Zoe McKey

Managing with Systems Thinking: Making Dynamics Work for You in Business Decision Making

“When we live inside our own heads, we can’t find better solutions to our problems.”

What do you think about them now?
Do they still make sense?
Are they really that sound?
Do you really think that about yourself?
Can you prove that you are like that?
Are your actions in accordance with your beliefs?
Who are you? Truly?
What do you want in life?

not everyone will agree with us and we won’t agree with everybody. And that’s fine.

“Teach whatever you’ve learned immediately after learning it while you still remember what it’s like to not know it. Once you get used to knowing it, you can’t imagine what it’s like to not know.”

What do I like and what am I like? Why?
How am I in reality versus how I wish to be? Why?
What are the things I can really excel at? Why?
What are the things among these that I truly love or hate doing? Why?
What are my true, core, I-act-on-them-every-day values and beliefs? Why?
Which of these are unhealthy, hurtful or in the need of urgent evaluation? Why?
Who do I want to be today? Tomorrow? In a year? Why?
What else could or should I ask that is important yet I failed to think about so far?

Detect patterns, not just events.
Use circular causality (feedback loops, which I will present later in this book).
Focus on the relationships, rather than the parts.5

rewarded with a stern glance

The theory of international relations aims to give a conceptual framework upon which complex relations between the actors of a system can be analyzed.”

some countries—actors