by Nalani Linder and Colleen Ponto
In part 1 of this post, guest bloggers Nalani Linder and Colleen Ponto reported on what they learned about teaching systems thinking in the K-12 classroom during a recent visit with the Waters Foundation in Tucson, Arizona.
Back home in Washington, we have been reflecting on all that we saw in Tucson. Of the many good lessons we took away with us, some of them seem appropriate to share with anyone interested in teaching systems thinking (ST) or system dynamics (SD) to any audience:
- Don't spend too much effort on convincing skeptics about the value of ST and SD. Rather, focus your energy on those who are easily intrigued and receptive to the power of this way of thinking.
- Be open to experimenting with the full array of SD tools. For example, we were introduced to connection circles in Tucson (found in The Shape of Change) and recently experimented with teaching them at a workshop for adults. Participants found them useful for identifying variables and seeing interconnections in a story.
- Create examples in the area of the audience's expertise, once people get some of the time-tested systems stories
typically used to illustrate concepts (such as a thermostat to show a balancing loop, compounding interest to demonstrate reinforcing loops, and bathtubs to explain stock/flows). This may take work, but is worth the effort in order to create better understanding and more effective application.
For our part, we are focusing on developing systems thinking lessons within the K-12 science and environmental sustainability curriculum, as those are the two subject areas driving the integration of systems thinking into our state's classrooms. We see our task as helping teachers to learn ST basics so that they can insert systems language and tools into the curriculum they are already using.
Continuing on this journey, we are eager to learn more from the many who have been doing groundbreaking work in systems and education, such as the Waters Foundation, the Creative Learning Exchange, the Cloud Institute, the SoL Educational Partnership, and others--including those who have left us, like Barry Richmond and Dana Meadows, whose ideas continue to inspire and guide.
We expect that the road to statewide implementation of systems thinking in education is long and winding. However, we hope and firmly believe that through the implementation of these standards, Washington's students will learn to make better choices about their own actions in the many systems in which they live. And in a lovely reinforcing loop, adults will be able to witness and learn from students: to pay attention to systems and to ask ourselves what we're noticing, too.
Many thanks to Nalani and Colleen for contributing their story. Share your thoughts about their learnings or on your experiences with teaching systems thinking by commenting on this post.
Nalani Linder is an independent consultant and workshop facilitator who works with change agents of all ages to help them learn, practice, and apply systems thinking ideas and tools in their schools/organizations, communities, and personal lives. She is currently co-principal of a research study exploring connections between systems thinking and learning preferences.
Colleen Ponto, Ed.D., teaches at Seattle University, where she is a core faculty member of the Organization Systems Renewal Graduate Program. OSR specializes in helping adult learners to become designers and leaders of systemic organizational change. Colleen is also an independent educational and organizational consultant; one of her current passions is helping learners of all ages develop their systems thinking skills.
By Janice Molloy
What do a swaying bridge and tumultuous financial markets have in common? More than might be apparent at first glance. Both serve as vivid examples of systems that spiral out of control because of their underlying structures.
The Millennium Bridge opened in London on June 10, 2000. The first pedestrian bridge across the Thames in central London for more than a century, it attracted an estimated 80,000-100,000 visitors on its first day, with as many as 2,000 people on the bridge at any given time. Within minutes of the official opening, the span began to tilt and rock, causing some pedestrians to grab onto the handrails and inducing motion sickness in others. Two days later, authorities closed the bridge to study the problem.
What investigators found was a classic reinforcing process. According to New Yorker writer John Cassidy in "Rational Irrationality: The Real Reason That Capitalism Is So Crash-Prone," "When a person walks, lifting and dropping each foot in turn, he or she produces a slight sideways force. If hundreds of people are walking in a confined space, and some happen to walk in step, they can generate enough lateral momentum to move a footbridge--just a little. Once the footbridge starts swaying, however subtly, more and more pedestrians adjust their gait to get comfortable, stepping to and fro in synch. As a positive-feedback loop develops between the bridge's swing and the pedestrians' stride, the sideways forces can increase dramatically and the bridge can lurch violently." Engineers came up with the term "synchronous lateral excitation" to describe the phenomenon; locals simply dubbed the span the "Wobbly Bridge."
