Book Review- Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

I just finished Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows. This is a great read with hundreds of small nuggets that inspire deeper thinking. Part 1 is a little academic, defining what a system is and how to draw it, and what it might commonly look like. Parts 2 and 3, are pure genius. I could write whole blog posts on single sentences. I strongly recommend the full read. 

In the interest of brevity, I offer you a short list of how human behaviors damage systems.

1. Policy resistance- The actors in the system fundamentally do not agree on where to set the goal and the harder you push, the more they push back. 

2. Tragedy of the commons- There's a huge incentive to use a shared resource and little incentive to protect it.

3. Drifting down- The belief that bad news is more true than good news, reinforces the collapse of good performance. 

4. Arms race- Constant competitive escalation continues until one side collapses.

5. Competitive exclusion- Winning inherently provides an advantage to win again, eliminating fairness and competition.

6. Bailout- An outside intervention weakens the system's ability to succeed on its own.

7. Loophole- It is possible to appear to follow the rules while completely undermining their goals.

8. Bad metric- The system has been moving toward the wrong goal.