21 August 2019
A systems perspective provides essential insights for making things work properly in today’s complex world. Some key aspects of a systems perspective include the following:
- Considering a system as a whole, rather than just the sum of its parts.
- Examining the underlying structure of the system.
- How elements of the system interact with each other.
- How the system interacts with its environment, with exchanges of information, energy, and material.
- What are intrinsic consequences of the system’s design.
- Looking at how the system functions under different conditions.
- Looking at what forces are driving the system.
- Examining how it exhibits emergent behavior.
- New behavior emerges at each level of the system that would not be predicted from what happens at a lower level.
- Examining the underlying structure of the system.
- Understanding that events are typically the result of a web of interacting influences, rather than having a single cause.
- Taking a disciplined approach in one’s thinking.
- Treating everything as working hypotheses, able to be modified on the basis of new evidence.
- Examining and questioning assumptions; considering the effects of alternative assumptions
- Looking towards the future, including the distant future.
- Considering what could be the unintended consequences before taking an action.
- Understanding feedback loops and system stability.
- Providing timely negative feedback for system control.
- Identifying positive feedback/self-reinforcement phenomena, which lead to system runaway behavior.
- Watching out for system tipping points.
- Understanding exponential phenomena.
- Being aware of how exponential processes differ from linear ones.
- Considering compound interest effects.
- Considering whether current conditions and trends are sustainable.
- Acknowledging the tradeoffs in a choice.
- Weighing potential benefits against potential detriments (costs, harms, etc.).
- Considering what will be treated as externalities and thus not taken into account.
- Looking at the incentives present in the system.
- Incentives tend to drive agents’ behavior.
- Perverse incentives lead to system misbehavior.
- Considering the interests of all stakeholders.
- Particularly speaking for those who have no voice (future generations, the natural world, etc.).
- Considering value hierarchies—what is more important to the entity, what is less, and why’
- Identifying system pathologies in order to diagnose and treat them.
- Endeavoring to address problems at their root level, rather focusing on their symptoms.
- Knowing that the fix for any problem generally introduces one or more new problems.
- Endeavoring to make sure the new problems are more tractable than the previous one.
- Striving to incorporate learning in all system processes.