Growing Wings on the Way: Systems Thinking for Messy Situations

New systems book by Rosalind Armson 'Growing Wings on the Way: Systems Thinking for Messy Situations'. With some problems it’s hard to know where to start – we can’t define them, we get in a muddle thinking about them, we may try to ignore some aspect/s of them and – when we finally do something – they usually get worse. Rosalind Armson is one of the world’s foremost teachers and practitioners of Systems Thinking, and her remarkable book explains how these messes happen and what to do about them.

This book is about dealing with messes. Sometimes known as 'wicked problems', messes (or messy situations) are fairly easy to spot:

• it's hard to know where to start
• we can't define them
• everything seems to connect to everything else and depends on something else having been done first
• we get in a muddle thinking about them
• we often try to ignore some aspect/s of them
• when we finally do something about them, they usually get worse
• they're so entangled that our first mistake is usually to try and fix them as we would fix a simple problem.

Examples of messes might include:

• the healthcare system in your country ...
• dealing with a family break-up ...
• exploring change - and making it happen - in your organisation ...
• worrying about how to look after your elderly parents ...

Whether you’re new to Systems Thinking or have long experience, the book invites you to develop your skills through working with your own messy situations. It’s written for managers, project managers, team leaders, ‘change leaders’, strategists, policy makers and concerned citizens as well as university students from a broad set of disciplines. Organisations and readers in education, healthcare, environmental management, IT planning and social care are just a few of those likely to find it helpful.

Go to the book's homepage at http://growingwingsontheway.blogspot.com/

Buy the book from publishers Triarchy Press here

Growing Wings on the Way: Systems Thinking for Messy Situations by Rosalind Armson
Publication Date: 31st May 2011
No of pages: 338
Book type: Paperback
Print ISBN: 978-1-908009-36-4
List Price: £25
Offer Price: £19.50