Systems Thinking Part 1 — Elements, Interconnections, and Goals

I’ve spent almost a decade working on homelessness and affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area. The experience of homelessness results from a complex and interconnected system of other experiences such as job loss, family upbringing, addiction, eviction, and mental illness. Those experiences, in turn, are influenced by even more complex systems such as macroeconomics, national politics, the real estate market, and systemic racism. Many contemporary issues — immigration, climate change, foreign policy, healthcare — are similarly complex. Unfortunately, all of this complexity tends to lead to a similar feeling — where the hell are we even supposed to begin?

A few years ago I stumbled upon an amazing book by Donella Meadows called Thinking in Systems, and it has completely changed the way I think about these difficult problems. It turns out they’re not that complicated after all.

What’s a System?

A system is simply an interconnected set of people / things / ideas that is organized in a way that achieves something. We are surrounded by systems: our digestive systems, schools, our democracy, international trade, forest ecosystems. Every system is made up of three things:

· Elements (least important)