Perceiving Events, Patterns, and Structure

Abstract

The most common mistake in perceiving structures is to disregard causal loops. We are trained to search for the cause of an event. When finding the ultimate cause, we are content. While perceiving events and patterns is daily routine in social systems, perceiving causal loops is unorthodox, comes slowly, and requires practice and experience. Causal loops make management a complex task, yet they open up immense possibilities to shaping the future. Without causal loops, the reason for a current event lies always in the past, forever unchangeable. However, causal loops will repeat, so change is always possible. Finding ultimate causes rather than searching for ultimate causal loops is a worldview so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to change. Yet simply seeing causes and not their interconnectedness in causal loops is shortsighted toward policies and strategies.