Books

Books : reviews

Michael C. Jackson.
Systems Thinking: creative holism for managers.
Wiley. 2003

Systems Thinking is holistic. Its focus is on ensuring that the parts of the organization function properly together to serve the needs of the whole. It is also creative, because its development has produced a range of approaches that can be used in powerful combinations. Indeed, being systemic increasingly means resolving problems from multi-viewpoints and using multi-techniques. Placing a central emphasis on such ‘creative holism’, this groundbreaking book draws on a host of examples to cover the development, implementation and integration of all major systems approaches:
• Hard Systems Thinking
• System Dynamics
• Organizational Cybernetics
• Complexity Theory
• SAST
• Interactive Planning
• Soft Systems Methodology
• Critical Systems Heuristics
• Team Syntegrity
• Postmodern Systems Thinking
• Total Systems Intervention
• Critical Systems Practice