Five Minutes of Systems Insight from Peter Senge
by Janice Molloy
How can one person fit so many thought-provoking ideas into four minutes and fifty-eight seconds? When I went to film Peter Senge last week as a preview of his keynote presentation at the Systems Thinking in Action Conference in November, I thought he would give a few interesting tidbits about the impact of systems thinking in the world today and we'd call it a wrap. I mean, what can someone possibly say in the amount of time it takes to go through a car wash?
And, to tell the truth, while Peter was speaking, I was too distracted by the lighting and the camera angle to pay much attention to what he was saying. So imagine my delight when I returned to the office, uploaded the footage to my trusted MacBook Pro, and watched. In less than five minutes, Peter manages to make profound points about:
- health as a systemic phenomenon
- the need for businesses to balance long-term and short-term interests
- the increasing importance of having a systems perspective
- the surprising things kids—and the rest of us—can accomplish by understanding the systems we help to create
So take 4:58 to watch the video below. I'll be interested to hear if you find it as motivating as I do.
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.