Making the jump to systems thinking

When Albert Einstein began to play with the theory of quantum physics, he didn’t like it. He spent a few years trying to disprove it, because it didn’t make sense to him. But in the end, Newtonian physics couldn’t answer Einstein’s questions. His only choice was to become a quantum thinker. This didn’t mean that he rejected Newtonian physics entirely; it simply meant that there were many occasions when he had to use a quantum rather than a Newtonian approach.

People don’t become systems thinkers because systems thinking is so cool; they do so because they discover that linear thinking won’t answer their questions. Linear thinking is cause-and-effect thinking: One cause has one effect. Sometimes it works adequately, as when you run out of gas and your car stops. Your car stopped (effect) because it had no gas (cause). If you put gas in again, your car will run. Linear thinking is quite effective in solving this kind of problem.