The same is true of our bodies, our jobs, our families, our organizations and neighborhoods, our

industries and markets – they are dynamic processes; they are dynamic systems. Often order emerges
from chaos, stability from turbulent environments, meaning from confusion, and unity from diversity
(Senge et al., 1994: 96-97).

The art of systems thinking is in seeing through complexity to the underlying structures
generating change. Systems thinking does not ignore complexity; on the contrary, it organizes
complexity into a coherent story that empowers us to detect and distinguish between causes and
effects of problems, their separation in space and time, and how we can remedy them in enduring
ways. The greatest benefit of systems thinking is to distinguish between high-leverage from low-
leverage changes in highly complex situations.

The increasing complexity of today’s world leads many managers to assume that they lack
information to act effectively. The problem is not lack of information, but too much of it.
Information overload adds unnecessary complexity (Senge, 1990/2006, p.128). Systems-thinking
enables us to sift what is important and what is not important in the world of information explosion
that we confront every day. By using the systems archetypes, we can learn how to structure mountains
of information and relevant variables into a coherent picture of the forces that play.