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Insights, interviews, and stories from our work applying systems thinking in the field.
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Applications · Jul 13, 2026
Supporting Green Shelters in Gaza
Learn how Israelis and Palestinians are working together to support refugees in Gaza. Using systems thinking, they are learning how to focus aid on providing sustainable off-grid solutions for water, energy, and waste management.
Leading Systems Change · Mar 20, 2024
Systems Thinking Leverages Change
Systems thinking helps people achieve sustainable, breakthrough change in four ways that are distinct from conventional approaches.
Tools and Techniques · Apr 9, 2021
How to Make Systems Mapping More Accessible
The purpose of this post is to make systems mapping more accessible to funders, institutional leaders, and consultants by identifying six characteristics of effective maps. We describe common misunderstandings, principles, and practices related to each of these characteristics.
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Applications
Applications · Jul 13, 2026
Supporting Green Shelters in Gaza
Learn how Israelis and Palestinians are working together to support refugees in Gaza. Using systems thinking, they are learning how to focus aid on providing sustainable off-grid solutions for water, energy, and waste management.
Applications · Jan 13, 2026
Leveraging Your Donations in the Polycrisis
Donors who care about others can leverage their resources more effectively by seeing themselves as part of the problem as well as the solution.
Applications · Apr 7, 2023
Systems Work in Denmark: Lessons from Abroad
A five-year project to bring a systems approach to burglary prevention in Denmark serves to reinforce both the very natural and paradoxical aspects of systems work.
Applications · Jul 26, 2021
When Progress Isn’t: The Case of Gas-Fired Power Plants
Learn why reducing carbon emissions by investing in gas-fired power plants undermines our ability to mitigate climate change in the long-term.
Applications · Nov 18, 2020
Confronting the Rise of Authoritarian Leadership
Learn why authoritarian leaders are becoming more popular in developed nations, and what we can do to strengthen support for democracy.
Applications · Aug 20, 2020
How Wealth Inequality Compounds Racism
Our combined outrage at the brutal treatment of Black people by police and the differential impact of COVID on people of color who comprise essential …
Applications · May 1, 2020
Systems Thinking and COVID-19
How does systems thinking help us understand the COVID-19 crisis? What are the implications of a systems view for responding more effectively to this crisis …
Applications · Dec 9, 2017
Beyond the Messy Truth: Review of Van Jones’ New Book
“I believe that this country needs both liberals and conservatives. And we need both traditions at their best and highest expressions, especially now.” So writes Van Jones, a highly regarded CNN political contributor, leader of numerous social and justice organizations, and former special adviser to the Obama White House, in his outstanding new book Beyond the Messy Truth. This post reviews Jones’ book as it challenges liberals and conservatives alike to be true to their ideals and draw on the best of their traditions to reform the criminal justice system, stem the opioid crisis, and create 21st century jobs.
Applications · Apr 20, 2017
Developing a Mindful Nation Through Applied Systems Thinking
Inspired by Congressman Tim Ryan’s book A Mindful Nation, this post identifies and encourages readers to cultivate connections across mindfulness, systems thinking, and public policy-making. It shows the numerous similarities between mindfulness and systems thinking, and it describes the role that both can play in facilitating not only social change but also transforming the fear-based, symptom-focused, blaming behaviors that govern an increasing part of our political discourse.
Applications · Dec 31, 2012
The Ironic Addictions of Policy Makers
Policy makers who seek to protect society from people struggling with substance abuse often end up becoming addicts themselves. They become addicted, albeit unwittingly, to quick fix solutions which temporarily address social problems but undermine society’s ability to implement more permanent and fundamental solutions.
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Leading Systems Change
Leading Systems Change · Mar 20, 2024
Systems Thinking Leverages Change
Systems thinking helps people achieve sustainable, breakthrough change in four ways that are distinct from conventional approaches.
Leading Systems Change · Jun 15, 2022
High Leverage Leadership
This post introduces four principles for finding leverage in yourself, your organization, and the larger system you want to impact.
Leading Systems Change · Sep 26, 2019
Our Work Is Connected – But We’re Not
Our recent work with nonprofit service providers committed to reducing poverty has uncovered a concern shared by many of them across a wide range of communities, “Although our work is connected, we’re not connected to each other.” This blog post describes the costs incurred by all stakeholders when nonprofit service providers fail to collaborate, uses systems thinking to explain why collaboration is so difficult despite the shared aspirations held by many of these providers and identifies four strategies for enabling providers to increase their individual and collective impact while leveraging limited resources.
Leading Systems Change · Jan 5, 2017
Leading Systemic Change: The I/WE/IT Framework
In order to lead systemic change, learn to access levers at the individual, collective or relational, and systems levels. The I/WE/IT framework enables leaders to cultivate a viewpoint of personal responsibility for change, strengthen collaborations, and identify high-leverage interventions.
