Some farmers discovered systems thinking the hard way. With their crops being devoured by insects, they reached for the spray gun and blasted them with pesticide. And it worked - for a time. But then the crop damage returned, worse than ever, and the pesticide that was so successful had no more effect. As it happened, the insect that was eating the crops had also been eating, or competing with, another insect. Now that insect no. 1 was out of the way, insect no. 2 was having a field day. ‘Systems thinking’ says that things are more complicated than they seem, and actions can have unforeseen and unintended consequences.
It recognizes that no man - or insect - is an island, and that there is an interconnectedness in social and natural processes that is not always immediately apparent. ‘Linear’ thinking operates in a straight-line. It says that if you do A to B, the result will be C. Systems thinking says if you do A to B, it may also influence D and E, giving you result F - except that F may take some time to show up.
