Thinking in Systems and Mental Models

Download or read book Thinking in Systems and Mental Models written by Marcus P Dawson and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-13 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you want to understand the roles of thinking in systems and how they affect, hinder, or aid in the fulfillment of your life? Do you want to increase your thinking skills and build effective mental models? Just as every node on a network contributes to the final result, every action of a member of a particular organizational system contributes to the outcome. Without a broad view of interconnectedness, our problem-solving skills are limited and short-sighted, and our abilities to make long-term, beneficial decisions are hampered. If we only look to the immediate and the superficial, we forget that we are reliant on the smallest of parts. If we don't acknowledge the complexity of our interdependence, then we are doomed to replicate a system that will ultimately fail. Awareness of our interconnectedness is key to solving the biggest and most complex problems that we face in contemporary society. The real question is not whether we should use system thinking, but which of the many ideas, approaches, and techniques currently associated with the field of system thinking are most useful in specific settings. In the year of 1943, Kenneth Craik, a Scottish psychologist, explained that the human mind expects events and describes fundamentals by building small-scale models of the real world. A mental model is a way we represent and understand an event, phenomenon, or system in a compact manner. There is a mental model for everything that happens around you. In this book you will learn: - The key concepts of systems thinking - How to solve any problem with step by step method - Tips to improve your decision-making process - The role of Chaos Theory in systemic thinking - What is wrong with your current way of thinking and how you can improve it - Strategies for developing habits, mental toughness, and resilience to combat mental clutter - 40 mental models that you can use in your daily life - To identify the mental models you already use every day - How to expand your set of mental models, create new ones and use them effectively ... and much more! Systems thinking provides a framework for defining and solving problems. Start by paying attention to the questions you ask to practice thinking from a more systemic perspective. Extend your sense of what constitutes "the present." Try to think as "now" in terms of a longer block of time. Ask yourself what happened just a year ago. What is going on now? What happens next year? We can grasp interconnections that we may not have seen before by extending our sense of the "now." You are changing the way you think! It is not something easy and is an extremely challenging task. Just think about it. That is the way you have thought for all these years of your life. Your behavior and perception of things are influenced by mental models. You will be astonished as to how you start seeing the world in a different light the moment you expose yourself to a new mental model. Once you start using them in your life, your day-to-day life will start becoming so much easier. There is no end to the number of mental models that exist on this earth and you will learn about so many of them in this book. Right now. Ready to get started? But don't think too much about it. Click "Buy Now"!