Princeton economist Hyun Song Shin has been using the Millennium Bridge example for years to dramatize an underlying structural flaw in our current financial system. Like what happened with the bridge, he says, "Financial markets are the supreme example of an environment where individuals react to what's happening around them, and where individuals' actions affect the outcomes themselves." Cassidy sums up the impact of this dynamic as follows: "Most of the time, financial markets are pretty calm, trading is orderly, and participants can buy and sell in large quantities. Whenever a crisis hits, however, the biggest players--banks, investment banks, hedge funds--rush to reduce their exposure, buyers disappear, and liquidity dries up. Where previously there were diverse views, now there is unanimity: everybody's moving in lockstep." When this happens, as it did last year, we all hold onto the handrails for dear life.
The Millennium Bridge reopened in February of 2002, with dozens of shock absorbers in place. Both Cassidy and Shin argue for the need for "stabilizers" of various kinds in our economy. Cassidy concludes: "Our system of oversight fails to account for how sensible individual choices can add up to collective disaster. Rather than blaming the pedestrians for swaying the footway, governments need to reinforce the foundations of the structure." Their concern is that, if we don't address the financial system's fundamental design flaws now, the next disaster might bring the whole bridge down.
What systems lessons can we apply to this challenge of designing "shock absorbers" for our financial markets?
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications, managing editor of The Systems Thinker newsletter, and program director of the annual Systems Thinking in Action conference.
Bridge photo: Adrian Pingstone
By Janice Molloy
With the days growing shorter and kids heading back to school, fall is definitely in the air. The end of the growing season serves as a tangible reminder that nothing grows forever: not plants, not children--and not companies or product sales or economies.
This is a principle of the living world, and also a principle of systems of all kinds. In systems language, every reinforcing process eventually encounters a limit, or a balancing process. And yet, in the excitement of the growth, or boom, phase, we often seem to forget that "to everything there is a season."
A Decade of Booms and Busts
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, "How I Got Burned by Beanie Babies," Karen Blumenthal looks at lessons from the booms and busts of the past decade, including the housing bubble, the tech bubble, and, yes, the bubble that played out around a brand of stuffed animals called "Beanie Babies." The wild-eyed speculation in each of these situations brought financial success to a few, and financial ruin to many more.
Blumenthal's hope is that by understanding the patterns these rollercoaster rides tend to follow, we can "be more astute in reacting and adjusting our own behavior." Here's what she has observed:
- The biggest bubbles seem to occur during times of rapid and radical innovation. Because of the dramatic nature of the changes, we become susceptible to "bizarre rationalizations," like the idea that home or oil prices could climb forever.
- Once booms get started, people jump on the bandwagon in droves, further boosting prices. As Blumenthal states, "Initial skepticism gives way to curiosity and then escalates into a kind of frenzy, a feeling that you may be the only person on the planet who isn't part of the fun, and you'd better scramble to get in."
- Even knowing that all booms eventually bust, people ignore warnings, thinking that something about this particular trend makes it different from all previous ones.
- Greed runs rampant. Blumenthal notes, "At some point, the bubble reaches a point that is so ridiculous that greed takes over and all common sense must be suspended to continue the myth." She sheepishly admits that she once spent $50 on a $5 "Peace Beanie Baby," falling prey to the illusion that she might one day finance her children's college education with the little stuffed animals.
- Dangerous behavior ensues, as some people desperately try to "keep the party going." This is the stage when unethical or patently unwise actions take place; according to Blumenthal, "It was only after the tech boom started to weaken that WorldCom Inc. began to cheat on its earnings."
Blumenthal concludes that the only people who profit from boom cycles are those who sell on the way up and aren't worried about trying to maximize their profits. She advises most people to invest for the long run: "The only way to survive financial busts is to hang on long enough to outrun them."
Limits to Growth
Knowledge of systems behavior can also help us avoid becoming caught up in the boom-bust dynamic. As Donella Meadows says in Thinking in Systems, "Whenever we see a growing entity, whether it be a population, a corporation, a bank account, a rumor, an epidemic, or sales of a new products, we look for the reinforcing loops that are driving it and for the balancing loops that will ultimately constrain it." The "Limits to Growth" (also known as the "Limits to Success") systems archetype offers a framework for acknowledging and exploring the constraints on unbridled growth.
But tools and guidelines will only get us so far. Escaping from the bubble mentality may necessitate a shift in the Western concepts that "bigger is better," "more is better than less," and "growth for growth's sake." Perhaps only by embracing the reality of limits will we be able to make the most of what we actually have.
Janice Molloy is content director of Pegasus Communications and managing editor of The Systems Thinker.
bubble photo by Jeff Kubina/Creative Commons license (CC) BY-NC-ND
By David W. Packer
"With only a fraction of the recovery money actually out the door, Washington began debating the need for a second round of stimulus amid economic and political crosscurrents." --"Doubts About Obama's Economic Recovery Plan Rise Along With Unemployment" by Edmund L. Andrews, New York Times, July 9, 2009
This news synopsis on the front page of the July 9 edition of the New York Times couldn't help but catch my eye. It's something I've been concerned about for a while, as it focuses on a common systems issue--time delays. Feedback loops and time delays are two major pieces of system structure that dramatically affect what happens over time.
