Definitions
System is defined
as: ”A set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an
interconnecting network; a complex whole or ”A set of principles or
procedures according to which something is done; an organized scheme
or method.
Examples
Universe is a
system. Your body, habits and skills are systems. Most things
we do are systems. Some systems are consisted on smaller subsystems
like your body has skin, organs, etc. Latticework of mental models is an example of a thinking system.
Systems basics
All systems
have elements, interconnections and a function or a purpose. Elements
are not necessarily physical things. For example, your individual
characteristics like self-confidence is a parts of the system called
you. Anything with different elements is not a system. You have to
ask yourself couple questions: Can you identify parts? Do they affect
each other? Do they produce a behavior together that is different
from the behavior with separate individual elements? And does the
behavior over time stay the same in different circumstances? The
interconnections are the relationships that keep the elements
together. Interconnections can be physical and informational flows.
Physical flows can be water going through the pipes, etc. A signal of
measured temperature of the room may change the electric power used
for heating. It is an informational flow. You should always think
about the behavior of the whole system, even though you are
concentrating on one element or interconnection.
A function or a
purpose is not necessarily known consciously. It can be found by
examining the system behavior for a while. You cannot really
understand a purpose or a function if you believe in its stated
purpose. This part is the most crucial part of the system. The
system is changed, when its purpose or function changes without any
changes in elements or interconnections. Changing the purpose or a
function of a system is one of the best ways to make it better.
Depending on the system, it can be one of the hardest things to do.
Change in the interconnections change the system too. It can become
unrecognizable. Changing the elements of the system do not create big
changes in the system, unless they do not change the purpose or the
interconnections of it.
The element of the
system you can feel, see or measure at any given time is a stock.
It can be a temperature in the room, a group of people or the
amount of cars in the inventory. Flows are the actions that
create the change over time for stocks. Flows change the amount of
stocks within the system. If you understand the behavior of stocks
and flows over time, you understand a lot about the behavior of the
system.
Think about the
room temperature when there is cold weather outside. The heating
system creates inflows and the bad insulation creates outflows of the
heat in the room. Change in the heating power changes the temperature
inside as does the change in the temperature outside the room. When
the inflow is equal to the outflow, the temperature stays the same.
In other words, a temperature can be increased by decreasing its
outflow rate as well as by increasing the inflow rate. These changes
are mostly slow.
Stocks work as
delays or buffers of the system. The bigger the stocks, the responses
to the changes are slower. These changes happen mostly gradually. The
speed of changes in systems are set by the changes in stocks. Stocks
help inflows and outflows stay independent from each other. Flows can
also be temporarily ouf of balance, because stocks work as buffers.
The volumes of stocks can be changed by changing the volumes of
flows. Keeping the stocks in the acceptable ranges, we need feedback
processes that manipulate the volumes of flows.
Self-reinforcing, self-stabilizing
feedback loops and delays
If you see a
system behave consistently over time, there is likely to be a
mechanism called feedback loop. There is a feedback loop, when
changes in stock affect the flows into or out of the same stock.
Feedback loops can be either self-reinforcing or self-stabilizing.
Universe is always expanding. The interest on interest compounds the
debt. In self-reinforcing loops, the previous outflows of the stock
change the inflows coming into the stock and amplify the outflows
coming out of the stock. What happens is that eventually
self-reinforcing stock gets to the point where the amplifying
destroys the whole system. The other possibility is that the limit of
growth comes to the point where the growth stops, slows, diverts or
reverses. When this happens, a self-stabilizing feedback loop is
formed.
This
self-correction keeps the system working without exploding. Every
natural system has an optimal growth rate. You should use it into your
advantage. Your skin keeps the temperature of your body from
overheating by sweating if you are in an environment in which the
temperature is too high or you are exercising. It can be hard to
notice these stabilizing processes, even though they are mostly
necessary. You should keep the self and self-stabilizing loops and
their interaction in balance. You should always limit the effect of
self-stabilizing processes on self-reinforcing processes in balance.
Most systems have many interacting feedback loops.
All the systems
have delays. Feedback loops always have some delays. People have a
natural tendency in focusing on the consequences you see right
after you have done something. The second and third order consequences
may come after a long delay. In complex systems, consequences can
come after years. You may concentrate on the symptoms, rather than the
solutions because of the delays. Some system structures have
unrecognized delays and they can lead to wrong solutions. You should
have better awareness about the delays. And you should also remember
that causes and effects are not always close in time. When you notice
a delay in the system, you have to find out, whether the length of
the delay is too short or too long. When the delay is too short, it
leads to too much variation for the outflow of the system. When the
delay is too long the system can become too stable and ineffective.
Small changes in systems can create
big results
This happens in
individual circumstances as well as in systems. Well-focused small
actions aimed for changing the system can create surprisingly big
results. Solving a difficult problem can be a matter of finding the
system structure in which the small change delivers the big and
lasting results. Most often finding these structures is hard.
You need to understand the system and how its parts interact with
each other. Otherwise you will never find the right structures for
these high leverage improvements. You cannot do this without
understanding the system as a whole.
Reacting to the
change in the system is a lot easier than truly understanding its
cause-effect relationships and ways to improve it with small changes.
Reacting to the change can be a bad thing. It may cause small changes
to the system structure creating bigger problems through
self-reinforcing feedback loops. Changing a system structure can have
different consequences in the short run and in the long run.
Different parts of the systems can also have different consequences
caused by the small changes. You also have to think about
interactions of the parts before changing anything in one part of the
system.
Most results in your life
depend on the quality of your systems
You are mostly
focusing on the different parts of your systems in a particular
moment without thinking about the system as a whole or any long-term
consequences. Your systems can deliver results that exceed the sums
of their parts by a large margin. They can also deliver results that
are not even close to the sums of their parts. People using the same
systems tend to produce similar results. When you do not change your
systems you cannot expect different results. Most often the
results you get are not caused by other people, some particular
conditions, bad luck or some other explanations. The reason for bad
results are the systems or their implementation or your understanding
of them. You should think a lot more about the quality of our systems
or their subsystems. Then you can get better results. You cannot
really improve yourself without improving your systems.
Have a nice week!
-TT
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