Systems Theory

I am finding systems theory more and more fascinating each day. Originally introduced by my mentor in business school as a way to explain the "whitewater world" we live in, I find it increasingly applicable not only in professional terms, but life as a whole.

This morning, I was reading an article on systems thinking called "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System" by Donella Meadows. While the entire article was applicable professionally, its conclusion expanded beyond just that.

She writes:

There is one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that no paradigm is "true"... It is to "get" at a gut level the paradigm that there are paradigms, and to see that that itself is a paradigm, and to regard that whole realization as devastatingly funny... If no paradigm is right, you can choose whatever one will help to achieve your purpose... It is in this place of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, found religions, get locked up or "disappeared" or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia...

You have to work at it, whether that means rigorously analyzing a system or rigorously casting off your own paradigms and throwing yourself into the humility of Not Knowing. In the end, it seems that power has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go.