Systems Thinking Part 3 — Common Systemic Patterns

It turns out that there are some fairly predictable ways in which the system components described in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series — goals, feedback loops, flows — like to configure themselves. These common configurations — or “system archetypes” — appear over and over again across many different systems

These archetypes are the reason why I’ve come to believe that most of society’s biggest challenges, no matter how complex, are actually just different versions of the same underlying problem. Let’s look at some examples.

Tragedy of the Commons

Tragedy of the Commons is probably the most famous system archetype. It occurs when multiple people or groups enjoy the benefits of a common resource but they do not pay attention to the effects they are having on the common resource. In other words, the pursuit of selfish goals can jeopardize a collective goal.

• Overcrowding — People love national parks because of their beauty, wilderness, and solitude. Because people love the parks, more people try to visit the parks, creating more traffic, litter, and noise. The parks lose some of their beauty, wilderness, and solitude because of overcrowding.
• Air Pollution — Imagine a bunch of people shopping for cars. They could either buy cheap cars that emit a lot of dirty exhaust, or they could buy more expensive cars that emit less exhaust. Individually, everyone would be better off financially by buying the cheaper, dirtier…