reducing the cost of poor quality (COPQ). During WWII he was seconded to the US Government to support the War effort, where he developed a growing interest in management and in consultancy. After WWII he became Professor of Industrical Engineering at New York University and in 1951 published the first edition of The Quality Handbook. One consequence of that was an invitation from the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) to visit post-war Japan and lecture on the subject of Quality Management. He was invited to visit Japan many times over the subsequent years to teach the Quality by Design methods that he had developed. Juran believed that quality could be planned, and that most quality crises and problems relate to the way in which quality was planned. This video shows him describing the core principles of his Trilogy (Plan-Control-Improve).

William Edwards Deming: A Quality Improvement Teacher

Dr William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) was trained as a physicist and engineer and subsequently developed an interest in statistics. He was influenced by Dr Walter Shewhart of Bell Labs who, in 1924, had invented the control chart as a tool to assist with quality control. Deming worked for the US Census and also helped the US to improve productivity during WWII by teaching statistical methods for quality control. After WWII he visited Japan, in lieu of Shewhart, and was invited back in 1950 by JUSE to teach his statistical quality methods. This led to the Japanese Deming Prize for Quality. Deming's work was largely forgotten in the USA until the 1980 NBC documentary catapaulted him into the limelight at the age of 80. This video of him being interviewed in 1984, reveals his polemic entitled "Five Deadly Diseases of Management".

And this is the NBC documentary from June 1980 that launched Deming back into the public eye and triggered the onset of the Quality Improvement movement. This ultimately led to the founding of Institute of Healthcare Improvement by Dr Don Berwick in 1989 - after Berwick had attended one of Deming's seminars in 1986.