The Art Of Thinking In Systems: Improve Your Logic, Think More Critically, And Use Proven Systems To Solve Your Problems Strategic Planning For Everyday Life pdfdrive com

Chapter 6: System Errors
As I stated before, I would never tell you that systems thinking was going to be
easy, but I would say it was going to be worth it. There is a quote that states,
“Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.” While there is some debate over
who the person was who definitively said it, they, and my mother, who liked to
tell me that at least once a day as I was growing up, are all great thinkers and
they are right. I am certain that your life experience tells you it is often the most
challenging things that bring you the greatest rewards. Systems thinking is no
different. It is inherently challenging, which means there are bound to be errors
that come with the territory. If you can overcome the errors and difficulties, you
will find your way to becoming a strong systems thinker.
Why do policy changes seem to be stuck at one place?
Balancing feedback loops are the stabilizing force in systems. When they are at
work, you should notice very few changes, and even though outside forces are
impacting the system, the typical behavior patterns should still be in place.
While there are many examples of when maintaining the status quo is a good
thing, unfortunately, there are also times when this is not the case. Much like
someone who has had the exact same hairdo since the 1980s and has no desire to
ever change it, sometimes the behavior patterns of a system can get stuck in a
real rut. This is often called “policy resistance.” It happens when, despite efforts
to come up with innovative solutions or policy “fixes,” the system’s behavior
patterns remain unchanged.
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In the United States, the public education system offers a prime example of
policy resistance. As any society would, the United States government hopes to
improve its public education system and increase student achievement. The
Elementary and Secondary Education Act was signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson with the primary goal of adequately funding public
education so that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status, would
have access to an excellent education, and schools would need to meet high
standards of accountability. In 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law
the No Child Left Behind Act, and its primary focus was to use annual
assessments in grades 3-8, and once in high school, to ensure that all students
were meeting high standards in their academic achievement. School funding
became tied to how schools performed on these tests. President Barack Obama
signed the Every Student Succeeds Act into law in 2015. This law kept much of
the No Child Left Behind Act in place, but shifted some of the control over
standards and accountability from the federal government to individual states.
Despite the efforts of multiple presidents, many members of Congress, education
policymakers, more school choice, increased testing and accountability, and
changes to funding public education, many problems and obstacles still exist in
the United States’ public education system, and the systemic behavior patterns
largely still persist. This is policy resistance at work. Unfortunately, the same
can be said as we try to reform the criminal justice system, break people’s
addiction to drugs, decrease poverty, and provide affordable healthcare for all.
Even though a substantial amount of time, effort, and money have been spent
trying to resolve these problems, the results that have been hoped for simply
have not been attained.
Keep in mind that within each of the systems mentioned, there are many
subsystems as well as individual actors which each view the behavior patterns
and systemic problems through their own unique lens. Each has their own goals
they want to achieve, which may or may not be fully aligned with the system as

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a whole. Policy resistance arises when the goals of the subsystems do not match.
If the goals are inconsistent, they often end up competing with one another, and
the system ends up being pulled in multiple directions as each actor or
subsystem tries to get their own needs met instead of uniting behind the common
system goal.
When a system is policy resistant, everyone pulls in different directions and
works hard to keep the system from moving too far away from their individual
goals. What ends up happening is all of that effort keeps the system in a place
that no one really wants it to be — motionless, and often stuck with the status
quo.