From the winner of the INCOSE Pioneer Award 2022 The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues. Leaders of international bodies such as the UN, OECD, UNESCO and WHO -- and of major business, public sector, charitable, and professional organizations -- have all declared that systems thinking is an essential leadership skill for managing the complexity of the economic, social and environmental issues that confront decision makers. Systems thinking must be implemented more generally, and on a wider scale, to address these issues. An evaluation of different systems methodologies suggests that they concentrate on different aspects of complexity. To be in the best position to deal with complexity, decision makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and learn how to employ them in combination. This is called critical systems thinking. Making use of over 25 case studies, the book offers an account of the development of systems thinking and of major efforts to apply the approach in real-world interventions. Further, it encourages the widespread use of critical systems practice as a means of ensuring responsible leadership in a complex world. The INCOSE Pioneer Award is presented to someone who, by their achievements in the engineering of systems, has contributed uniquely to major products or outcomes enhancing society or meeting its needs. The criteria may apply to a single outstanding outcome or a lifetime of significant achievements in effecting successful systems. Comments on a previous version of the book: Russ Ackoff: 'the book is the best overview of the field I have seen' JP van Gigch: 'Jackson does a masterful job. The book is lucid ...well written and eminently readable' Professional Manager (Journal of the Chartered Management Institute): 'Provides an excellent guide and introduction to systems thinking for students of management'

Plenary Papers.- Transformation Theory.- Systems Approach as a Style: A Hermeneutics of Systems.- Action and Structure in Problem Solving.- Implementing Total Quality Management Through Total Systems Intervention: A Creative Approach to Problem Solving in Diagnostic Biotechnology (PTE)LTD.- Five Commitments of Critical Systems Thinking.- A Scenario-Based Approach to Strategic Information Systems Planning.- Information Management.- Applications of Systems Thinking.- The Design of European Industrial Systems: A Systemic Investigation.- Modelling Medica: A Technology Transfer Systems Approach to the Evaluation of a European Community Funded Research Project in Medical Informatics.- The Social System of National Health Care and System of Human Society.- Systems Thinking in Organizational Analysis and Design.- Theories of Autonomous Systems: A Comparative Analysis.- Cybernetic Aspects of Management Systems Engineering.- Systems Evolution in Modern Systems Research and a Formal Model for Evolving Systems.- Organizational Closure and the Quantum View of Organizations.- Landscape Ecology as an Operational Framework for Environmental GIS: Zdarske Vrchy, Czechoslovakia.- Introducing Geographical Information Systems into British Local Government: Developments in Kirklees Metropolitan District.- Taking Systems Thinking into Schools.- Health and Safety Legislation - Threat or Opportunity?.- Examination of the Concept of 'Key Factor for Success' from a Systems Thinking Perspective.- A Systematic Approach to Learning from Past Experiences in a Diagnostic Problem-Solving Environment.- Interdisciplinarity and Self-Organization in Computational Neuroepistemology: An Alternative Methodological Approach to Cognitive Science.- Systems Thinking in Poland.- Old Confusion in New European Systems Thinking.- A Unified Systems Hypothesis.- Applications of Methodology (Both Hard and Soft).- Systems Thinking and Investigation of Digestive Secretion.- Variable Receptive Field System Transformation and its Applications to Visual Field.- An Experimental Approach to the Description of Contour Segments Using the Fourier-Bessell Transform.- Self-Organization in Rural Economic System.- A System Dynamics Approach to Assessing the Impact of Management Information Systems.- Stella Modelling Process for a Manpower Strategy.- An Urbanistic Project Based on General Systems Theory.- Analysis and Design of Socio-Economic Systems.- Are all Failures Systems Failures?.- Use of the VSM to Assist in the Establishment of an Engineering Consortium.- How Can We Use a "Hard" Method in a "Soft" Way? Lessons Learnt from Cases using "Rating Chart Methods".- Untangling the Perception Web: A Methodology.- Untangling the Perception Web: An Application.- Systems Practice: An Application of "Soft" Systems Thinking in the Context of IS Planning for Small Business.- Soft Systems in Software Design.- A First Step Towards the Automation of SSM?.- The Need for Tool Support for Soft Systems.- Tools Supporting Soft Systems.- Problem Structuring and Critical Systems Thinking.- A Generic Model for Scenario Analysis and Modelling.- A Problem Structuring Method.- Levels of Problem Structuring and Problem Definitions.- A Multiple Criteria Approach to Complex Situations.- The Role of the Analyst and the Choice of Methodology.- The Use of Social Paradigms in the Analysis of Team Behaviour During Organizational Change.- A Brief Introduction to Complementarism.- Participatory Research: An Emancipatory Methodology for Systems Practice.- The Sacred and Profane in Critical Systems Thinking.- Critical Systems Thinking: Real Fiction?.- The Critical Systems Methodologies and the "Truth of Invariability".- Interpretive Critical Ideologies for Research Methodologies.- Community Operational Research and the New Public Health Movement.- Which Evaluation Methodology When? A Contingency Approach to Evaluation.- The Systematization of Practice.- Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes: A Philosophical-Cum-Epistemological ...