dispatches from the new world of work

Systems Thinking: Mea Culpa!

Not enough sleep? A brutally painful (beyond OD-ing on Advil) back? Reading too much about maniacally action-oriented U.S. Grant ("almost inhuman disinterestedness in ... strategy"—Josiah Bunting, from Ulysses S. Grant). For whatever reason, in a Comment on a Comment re systems thinking, I called it "gentrified bullshitting."

My apology.

I more or less believe it—but I surely shouldn't have said it so crudely, and it surely wasn't personal.

Tom Peters posted this on 10/02/07.

Comments

"I more or less believe itâ€”but I surely shouldn't have said it so crudely, and it surely wasn't personal."

Hate to come at you from all sides here...but based on what you said, why on earth are you apologizing? If systems thinkers cannot handle a cynics viewpoint and are protected by political correctness to guard their intellectual territory, that hardly bodes well for the substantive value of their perspective.

My brother's a systems thinker (he's in manufacturing, I'm in IT) and we regularly tell each other that the other's approach is crap. I'd argue it helps us both.

Posted by michael at October 3, 2007 10:49 AM

"Ecosystem" free enterprise approach - it is soooo 2008 - time to release the new book Dr. TP :>]

"Business Ecosystem is a strategic planning concept originated by James F. Moore and widely adopted in the high tech community, starting in the early 1990s. The basic definition comes from Moore's book, The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystems (HarperBusiness, 1996).

The concept was introduced by Moore in the Harvard Business Review in May/June of 1993, and won the McKinsey Award ..."

Posted by John at October 3, 2007 12:19 PM