Systems thinking - old is not necessarily out of date

Researching for an article I came across an essay by Senge and Sterman published in Transforming Organizations by Kochan and Useem back in 1992. It was about the importance of seeing the organization as dynamic rather than the more static perspective of many strategy folk. Research has shown that managers have a bad habit of chopping and changing strategies when things don't seem to be going well, change many variables at once and are not good at articulating underlying rationales for what they are doing. Senge encourages the use of systems thinking as a way to surface assumptions, and learning laboratories to simulate conditions and map, challenge and improve mental models. It's striking how many instances of poor foresight, coupled with 'irrational exuberance' have played out in the political and corporate worlds today. Maybe a little more attention to the possibilities of systems thinking and the lessons of research into group behavior might have helped avoid some of the problems we are now facing.

http://www.amazon.com/Transforming-Organizations-Thomas-Kochan/dp/0195065042/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212520416&sr=8-2