Systems Thinking for Business Quotes

“Diversity Prediction Theorem, which asserts that diversity and accuracy contribute equally to group performance. This says, in essence, that it is equally important to have a diverse group as to have an accurate group.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“inequality is instead an emergent property of the interactions between agents and the environment. Since this effect comes about from aggregation of all the interactions, there is no simple cause. The rich are not exploiting the poor, nor are the poor less endowed. The result would indicate that efforts by a Sugarscape government to stamp out inequality would be quite challenging.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“To paraphrase Surowiecki and Mackay, there can be a fine line between the Wisdom of Crowds and the Madness of Crowds.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Surowiecki outlined four conditions that characterized wise crowds: 1. Diversity of opinion 2. Independence 3. Decentralization 4. An aggregation mechanism”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“The core idea behind the wisdom of crowds effect is that diverse knowledge and expertise is being collected and aggregated. Essentially, it argues that a group of people can be more accurate than individuals, even the best individuals.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“In a prioritized list of further reading on this topic, there is no question what comes first: Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“In system dynamic simulation, this data set is referred to as the reference behavior pattern (RBP).”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Dynamic simulators create the behavior of the system by solving the imbedded sets of differential equations using mathematical approximation techniques.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“7. Remember It’s Only a Model—Always remember George Box's excellent advice, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” The feedback and delays you have identified are only part of the picture. There may be tens or hundreds of feedback loops and delays that have not been identified.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“6. Consider if the model may be a useful communication or training tool for the organization.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“5. Search for Leverage Points and Potential Unintended Consequences of Interventions—When a model produces dynamic behavior like the real system, start to examine the model for insights. Are there key leverage points in your model?”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“4. Sketch Out Possible Dynamic Behaviors—Given the structure you have identified, what possible dynamic behaviors can be produced? Compare those to what has been observed to build support for your initial model. Does the model support the observed data? If not, there may be unidentified loops or delays present.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“3. Look for Building Blocks—Look at your diagram of feedback loops and delays to identify potential building blocks, either linked feedback loops or archetypes.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“2. Identify Feedback Loops and Delays—”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“1. Identify the System—Perhaps the most important aspect here is specifying the system boundary”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Qualitative system dynamics is a powerful tool to help categorize behaviors as endogenous or exogenous with respect to the system under study.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“The two reinforcing loops take on different natures: virtuous to the successful and vicious to the unsuccessful.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Senge (1990) introduced the idea of system archetypes as being connections of feedback loops and delays”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“System variables are frequently not being uncontrollably manipulated by outside agencies like puppets on a string, but rather are responding to the hidden structures (feedback and delay) contained in the system.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Systems reside in a nested structure; that is, each component in a system is a system in itself. And every system we are modeling resides within other systems. This nesting leads to the critical concept of endogenous versus exogenous variables.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Generally, the modeler should look for natural boundaries of the system to capture the most important and impactful structure.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“In real life situations, there are often many feedback loops present, with perhaps several dormant feedback loops lying in wait.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“In the early phases, the structure exhibits exponential growth. This identifies the reinforcing loop. However, the balancing loop is effectively dormant. It's only later in time that the balancing loop reveals itself in the data set.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Delay is another crucial component in the structure of dynamic systems. In most cases, the process of feedback is not instantaneous. As the delay of the change process increases, the potential for the delay to impact the system behavior increases.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Key Idea for Qualitative Dynamics: Structure Impacts Behavior Through Time”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao. Lao Tzu, First verse of Tao Te Ching”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Using system models to identify high leverage points is the primary method of finding unanticipated solutions!”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“Emergence: A phenomenon where an interaction among objects at one level generates new types of objects at another level. The emergent characteristic requires a new descriptive category at that next level.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“The scientific method asserts that one cannot prove a hypothesis, only disprove it. Seeing more white swans may strengthen the hypothesis, but seeing a black swan can disprove it. The confirmation bias, the search for data that confirms existing beliefs (versus alternatives), accentuates this effect in humans.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight

“at its core, the Black Swan is a modeling problem. The observer has deemed the event improbable based on their existing experiences which serve as their current data set.”
― Rich Jolly, Systems Thinking for Business: Capitalize on Structures Hidden in Plain Sight