critique of donella meadows thinking in systems

But knowing WHY it is a pile of crap and how it could be made better, and not being able to effect that change…that is the thing that will make you properly unhappy. You might be dis-satisfiedwith the way things are, you may know that ISO/Lean/6 sigma/whatever is a pile of crap. If not, then you’re pushing a snowball uphill with your nose. Shaping purpose, principles and facilitating method. Are you a leader? If so, keep at it! Leadership is exactly about this.All of this will still be around you and you will have to pretend they exist, like unicorns or Santa Claus. KPIs, unit costs, benchmarking, targets, robust project plans, key priorities, strategic priorities, key strategic priorities.Performance reviews will still go on, and you will still be in them. If you know what to say and what not, please tell me in the comments below as I don’t have a clue. Try and talk usefully in a performance review now, go on. You’ve learned that about 95% of performance is down to the system you are in and not you. Performance reviews will be impossible.Give up talking about work, other people will be using a different mental model to you, you will have different frames of reference, different vocabulary, different assumptions and different conclusions. No-one else will understand what you are on about.You’ve just joined another organisation-the real one. Everything around you won’t have changed but you will have. You’ll still work in command-and-control land.Here’s seven things you’ll have to put up with if you start getting curious and learning. It’s not all cream cakes and beer in systems thinking.

Critique of donella meadows thinking in systems