Systems Thinking, 3rd Edition

Chapter five. Holistic Thinking

The distinction of systems thinking is its focus on the whole. But in most cases, this claim has been a simple declaration of intent without an explicit, workable methodology. What is systems methodology and how can we use it to get a handle on the whole? Three well-known inquiring systems (analytical thinking, synthetic thinking, and dynamic thinking) despite their success, are each only concerned with one aspect of the whole. Yet structure, function, and process represent three aspects of the same thing and with the containing environment form an interdependent set of mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive variables. Together this set defines the whole or makes the understanding of the whole possible. ...