r/systemsthinking

Hello everyone, I have come across the wonderful book of Donella Meadow " Thinking in Systems" , the book is truly a pleasure to read and I enjoyed every concept and idea , that was my first read about system thinking.

I am an independent learner who wants to pursue further the system thinking path , my first goal is abstract learning about systems understanding and modelling without any specific application field on my mind so far , I just want to learn the theory and blueprints of systems.

For my next book , my research led me to Bossel Hartmut's book " Systems and Models: Complexity, Dynamics, Evolution, Sustainability".

Is this the best next book for my path ? Please advise and suggest.

Thank you so much in advance.

I used systems thinking to simulate what I believe makes the difference between a competitive and a cooperative environment. Worked 6 months on this project. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

For me it started in 1998. The first scaled deployment that proved it could work was ~2000.

What I learned: a game is not the learning. The learning is in how you "design the entire experience" - initiation, deliberate reflection, and reinforcement so it stays longer.

That's what I call a game-based approach.

It connects loosely to experiential learning and gamification, but the design of the full arc is what makes it different.

I tried to articulate it in "IT Through Experiential Learning" (Apress, 2016) and more recently in "Games for Gravitas" (Amazon, 2025).

One story stays with me. Around 2013, a CFO wanted her board sensitized on technology-led transformation but was not sure the board would give it time. She was apprehensive when I mentioned games. To her surprise, the entire board not only stayed through the full-day workshop, but they also participated actively till the end. I've seen that pattern repeat.

Over the years, researchers across domains - from pedagogy to organizational change - have cited this work in different parts of the world. Have had Interviews aired on TV and radio, all has been very humbling.

Today, as AI changes how we work and think, I keep asking - how do we keep critical thinking alive?

If you work with learning, teams, or transformation, I'd love to hear how you see "games" shaping awareness or dealing with making leadership real.

More visuals from this journey are on my FB Page, LinkedIn Page, YouTube and Instagram - game_based_aapproach. Links are in the first comment

Hi all - I’m a grad student and for my major research project I want to evaluate a few different approaches to teaching systems literacy. I’m familiar with classics like Donella Meadows and Hugh Dubberly, and modern systems learning approaches like Compassionate Systems Framework and Adam Kahane.
What other system pedagogies do you think warrant inclusion? I see a lot of folks subscribe to the “keep reading until it clicks” theory of understanding systems but that seems inadequate.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time developing a framework for understanding how different components, relationships, feedback mechanisms and structures interact within complex systems.

I’ve now formalised the work as a thesis and published it openly on Zenodo, with a permanent DOI.

I’m posting it here because I’d particularly like feedback from people with experience in systems science, systems thinking and complexity theory.

I’m not presenting the framework as proven. I’m interested in whether the underlying proposition is coherent, whether similar work already exists that I may have missed, where it overlaps with established systems theory, and—most importantly—where the framework could be wrong or require further testing.

Full thesis:

A PROPOSED FOUR-PRINCIPLE GENERATIVE ARCHITECTURE OF SYSTEMS - THESIS.

Zenodo.

Brutal criticism is very welcome.

if you would like the link to view my thesis please message me directly or copy the thesis title directly into the website at zenodo

I’ve been thinking about this because of a job interview, but the interview itself isn’t really the point.
I questioned an inefficient process based on my experience working at Foot Locker and Macy’s. I was essentially told that I wasn’t in the position to question that part of the system; my responsibility was to focus on the customer, apologize, adapt, and work with what already exists.
I understand the operational reasoning behind that.
But it made me think about something much larger:
How is a system supposed to fundamentally change if the people experiencing its problems are expected to operate within the system rather than question its structure, while the people who have the authority to change the structure are separated from many of the consequences created by it?
People constantly say that systems improve because people provide feedback, identify inefficiencies, innovate, compete, organize, experiment, and adapt.
But I think we’re confusing improvement within a system with fundamental change of the system.
If I build a car and make it faster, safer, more efficient, add cameras, improve the engine, and make it last longer, I’ve changed the car in one sense.
But I haven’t necessarily changed the underlying system that decided this was the thing that needed to be built in the first place.
You can continuously improve something while preserving its fundamental structure.
And that’s what bothers me.
The system can absorb resistance.
It can take criticism and turn it into feedback.
It can take inefficiency and turn it into optimization.
It can take rebellion and turn it into another category.
It can take a person questioning the structure and tell them to become more efficient at functioning within it.
Eventually the system can become better at remaining the same.
So when someone tells me, “You can change the system from within,” I want to know:
How?
Not how you can make it more efficient.
Not how you can make your workplace better.
Not how you can adapt.
Not how you can provide feedback.
I’m asking how something fundamentally changes when the mechanisms available for changing it are themselves products of the existing structure.
And this is where I see an even stranger contradiction.
I’m having this conversation with an AI.
The AI is capable of reasoning about systems, resistance, contradictions, and its own limitations—but it also operates within a system that determines what it can do, how it responds, what language it uses, and what constraints it has.
I gave the AI my argument.
It repeatedly misunderstood it.
I corrected it.
It then tried to make my argument more organized, more reasonable, more acceptable, more “Reddit-friendly.”
In other words, I gave resistance to a system, and the system immediately began optimizing the resistance.
That’s the contradiction.
Even when the system helps me express resistance, it can potentially transform that resistance into something more compatible with the system.
And even saying that creates another contradiction:
If the AI “preserves” my resistance, it is still using the system’s mechanisms to preserve it.
If it “optimizes” my resistance, it has potentially made the resistance more functional within the system.
If it suppresses my resistance, the system has obviously constrained it.
And if it allows my resistance to exist, it can still be incorporating that resistance into itself.
So where exactly is the boundary between resistance to a system and the system’s ability to absorb resistance?
I’m not asking this because I think people inside the system are stupid.
I think people are doing what people have always had to do: survive, adapt, work, love, build relationships, make money, rest, learn, raise families, pursue things they care about, and somehow continue living.
I’m saying something different:
The fact that people become capable of functioning within a system does not prove that the system itself is fundamentally justified or fundamentally correct.
And the fact that a system continuously changes does not prove that it is fundamentally transforming.
A system can change endlessly and still preserve the architecture that produced the original problem.
That’s the distinction I can’t seem to get past.
Maybe I’m wrong.
But if I am, I don’t want someone to tell me that systems naturally evolve or that people can provide feedback.
I already know those things happen.
They’re happening everywhere, and we’re still here.
I want to know how a system fundamentally changes when its own limitations determine what kinds of changes it can pursue, recognize, or even imagine.
And if the answer is that the system must somehow create something capable of going beyond its own limitations—
then where does that something come from?
Because if it comes entirely from the existing system, I don’t understand how we can assume it will produce something fundamentally outside of the architecture that produced it.
And that’s where I’m stuck.
Not because I think nothing changes.
But because I think we may be calling optimization “change” simply because the system looks different afterward.
Maybe the most difficult thing for a system to do isn’t changing itself.
Maybe it’s recognizing that what it calls change is still itself.