John Sterman's Summary: Learning In And About Complex Systems

The author John Sterman, of the article Learning In and About Complex Systems is looking at the greatest eternal challenge of humanity as change. Through time and with varying degree of acceleration its magnitude can be incomprehensible thus, we struggle to comprehend what has happened and how it come to be as we might be too late before we have the chance to preserve humanity’s survival. The exponential acceleration of change in growth or decline is real and it all boils down to the question “what lies ahead at the end”. Adams (in Sterman, 1994), formulated the “Law of Acceleration” to describe exponential growth brought by Industrial Revolution in technology, production and population. The experts are concerned of the emergence of new forces and old forces working at different levels defy our efforts to use arithmetical ratios to accurately measure changes and its intended and unintended consequences to humanity. The drastic changes in the society according to Sterman, would require a new set of optimistic mind or new way of thinking. This kind of
In a way, the experts say that we also need to accelerate our learning if we would like to cope with the accelerating changes. There are various processes and approaches proposed to master the skills of systems thinking and learning in and about the complex systems. One is by learning using the concept of feedback and information of the real world. However, in order for the learning to take place the following must be present: tools to articulate and frame issues, elicit knowledge and beliefs; formal models and simulation methods; and, methods to sharpen scientific reasoning skills, group processes, and overcome defensive routines. Following the process of learning in the feedback loop (the cycle of the real world, information feedback and decisions), it is important to generate the mental model of a real