Changing our concept of the world

In Ackoff’s Best His Classic Writings on Management (1999), he shares a way of thinking that as fascinated me for years. It can be used for problem solving and has helped me manage database systems for years. It is about looking at things in a holistic way.  This way of thinking, synthesis, often yields contradictory or conflicting results to traditional analytical thinking. Systems thinking, as it is known, helps expand your viewpoint considering the holistic nature of the environment. Ackoff shared the difference between the two modes of thinking: 

Machine Age Thinking (Analysis)	Synthesis (Systems Thinking)
Analysis precedes synthesis	Synthesis precedes analysis
Focuses on structure	Focuses on function
Reveals how things work	Reveals why things operate as they do
Yields knowledge	Yields understanding
Enables us to describe	Enables us to explain
Looks into things	Looks out of things
Iteration of the parts of the thing to be explained	Iteration of the parts of the thing to be explained, interactions between things in its environment and with its environment itself concerned with functional interaction of the parts of system
Break down large complex problems into solvable or manageable parts outputs assembled into a solution of the whole	Some of the best solution obtained from the parts taken separately is not the best solution of the whole.
The best performance of the whole can be reduced to the sum of the best performance of its parts taken separately	Asserts this is not possible
Reduces the focus of the investigator	Expands it focus of the investigator

As a result, I never look only at the immediate problem but consider all of the interconnecting parts.