Understanding Systems

Paper Thoughts brought us here and reminds us of Glamorous Toolkit.

A Transformational Leader must understand the nature of a system (including organizational systems such as a cor­poration, a school, a hospital, a church, or a government) and how transformation of a system differs from a transition. My definition is: A system is a whole defined by one or more functions and consists of two or more essen­tial parts that satisfy the following condi­tions: (1) each of the parts can affect the behavior or properties of the whole; (2) none of the parts has an independent effect on the whole; the way an essential part affects the whole depends on what other parts are doing; and (3) every possible subset of the essential parts can affect the behavior or properties of the whole, but none can do so independently of the others. Therefore, a system is a functioning whole that cannot be divided into independent parts and remain effective.

Classifying Systems. There are obviously different […]