
Systems Thinking for Social Change
A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results
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Narrated by:
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Tia Rider
About this listen
Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation.
How do these unintended consequences come about and how can we avoid them? By applying conventional thinking to complex social problems, we often perpetuate the very problems we try so hard to solve, but it is possible to think differently and get different results. Systems Thinking for Social Change enables listeners to contribute more effectively to society by helping them understand what systems thinking is and why it is so important in their work. It also gives concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without becoming a technical expert.
Systems thinking leader David Stroh walks readers through techniques he has used to help people improve their efforts to end homelessness, improve public health, strengthen education, design a system for early childhood development, protect child welfare, develop rural economies, facilitate the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into society, resolve identity-based conflicts, and more. The result is a highly listenable, effective guide to understanding systems and using that knowledge to get the results you want.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2015 David Peter Stroh (P)2019 Chelsea Green PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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Systemology
- Create Time, Reduce Errors and Scale Your Profits with Proven Business Systems
- By: David Jenyns
- Narrated by: David Jenyns
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you sometimes feel like your business is an adult daycare center? Are you constantly repeating yourself, fixing errors, and trying to hold things together? What if it were possible to create a business that runs itself? You’ve dreamed about it - now it’s time to make this a reality! SYSTEMology solves this problem with a proven, step-by-step business systemisation framework - designed so that even the busiest business owner can deploy it.
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Long sales pitch
- By Courtney Kimbrough on 02-01-22
By: David Jenyns
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The Systems Thinker: Analytical Skills
- Level Up Your Decision Making, Problem Solving, and Deduction Skills. Notice the Details Others Miss.
- By: Albert Rutherford
- Narrated by: Russell Newton
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Enhance your logic, reason, judgment, and wisdom. Increase your ability to create concise and reasoned arguments using data and evidence to get a genuine conclusion. The Systems Thinker: Analytical Skills aims to raise the level of your mental performance by focusing on the fundamentals of how to use your mind effectively.
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This will put you to sleep
- By Rabbi in process on 01-05-20
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The Elements of Thinking in Systems
- Use Systems Archetypes to Understand, Manage, and Fix Complex Problems and Make Smarter Decisions
- By: Albert Rutherford
- Narrated by: Russell Newton
- Length: 4 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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You are a vital part of more complex systems like your country, the economy, or the world; learn about their changing nature and find optimal solutions to problems related to them. The Elements of Thinking in Systems focuses on the nine fundamental system archetypes; our mental models related to them and the step-by-step implication methods to fix them. Learn to use systems archetypes to solve your problems at work, in your business, in your relationship, and social connections.
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Don't hate the player, hate (and fix) the game
- By Amy Lopez on 03-19-19
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The Art of Thinking in Systems: A Crash Course in Logic, Critical Thinking, and Analysis-Based Decision Making
- Strategic Problem Solving for Everyday Life
- By: Steven Schuster
- Narrated by: Russell Newton
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Find the best solutions to your problems. Become a better decision maker. We are surrounded by systems. Businesses, schools, families, the economy, our country are all systems. The more you understand how they work, what problems do they face and how can you improve your position in them, the happier, and more stress-free your life will be. Find strategic solutions considering every aspect of your problem. Apply systems thinking to solve work, business, and relationship problems. Learn to see through the hidden pathways of contemporary politics, economics, and education changes.
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Fantastic book. well thought and well written.
- By Nanyi mateo on 10-21-21
By: Steven Schuster
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Systems Inspired Leadership
- How to Tap Collective Wisdom to Navigate Change, Enhance Agility, and Foster Collaboration
- By: Frank Uit de Weerd, Marita Fridjhon
- Narrated by: Tim Morgan
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Today’s 21st-century leaders face tremendous pressure in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world, where traditional leadership models have become obsolete. To transform and transcend these challenges a new type of leadership is essential. The solution? Systems Inspired Leadership (SIL): a powerful alternative for innovative leaders. Instead of an outmoded and ineffective top-down, leader-knows-all style that results in stress, pressure, and anxiety, SIL offers a fresh proven approach for achieving optimal results for your organization.
