Systems Thinking\' Is a New

systems thinking' is a new approach to problem solving and performance enhancement. It is the approach that allows a person to think in terms of the entire system and not its individual parts. Previously the focus was on the parts and it was important to study the parts separately. This method was called analysis and it worked for some time. But with organizations growing, it is no longer possible to stay detached from the whole system and thus systems thinking method is being taught and promoted. This is where an individual thinks of not only his place and position but does so in terms of the whole system to determine what role he plays and how his position affects the system as a whole. Kofman & Senge explain:

The defining characteristic of a system is that it cannot be understood as a function of its isolated components. First, the behavior of the system doesn't depend on what each part is doing but on how each part is interacting with the rest... Second, to understand a system we need to understand how it fits into the larger system of which it is a part... Third, and most important, what we call the parts need not be taken as primary. In fact, how we define the parts is fundamentally a matter of perspective and purpose, not intrinsic in the nature of the 'real thing' we are looking at. (Kofman and Senge, 1993, p. 27)