4.2 Welcome to the systems zoo
4.2 Welcome to the systems zoo
Key Points
- Archetypes improve our operational thinking by helping us get at the interactions and causal loops lying at the heart of causality.
- Limits to growth archetype : growth slows when it reaches a limit.
- Escalation archetype : retaliatory action fuels further conflict.
- Growth and underinvestment archetype : limits to growth are due to limits of expandable capacity.
- The tragedy of the commons archetype : growth leads to the exhaustion of a common, collective resource.
- Success to the successful archetype : two actors are competing for a limited resource and the more successful one consumes more of the resource at the other’s expense.
- Fixes that fail archetype : a fix to a problem has unintended consequences.
- Shifting the burden archetype : a fix treats the symptom, and not the true cause of the problem.
1. Watch the video
2. Do the exercise
Finding an archetype at work in a complex situation. This exercise will help you practice identifyng and drawing a systemic structure using an appropriate archetype. Cainiao Network, the logistics affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding recently received an investment of 1 billion yuan in anticipation of the surge in parcel delivery in China and to make up for its shortcomings in logistics compared to competitors. You can read more about the situation here.Can you see a systems archetype at work here? Can you draw it?
Hint: You need to find a similar story. You can use the archetype tree from the previous unit as well as the document “10 archetypal systems structures” in the additional materials to help.
A suggested solution is available in the additiional materials.
3. Study the lesson readings
10 archetypal systems structures. A short presentation of ten common archetypal system structures.
Additional materials
- Exercise – possible solution. This is a suggested worked solution for the additional exercise “Finding an archetype at work in a complex situation”
- Video sources and bibliography. The web sites, attributions and sources cited in the video “Welcome to the systems zoo”.
- The video transcript.