Advanced Safety Management, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 5A PRIMER ON SYSTEMS/MACRO THINKING

“Systems thinking” is a term now used more often by some safety professionals. Occasionally, the term is found in safety-related literature and promoting systems/macro thinking is progressive and commendable and should be encouraged.

Why? Many safety professionals would increase their effectiveness if they adopted the premises on which systems thinking is based in a form that is practicable and effective in the organizations to which they give advice. To adopt systems/macro thinking, safety professionals must have an understanding of its bases. This chapter

• Comments on the various definitions of systems thinking.
• Makes clear that agreement has not been reached on a definition of systems thinking.
• Explores complexity, to which some writers on system thinking refer.
• Describes the status quo in the practice of safety.
• Encourages recognition of the enormity of the culture change necessary in some organizations to adopt systems/macro thinking concepts.
• Connects systems/macro thinking to having a socio-technical balance in operations.
• Encourages the use of the Five Why Problem-Solving Technique in the early stages of applying systems/macro concepts.

WHAT IS SYSTEMS THINKING?

Practitioners in systems thinking use a variety of definitions for what they do, although they have a similarity—and that is for problem-solving, thinking macro and considering the entirety of the system being discussed and the interrelationship of the components. ...