About This Website

This website provides resources for teaching systems thinking to broad variety of audiences from 5th grade to executives. It introduces systems thinking principles through the lens of artificial intelligence and modern technological systems. Students will learn to recognize patterns, feedback loops, and leverage points in complex AI-driven systems while developing practical skills for navigating our interconnected digital world. For advanced students we also have content related to complex adaptive systems and simulations.

Why Systems Thinking Matters More Than Ever

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming every part of our lives---from the way teenagers learn in school to how executives make billion-dollar decisions. But with this power comes complexity: unintended consequences, rapid feedback loops, and deeply interconnected systems that often behave in unpredictable ways. To thrive in this environment, one skill stands out as essential: systems thinking.

What is systems thinking? Systems thinking is the ability to see the world not as isolated parts, but as interconnected wholes. It means recognizing patterns, feedback loops, and the hidden structures driving behavior. Where traditional thinking asks, "What caused this problem?" systems thinking asks, "What system created these conditions---and how might changes ripple through it?"

Why it matters in the AI era:

AI is systemic by nature. Algorithms interact with massive data ecosystems, influencing social media trends, financial markets, and even healthcare outcomes. A change in one part of the system---like a biased training dataset---can cascade into far-reaching consequences.
Unintended consequences multiply. Well-intentioned AI applications (for example, automated hiring tools) can reinforce inequality if we don't see the bigger system at play.
Adaptability is survival. Both individuals and organizations need to anticipate how AI reshapes jobs, education, supply chains, and customer expectations---not in isolation, but as a living web of cause and effect.

For Teens

Today's students will grow into tomorrow's leaders in a world where AI is everywhere. Learning systems thinking equips teens with:

Critical foresight: The ability to ask "What happens next?" instead of just memorizing facts.
Collaboration skills: Understanding that solving climate change, online misinformation, or resource shortages requires teamwork across disciplines.
Resilience: When teens grasp that setbacks are part of larger cycles, they learn to respond with creativity rather than despair.

By practicing systems thinking early, teens become equipped to navigate a world where human and machine intelligence are deeply intertwined.

For Executives

Business leaders stand at the helm of organizations that are being reshaped by AI. Systems thinking helps executives:

Anticipate second-order effects: A cost-cutting automation today may damage long-term customer trust tomorrow.
Balance competing priorities: Profit, sustainability, and ethics are not isolated goals---they interact dynamically.
Lead responsibly: With AI shaping lives at scale, executives must weigh not just quarterly returns, but the systemic impacts of their decisions on employees, communities, and society.

The Bottom Line: AI is not a standalone technology---it is a force multiplier within complex human systems. Without systems thinking, we risk short-sighted solutions and cascading failures. With it, we can design strategies that are resilient, ethical, and sustainable.

Whether you are a teenager imagining your future or an executive charting your company's path, systems thinking is no longer optional. It is the literacy of the AI age---the lens that allows us to see not just faster machines, but the futures we are collectively creating.

Background

I was originally introduced to formal Systems Thinking and Complex Adaptive Systems by my good friend Arun Batchu. Arun and I were always talking about the power of taking a deeper look not just about things but the connections between things.

I have been teaching systems thinking courses in the fall of 2015. At the time these courses were small and customized to the needs of individual groups. Most of my work was teaching Systems Thinking to technologists. Many of the examples focused on the need for hidden enterprise data infrastructure such as metadata management and a robust data governance system that made data scientists more productive. However, my content was basic PowerPoint slide.

In 2017 I started to migrate my systems thinking training content to an on-line formats and I started to roll out more formal classes to managers and executives at Optum and United Health Group.

When GPT-3 was released in June 2020 I began aggressively using it to generate causal information. Although it could not create high-quality causal loop diagrams, I was convinced that there was deep causal knowledge buried in LLMs. Our jobs was to just figure out a way to get in out and make it useful to students of systems thinking.

Finally in Feb. of 2021 I started sharing my systems thinking training content. The online content was still incomplete, but I started getting positive feedback from a diverse audience.

In 2022 I was asked to deliver a workshop on Graph Systems Thinking. This was one of my first chances to help other graph evangelists build a deeply holistic view of information in an organization.

At UHG/Optum I was also been asked to apply systems thinking to break down organizational silos and share data across business areas. I want to give my deep appreciation to John Santelli (then the CIO of Optum) for his support rolling out my Systems Thinking courses to management at UHG and Oputm.

You will find many resources on these topics as well as how to accelerate the adoption of Enterprise Knowledge Graphs (EKGs) in your organization.

Relationship Between Systems Thinking and Enterprise Knowledge Graphs

I believe strongly that many business people in Fortune 500 organizations today only have a pinhole view of information flows in their organization. This prevents them from understanding how their products compete with competitive product and impact their customers and their organizational effectiveness.

That is what the new enterprise knowledge graph (EKG) industry is creating for organizations. The hypothesis of this book is that the old ways of problem solving with relational databases will not work at the scale of EKGs. We need new ways to think. Systems Thinking is the foundation of this new generation of problem solving tools.

Audience

This book in intended for the following audience:

People that are trying to use Systems Thinking as a tool to promote Enterprise Knowledge Graphs (EKGs)
People trying to understand the potential strategic impact of EKGs on large organizations.
People that are attempting to debug the common glitches in adoption of EKGs as a central strategic platform for organizational sustainability.

Looking at the constraints of the past and realizing they are not the same constraints of the future.

There is no programming or math background required for this book, although familiarity with drawing tools and online shared waterboarding tools is encouraged.

Our Values

We value storytelling and the use of metaphors to help us communicate with non-technical staff.

Book Structure

The book is broken down into three parts.

Part 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction - a high-level introduction to systems thinking Chapter 2: Graphs - Where are enterprise knowledge graphs as why are they central to future organizational strategy Chapter 3: Systems Thinking - What is Systems Thinking? Why is a good tool for EKG analysis? Chapter 4: Graph and Systems Thinking - Applying Systems Thinking to Graph Adoption