A better approach than analytic thinking.

Introduction

While serving in the Army in South Korea during the mid-1960s, I operated a petroleum tank farm. As with most equipment in Korea at the time, those tanks were in pretty shoddy condition. One day, the sergeant who ran the petroleum operation reported to me that one of the large tanks had sprung a leak.

We received the petroleum in rail cars from Pusan, roughly 100 miles away, then had to truck the petroleum another 5 miles from the railhead. We did have another storage tank, but because demand from the units we served was so high, we needed the most efficient solution we could find.

With the counsel of my sergeant and an Air Force sergeant, I decided we could fill the tank with water to the level of the drainage spout and pump the petroleum from the tank with minimal water contamination.

Unbeknownst to me, the logistics Major had ordered a train of empty tanker cars from Pusan. Needless to say, the Major did not appreciate that I had caused him to travel about 200 miles with an empty tank train for no reason.

This cute story has meaning to me only because, upon reflection several years later, it caused me to realize I am a systems thinker. That does not make me any sort of genius. It just means that I ask a lot of annoying questions.

The Austrian method of studying economics attracted me because it employs systems thinking.

Systems Laws

In this article, I want to introduce you to systems thinking by listing “The Laws of The Fifth Discipline” from The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, to stand in for Systems Theories until I have had the opportunity to assemble and consolidate a more comprehensive description of Systems Theories. In later articles, I will add my annotations to his “laws.”

Today’s problems come from yesterday’s “solutions.”

The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.

Behavior grows better before it grows worse.

The easy way out usually leads back in.

The cure can be worse than the disease.

Faster is slower.

Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.

Small changes can produce big results—but the areas of highest leverage are often least obvious.

You can have your cake and eat it too—but not at once.

Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two elephants.

There is no blame.

Conclusion

I could summarize my description of systems thinking by saying that everything relates to everything, but that would destroy much of its value by making it too broad. I will give you a more definitive description in later articles.