I recently read chapter 3 of The Fifth Discipline , by Peter Senge. It talks about "systems thinking", which is really about how oftentimes, we can't see the effects of our own choices: we're separated from the consequences of our actions by space or time. As an example, Senge explains the " beer game ", where participants act as a store owner, a beer wholesaler, or a brewer, and see the effects of their choices on one another and the system as a whole. When each participant focuses only on their own piece of the system (the store, the warehouse, the brewery), they make choices that disturb the whole system, leading to at first, a huge waitlist for beer, and later an even bigger glut of inventory. The Arbinger Institute describes situations like this as collusion : where each participant blames others for the situation while continuing to act in ways that provoke the others' actions. The same rules apply: nobody can tell that their actions are causing t...
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