[MUSIC] In this lesson, we'll look at how the concept of systems thinking can help you engage with complex or unfamiliar issues. At university, you'll often be asked to explore and develop an understanding of complex issues. However, the issues and ideas you face may be new and unfamiliar, and therefore you need to learn how to approach them. Learning to think in more abstract terms can help you avoid some of the common pitfalls with everyday forms of thought. It can also help you develop more complex arguments at university. Systems thinking is a way of developing an understanding of complex or unfamiliar ideas, issues, and situations. For example, an underground metro system, a human body, and a large company, all have patterns in common that can help create an understanding of the world. For example, in each system, we can only understand what happens by understanding how the different parts of the system are connected. Understanding patterns could help us think about complex and unfamiliar situations. At its core, systems thinking is about gaining a bigger picture and appreciating other people's perspectives. It's important to recognize that along with many other skills that are covered in this course, applying systems thinking is not necessarily something that comes naturally. We often rely on intuition when faced with unfamiliar situations. Many of us have also been taught that there's often a correct answer to problems. But this is not always helpful when understanding the complexity of many of the world big issues. It's important to remember that like other critical thinking skills, applying systems thinking takes practice. There are two important points in systems thinking that can help you develop your critical thinking and understanding of complex issues. Firstly, every system has multiple components, and the connections between each component form a web. For example, a company can be seen as a web of relationships between the different departments and operations, such as HR, sales, accounting, and so on. Each of these departments consists of webs as well, as each employee and the relationships between them create another system. The second point is that to understand complex concepts or issues, we need to analyze the entire web, and not just the individual components. Seeing and understanding the relationships between the different components is at the heart of systems thinking. The result of these two components is known as emergent properties. The aim of systems thinking is to understand these emergent properties, rather than understanding the concepts in isolation. Let's now look at a practical example. Take the issue of homelessness, what do you think are the reasons for homelessness in today's society? Take a minute now to note reasons you can think of. What does your answer look like? If you did the exercise, you will probably have written a list. This laundry-list, as Richmond calls it, is a list of factors that contribute to homelessness. A typical answer might put the most important issue first, the second-most important issue second, and so on. Or perhaps they're considered of equal importance. Richmond points out four problematic assumptions with this common approach. Firstly, this kind of thinking assumes a cause and effect relationship that's only one way. For example, that addiction leads to homelessness. Secondly, the factors in this kind of approach appear independent of each other. The third assumption is that the weight or importance of each factor seems equal and unchangeable. Finally, the effect of each factor is only implicit. That means we can't see what the relationship is between cause and effect. In contrast, applying systems thinking can offer valid alternatives to these assumptions. One way this is achieved is to think of causes as linked as a cyclical process. Each factor is linked to homelessness, as well as to the other factors. These processes are referred to as feedback loops. Rather than a list, we can picture the issue as a series of cycles. Simply changing the way you visualize the issue can help you think about real-world issues in a very different way. The issue of homelessness can now be seen as an ongoing dynamic process, where the components are connected and these connections have further impacts. Another difference between this approach and the laundry-list style of thinking is that the factors in systems thinking are not considered static. Instead, it's likely that the different effects have different levels of importance over time. Some will come to dominate while others will recede. This means that it isn't possible to solve the issue with one neat, easy solution. To come up with a real solution, all of the different factors and the way they relate to each other need to be considered. Previous interventions can be seen to affect the system, but not eliminate it. For example, investing in more affordable housing might have resulted in a receding cycle of low income, poverty, and homelessness. However, without addressing all the factors, over time, other feedback loops may have come to dominate, such as addiction, which would then start to impact on income and homelessness. The final way that systems thinking can improve on the laundry-list approach is that it's necessary to offer an explanation of how causes and effects are related. If we look at the previous example again, it wouldn't be enough to say that addiction leads to homelessness. You'd need to look at how addiction leads to homelessness. When we think further about the issue of addiction, we have to try to understand the process, and not just the correlation. For example, addiction can lead to poverty, as money is being spent on the source of addiction. Addiction can also lead to mental instability, and this could lead to unemployment. Also, mental illness can be a contributing factor that leads to addiction, which further contributes to mental illness. Here we can see multiple causes and effects, as well as another feedback loop emerging, as mental illness and addiction become a cyclical event. With this kind of thinking, we can see the interdependence of all the factors, and how they all come together to provide a rich understanding of a concept or issue. [MUSIC]
