Feeling a bit confused about systemic thinking? Many people feel the same way, but only because they have not fully understood how its four concepts can be applied to real-life situations. Perhaps this lack of examples could be the reason why not many people utilize systemic thinking in business, academics and even in day to day life. Here are four of the concepts that are part and parcel of systemic thinking and some real life examples that you can apply it to so you understand its usefulness in daily life.

Systems Environment Boundary

The first concept under the systemic thinking paradigm is called systems environment boundary. This is simply a way of marking boundaries between the environment and the system in it that you want to think more about or analyze. For example, the family could be viewed as a system. The boundary of this system in systemic thinking would be family members. We separate it from the environment, which consists of communities, the workplace and schools – all places in the environment which they regularly participate in. The boundary may be physical or conceptual but whichever it is it is useful in separating what is inside the system and what is outside so you get to analyze only the important factors.

Open and Closed Systems

The second concept found in the systemic thinking paradigm would be open and closed systems. There are systems that are somewhat closed and this simply means they absorb as little influence from the environment as possible. Others are wholly open, which means any small change in the environment will directly impact the inputs of the system almost instantly. This is a good way to understand how some things can be greatly impacted by the environment (for example, a neighbourhood vegetable grocer) and how can stay the same even when everything around it is changing (for example, a freelancer who gets his jobs off the internet).

Self-Contained Systems

The third in systemic thinking is what is known as self-contained systems. Here, the basic understanding is that everything the system needs in order to function is found within the system itself, while still being open enough to get some inputs from the environment. For example, a mobile communications service provider might be self-propelling enough to run its own business but it can take its cue from the environments to make their services better or to adjust their services according to what will happen in the environment (for example, a scheduled power blackout).

Adaptive Systems

And finally, the last component of the systemic thinking concept is adaptive. This pertains more to higher and more complex systems and environments – those that are always adapting to the constantly changing world and various environmental conditions. Examples of these include social systems and biological organisms. For the adaptive systems to adjust, the factors in the environment like food availability, shifts in social systems and weather patterns all have to adjust as well. These are the four basic systems under the systemic thinking paradigm. By now, it should be a lot easier to think about it and how it works.