At its core, systems thinking attempts to better align the way we think with how the real world works. Our thinking is based on our mental models, but these models, created from our unique perspective with its inherent biases, are usually inadequate representations of reality. The Cabreras illustrate how we can use feedback to recognize and adapt our mental models so that they better align with reality, enhancing our problem-solving capabilities.

For systems thinking to be successful, it must be adaptive. In this course, you will explore the concept of complex adaptive systems, and while these systems seem unnecessarily complicated, the Cabreras will reveal a surprising discovery. Underlying all complex adaptive systems are simple rules, and applying these rules is the key to transforming the way we frame and solve everyday problems.

This course will walk you through the four simple rules of systems thinking, which provide a new paradigm for solving problems. These rules represent distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives, or DSRP.

Throughout this course, you will start to unlearn some of the deeply ingrained thought patterns that result in unproductive interactions, unintentional bias, and faulty binary or linear thinking. Systems thinking means intentionally reflecting on how you think, including both the information and the structure of your thoughts and ideas so that you can break old habits and think more systematically. With a variety of examples, tools, and techniques, you will practice making distinctions between ideas or things, organize ideas into systems, recognize hidden or underlying relationships, and identify the perspectives implicit in the information you analyze. As a result, you will be equipped to identify more innovative solutions, build consensus across diverse groups of people, and approach problems with more creativity, adaptability, and clarity.

As Derek and Laura Cabrera illustrate in this course, we humans process information best with our eyes and our hands, and we can take advantage of this fact by using visual maps. Visual maps can help you corral this information, organize and structure it, and most importantly, convert it into knowledge that you can act upon.

In this course, you will use the online mapping software, Plectica, so that you can break down your complex problems using the simple rules of systems thinking, DSRP. Building maps with this easy-to-use software will help you gain insights into processes, relationships, or challenges of any kind, and enable you to quickly and easily share these insights with others. As you become more adept at creating visual maps, your systems thinking skills will increase as you deepen your understanding of complex ideas, communicate these ideas more effectively, and enhance collaboration across groups to spur innovation.

This course will provide you with the tools and guidance for using the simple rules of systems thinking (DSRP) to build both your analytical and emotional intelligence.

By asking more robust questions and challenging yourself to go beyond traditional forms of thought and logic, you can more quickly identify and bridge the gaps in your thinking and build new knowledge about any problem or situation. You will transcend either-or thinking to consider a wider range of possibilities that more closely reflect the real world. These same approaches for building your analytical capabilities also enable you to harness your emotions by helping you gain awareness of your own thinking. This awareness will build your emotional intelligence, which in turn will increase your ability to collaborate, think creatively, and solve tough problems. You will come away from this course with practical approaches you can apply in every area of your life to enhance your work, your decisions, and your relationships.

In this course, Cornell University faculty members Derek and Laura Cabrera present you with the design principles of intelligent, adaptive organizations built for systems thinking. With expert guidance and hands-on activities, you will create your organization's vision and mission, and build capacity and learning systems that support your organization's ability to achieve these core principles. This approach is a systems leadership and organizational design model that will help you better design, guide, manage, and change your organization. It provides you with a blueprint to build the culture you need to attain your ultimate goal: to have your entire organization, at every level, working toward realizing your company's vision.

In this course, Professors Derek and Laura Cabrera demonstrate how to become a systems leader; that is, someone who can use systems thinking at the organizational level, at the team level, and at the individual level. You will create a culture for your organization that is built on shared mental models and develop techniques to incentivize thought leaders to support the culture based on your vision, mission, capacity, and learning. At the team level, where the real work of the organization gets done, you will explore the process of building, sharing and evolving mental models through collaborative mapping and feedback processes. And finally, you will turn your own thinking into doing, to ensure that your actions are aligned with key organizational mental models. With tools, techniques, and expert guidance, you can begin to implement systems thinking at all levels of the organization, creating teams and individuals upon which organizational culture, values, and success are built.