processes in the whole system (including physical and meta-physical environment) where
they operate. Senge has defined system thinking as:
System thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It's a framework for seeing
interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than
static 'snapshots', (1990).At this stage Senge has discussed that the individuals should not take the
snapshots of the event in different processes. Instead they should realize the dynamics of
the environment and should be able to identify the patterns of changes taking place in the
surroundings.
Individuals have the tendency to approach the issue through the simplest possible
path and then analyze the immediate causes, ignoring the complexity of the surrounding
environment as they usually fail to see the chain of reaction initiated by a cause located
else where. Such an analysis also ignores the forces that are in action all the time. This
straight forward and simple approach prohibits us from identifying the origin of the
problem and the focus is on symptomatic solutions (Mintzberge and Quinn, 1993). The
fact is that a problem may have multiple root causes or a single cause may be responsible
to cause multiple problems (Hosely, Lau, Levy & Tan; 1994). It is further added that,
those root causes may be generated by our own actions in a struggle to develop a solution
or the solution so developed may become a cause for another problem. This is all because
we normally adopt such an approach where we study the issue as a separate entity to the
system. Senge fortifies this notion by saying “So why do we attempt to solve every problem
by breaking it down into unconnected parts and attempt to rebuild each one independently
then re-create a new whole?” (1990).
Senge has identified two types of complexities that exist in our environment. The
first one is about the details of relating clear visible (tangible) parts to one another and
the second is about understanding the role of dynamic forces (intangible) that are at play
all the time.