Delays--like motorcycles on a summer day--are everywhere. There are physical ones, such as how long it takes to do something. 
There are psychological ones, such as how long it takes someone to realize and be convinced that something is actually changing in a human system full of noise and extraneous changes. And there are even delays beyond delays--the time it takes to actually start doing something even after recognizing the need; this delay sometimes results from inertia, and sometimes from the false hope that the need will just go away. Finally, there is the delay in how long it takes for the "doing something" to make a difference.
"Results Today" Thinking
Studies show that we almost always underestimate the length of delays, not just by a few percentage points, but by factors of 2, 5, or even 10 or more. We may think a change in what we do will pay off in four months when in fact the impact plays out over several years.
Back to the stimulus plan: A relatively common scenario, I contend, is that we make a change and expect results way too soon because we underestimate the time delays involved. When the outcomes don't happen on our flawed schedule, we declare failure and do something else. Of course, by giving up on the initiative, we will never know whether, given time, it might have created great improvement. In this hypothetical example, we have squandered resources and time, and we have probably stimulated even more short-term "results today" thinking to boot.
Another factor that often compounds the problem is the "worse before better" characteristic of systems. Often, when an action is taken, things actually get worse in the short term before they begin to improve. All of these dynamics, of course, are fodder for detractors, especially in, but not limited to, the political sphere.
Charting the Stimulus
I am not an economist or an expert in stimulus plans, but I do worry about this common scenario playing out and affecting our lives and welfare. Many have expressed disappointment in the lack of tangible economic results of the stimulus package so far, even though we're only six months into a process in which the time delays are clearly some years.
There are two kinds of risks in making an early critique of the program. First, people can be discouraged by the failure to meet their way-too-optimistic expectations, causing confidence to erode and the economy to get even worse (a dangerous reinforcing feedback loop). Second, officials might prematurely boost stimulus spending, which could increase the risk of inflation.
While I do hear designers of the plan talking years, not months, and see news that the spending is just starting to trickle, I yearn for a behavior over time chart that shows the stimulus money authorized, the path of its actual spending, and the expected economic impact. I think such a chart, based on systems principles and having a time dimension of many years, would set expectations, promote a healthy response, and create broad awareness of the system structure at play in this critical time.
Dave Packer is founding partner of the Systems Thinking Collaborative, veteran of the MIT System Dynamics Group and of Digital Equipment Corporation, grandparent of eleven, Ginny Wiley's spouse, and a Red Sox fan, among other things.
photo: Ian Britton/freefoto.com
By David Packer
The recent debates about torture provide insight in how looking through the lens of systems thinking can change the picture and possibly lead to better conclusions.
To some, the issue is simple: Torture, while undesirable, is the best way of protecting our way of life by preventing terrorist attacks and activity. From that perspective, it is "worth it." We sense a threat and use whatever means necessary to collect information. We then act on that intelligence and remove the threat. This is a clear balancing loop of seeing a gap, acting to close the gap, and closing it. Our society is saved. End of story.
But maybe not. Other loops are lurking, fuzzier and slower, but maybe more powerful. These are the unintended consequences of the same action that, if strong enough, can work to make us less safe, the exact opposite of what we want.
For example, the act of torture--or even perceived torture--almost certainly upsets both enemies and friends, creating more threats and less help in meeting them. Over time, as President Obama recently hypothesized, it can "corrode the character of the country." Such impacts drive the system downhill, increase threats, and stimulate even more violence. This gives us a reinforcing process that can be a literal death spiral. (In systems language, this structure is called the "Fixes That Fail" archetype).
A systems perspective allows us to see, darkly at times, not only the most visible loop but also others that describe possible unintended consequences. By bringing these other loops into the light, we can then debate the power of various interactions--and make more informed choices. The question here becomes, for example: In what other ways can we achieve the same goal without unleashing the negative side effects?
Practice in using such a lens can bring openness and definition to our way of viewing our world. It enhances, I believe, our shot at creating the future our children and grandchildren deserve.
Dave Packer is founding partner of the Systems Thinking Collaborative, veteran of the MIT System Dynamics Group and of Digital Equipment Corporation, grandparent of eleven, Ginny Wiley's spouse, and a Red Sox fan, among other things.