Increased stress at work due to the new promotion policy, the habit of eating poorly when under stress, or the inconvenient location of healthy food sources could all be structures at play in our catching a cold. When we ask, “What is causing the pattern we are observing?” the answer is usually some kind of structure. Observing patterns allows us to forecast and forestall events.īelow the pattern level lies the structure level. Similar events have been taking place over time - we may have been catching more colds when we haven’t been resting enough. If we look just below the event level, we often notice patterns. While problems observed at the event level can often be addressed with a simple readjustment, the iceberg model pushes us not to assume that every issue can be solved by simply treating the symptom or adjusting at the event level. The event level is the level at which we typically perceive the world-for instance, waking up one morning to find we have caught a cold. Global issues can be viewed in this same way.
But that 90 percent is what the ocean currents act on, and what creates the iceberg’s behavior at its tip.
We know that an iceberg has only 10 percent of its total mass above the water while 90 percent is underwater. One systems thinking model that is helpful for understanding global issues is the iceberg model. Rather than reacting to individual problems that arise, a systems thinker will ask about relationships to other activities within the system, look for patterns over time, and seek root causes.
Systems thinking is a way of approaching problems that asks how various elements within a system - which could be an ecosystem, an organization, or something more dispersed such as a supply chain - influence one another.
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