The Weekly Probe No. 1
Welcome to The Weekly Probe: a list of all the interesting things I’ve consumed over the past week related to systems thinking. The content serves as supplemental material to help those wishing to become better systems thinking students. The information presented here are not solutions in and of themselves but help facilitate better tools when creating or extending future systems.
IN ORDER TO SUCCEED IT IS NECESSARY TO KNOW HOW TO AVOID THE MOST LIKELY WAYS TO FAIL.
Systemantics
Positive feedback loops are dangerous because they cover up blindspots within the system until they are exposed. A system that ignores feedback has already begun the process of terminal instability.
Explore Your Curiosity
Atul Gawande is one of the best systems-thinkers of our time. This book happens to be one of Jack Dorsey’s favorites. Atul advocates checklist systems to take systematic approaches to anything routine. However, he isn’t advocating that whoever follows a checklist needs to do precisely as it says. Creativity is still a big part of the process, but he argues that we can negate the most common errors by following a checklist. A profound moment in the book was when Atul described how surgery is performed worldwide. Interestingly, the tools are pretty standard throughout the world. What differs and why the US and Europe have fewer surgical fatalities is the operating room checklists they have mandated.
领英推荐
This entire podcast is worth listening to, but the systems portion to focus on is from?1:11:00 - 1:15:00.
Lex and Neal talk about the consequences of systems. Neal talks about the result of DDT, for example, which didn’t consider all of the adverse side effects we knew about before we used it in our agricultural practices. Conversely, Lex talks about all the positive systems we've introduced over the past 20 years like the iPhone. Everything we do has side effects, both good and bad. We should consider and strongly critique them with every new system we create.
Mike and Chris discuss the outcome of the ad-driven world we live in. The content that media agencies and news outlets create is dictated by whether it will drive clicks and attention, not because it is valuable content. But this ad-driven system has created so much built-up negativity against the media and has also turned us against ourselves. It is refreshing to hear that Chris is deeply concerned about this problem and Substack’s systematic approach to solving it.
Beginning from 7:30
As we turn the page on a new year and people are thinking about their goals, it is essential to remind ourselves that our systems determine whether we achieve those goals. Craig also talks about feedback which was a crucial teaching of the blog post this past week. People quit their goals because they don’t see results fast enough. But results are finicky. As I demonstrated in the blog, even though a system works today doesn’t mean that it will tomorrow. What is much more important is the day-to-day inner workings of the system. Our daily habits coerce the system to its result.
THE FUTURE IS NO MORE PREDICTABLE NOW THAN IT WAS IN THE PAST, BUT YOU CAN AT LEAST TAKE NOTE OF TRENDS.
-KYLE