By: Frank Uit de Weerd, and others
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Limits to Growth
- The 30-Year Update
- By: Jorgen Randers, Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows
- Narrated by: Tia Rider
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past three decades, population growth and global warming have forged on with a striking semblance to the scenarios laid out by the World3 computer model in the original Limits to Growth. While Meadows, Randers, and Meadows do not make a practice of predicting future environmental degradation, they offer an analysis of present and future trends in resource use, and assess a variety of possible outcomes.
By: Jorgen Randers, and others
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Creative Acts for Curious People
- How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways (Stanford d.school Library)
- By: Sarah Stein Greenberg, Stanford d.school, David M. Kelley - foreword
- Narrated by: Sarah Stein Greenberg, Scott Doorley
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In an era of ambiguous, messy problems - as well as extraordinary opportunities for positive change - it’s vital to have both an inquisitive mind and the ability to act with intention. Creative Acts for Curious People is filled with ways to build those skills with resilience, care, and confidence.
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Designing is a better learning moment!
- By Vesa Tuomela on 11-29-21
By: Sarah Stein Greenberg, and others
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Storytelling with Data
- A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals
- By: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
- Narrated by: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Storytelling with Data teaches you the fundamentals of data visualization and how to communicate effectively with data. You'll discover the power of storytelling and the way to make data a pivotal point in your story. The lessons in this illuminative text are grounded in theory but made accessible through numerous real-world examples - ready for immediate application to your next graph or presentation.
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Very insightful and actionable
- By Amazon Customer on 04-27-18
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Emergent Strategy
- By: adrienne maree brown
- Narrated by: adrienne maree brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Octavia Butler, here is radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want. Change is constant. The world, our bodies, and our minds are in a constant state of flux. They are a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, Emergent Strategy teaches us to map and assess the swirling structures and to read them as they happen, all the better to shape that which ultimately shapes us, personally and politically.
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Great book. Too many footnotes.
- By Moon 🌙 on 09-09-23
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The Practice of Adaptive Leadership
- Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World
- By: Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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When change requires you to challenge people's familiar reality, it can be difficult, dangerous work. Whatever the context - whether in the private or the public sector - many will feel threatened as you push though major changes. But as a leader, you need to find a way to make it work.
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Simple & Practical
- By Anonymous User on 12-30-24
By: Ronald A. Heifetz, and others
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Misbehaving
- The Making of Behavioral Economics
- By: Richard H. Thaler
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans - predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth - and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.
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Great book if it's your first about Behav. Econ
- By Jay Friedman on 09-30-15
What listeners say about Systems Thinking for Social Change
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 07-31-20
Systems Thinking: a way to interconnect
I have always been attracted to systems thinking, this book gave me a more in depth look of systems thinking. Not only a tool to describe interconnection but also a tool to be being interconnected, not only a thing but a being.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Jordan Arel
- 11-12-21
Incredible
So good, a difficult book, I would recommend reading thinking in systems by Donell Meadows and the fifth discipline by Peter Senge first, but this has the potential to totally revolutionize your approach to social change, even if you are already very knowledgeable and experienced
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2 people found this helpful
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- Bmerey
- 09-20-19
great read for anyone working in social systems
Has plenty of examples of how to work in a system not just in one area, how it effects and impacts change.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Devesh Dahale
- 12-09-21
A useful book on systems thinking
A useful book. Several examples were discussed for application of systems thinking. Recommendations on use of systems thinking concepts to solve problems are also explained. However the book seemed a bit disorganized with regard to the connections between the topics and flow of the book. Still a good book!
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- Tamisha
- 01-16-24
A great read but you will definitely have to revisit
This a great book with a wealth information. So much so, that you will definitely have to read, and re-read for all of the information to soak in.
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- Cee
- 01-25-25
Perspective
This provides a framework for exploring issues differently. The questions in this book are key for developing perspective to issues that seem unsolvable.
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- darlene judson
- 07-31-19
Listener beware: The word is causal NOT "casual"
The narrator repeatedly mispronounces causal as casual. "Casual" feedback loops and "casual" loop diagramming undermine a foundational premise of the systems thinking approach. Mentally substitute the correct word as you listen to this otherwise exceptional book.
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26 people found this helpful
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- Arylle Young
- 03-03-20
Many of the supporting figures are not included
The reading was a bit repetitive however it does a good job explaining how to map a system.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Midgey
- 09-02-22
Better to read
Great content but probably better to read and see the actual book and references. Overall the information was great.
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