Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers

Systems Thinking is holistic. Its focus is on ensuring that the parts of the organization function properly together to serve the needs of the whole. It is also creative, because its development has produced a range of approaches that can be used in powerful combinations. Indeed, being systemic increasingly means resolving problems from multi-viewpoints and using multi-techniques. Placing a central emphasis on such ‘creative holism’, this groundbreaking book draws on a host of examples to cover the development, implementation and integration of all major systems approaches:

Hard Systems Thinking

System Dynamics

Organizational Cybernetics

Complexity Theory

SAST

Interactive Planning

Soft Systems Methodology

Critical Systems Heuristics

Team Syntegrity

Postmodern Systems Thinking

Total Systems Intervention

Critical Systems Practice