Leading Systems Change · Mar 27, 2014
Shifting Organizational Boundaries
Learn three ways of expanding organizational boundaries to adapt to changing conditions, and when maintaining firm boundaries is the better alternative.
Leading Systems Change · Feb 25, 2014
Key Organizational Boundaries from a Systems Perspective
Systems complexity requires organizations to define 3 key boundaries: their purpose, supporting goals/metrics/and incentives, and underlying beliefs and assumptions.
Leading Systems Change · Jan 30, 2014
Why Boundaries Are Important in a Boundary-less World
You might conclude that boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the face of such factors as global competition and 24/7 technology. However, the opposite is true: this world of growing complexity actually demands that we both respect and set limits for personal and organizational effectiveness.
Leading Systems Change · Jul 31, 2013
Managing Business Growth at Preventure
Success is only sustainable if you learn to anticipate and overcome natural limits to your current growth and deliberately cultivate new ways to grow. Learn how Preventure, a rapidly growing health and wellness services company, is addressing this challenge.
Leading Systems Change · Mar 31, 2013
Inspired by Lincoln
In today’s increasingly turbulent world characterized by seemingly intractable conflicts, it is helpful to learn what motivated President Lincoln and how he helped the U.S. reconcile the deep divisions that erupted in the Civil War. His two primary strengths were maintaining inner stability in the midst of outer turbulence and working constructively with conflict.
Leading Systems Change · May 15, 2012
Thinking And Acting Systemically
Developing the awareness and will to make fundamental individual changes comes from thinking systemically. Developing the ability to implement these changes in service of the whole is a result of acting systemically.
Leading Systems Change · Apr 10, 2012
Good Intentions Are Not Enough
Lewis Thomas, the award-winning medical essayist, observed, “When you are confronted by any complex social system … with things about it that you’re dissatisfied with and anxious to fix, you cannot just step in and set about fixing with much hope of helping. This is one of the sore discouragements of our time.”
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Tools and Techniques
Tools and Techniques · Apr 9, 2021
How to Make Systems Mapping More Accessible
The purpose of this post is to make systems mapping more accessible to funders, institutional leaders, and consultants by identifying six characteristics of effective maps. We describe common misunderstandings, principles, and practices related to each of these characteristics.
Tools and Techniques · Apr 17, 2019
Learning to Manage Complexity – 4 Tools
This post builds on the previous one, “Learning to Manage Complexity – 5 Strategies” by introducing four tools for managing complexity: negotiate SMART agreements; clarify multiple roles; manage communication channels wisely – meetings and email; and break down priorities into manageable time frames.
Tools and Techniques · Mar 8, 2019
Learning to Manage Complexity – 5 Strategies
Organizations which seek to embrace complexity can implement five strategies to manage it more effectively. These are 1) thinking differently about complexity, 2) thinking differently about collaboration, 3) thinking differently about productivity, 4) holding firm to a limited set of priorities, and 5) organization redesign.
Tools and Techniques · Jan 25, 2019
The Challenge of Digesting Complexity
Learn why nonprofit organizations with great aspirations and an appetite for tackling complex issues frequently find it difficult to manage or digest the complexity they seek to embrace.
Tools and Techniques · Nov 27, 2018
Applied Systems Thinking: A Self-Study Guide
Many people ask how they can further their learning about applied systems thinking. Depending on your experience so far, here are some recommended pathways. They include: books, articles, online courses, online videos and podcasts, and project-based coaching.
Tools and Techniques · Sep 28, 2015
Diffusing Systems Thinking
How do you encourage people to think systemically when many people see it as too daunting and difficult to apply? This post identifies five obstacles to systems thinking and fourteen corresponding strategies you can use to engage people in the practice and thereby increase system-wide effectiveness in sustainable ways.
Tools and Techniques · May 31, 2013
Embrace Paradox to Increase Innovation
Embracing paradox is a powerful way to turn dysfunctional conflict into productive thinking, innovative solutions, and high performance. You can learn to not only value paradox but also cultivate it, and not only cultivate it but also make it work for you.
Tools and Techniques · May 3, 2013
What to Do When You Have Too Many Goals
When you are confronted by a long list of priorities, limited resources, and people defending their own work, consider sequencing vs. prioritizing to develop an effective strategy.
Tools and Techniques · Feb 28, 2013
Systems Thinking – It’s Not (Just) What You Think
Viewing systems thinking as just a mental discipline misses the richness and breadth of the approach – which actually includes emotional, physical, and spiritual dimensions as well. Integrating all of these dimensions increases your effectiveness in applying systems thinking to meet the complex challenges that organizations and other systems face.
Tools and Techniques · Nov 30, 2012
Systems Thinking As a Spiritual Practice
Systems thinking can be viewed as a spiritual practice which involves seeing connections, making positive choices, and cultivating personal strengths. When approached from this perspective, the work of systems thinking is to enable people to uncover and make connections in service of the whole.
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