Top 15 Systems Thinking Books

Jurgen Appelo

Mar. 15, 11 · News

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I know. I have not been very kind to systems thinking in my recent “Complexity vs. Lean” presentation. But most systems thinkers are nice and smart people, and so I will try and make up with this Top 15 of Systems Thinking Books.

I created this list by finding suggestions on Systems Thinking groups (here, here and here), and some intensive searches on Amazon. The results are ranked by a combination of rating and popularity, both on Amazon and GoodReads. (For example, Peter M. Senge’s book is the most popular, but Donella Meadows book has better ratings both on Amazon and on GoodReads, which is why her book won the top slot.)

Oh, and in case you’re wondering. I only read three of the books in this list. But I just added three more to my shopping cart. :-)

Enjoy…

1	Donella Meadows	Thinking in Systems: A Primer
2	Peter M. Senge	The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
3	Gerald M. Weinberg	An Introduction to General Systems Thinking
4	Michael C. Jackson	Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers
5	Russell L. Ackoff	Re-Creating the Corporation: A Design of Organizations for the 21st Century
6	Ervin Laszlo	The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time
7	Linda B. Sweeney, Dennis Meadows	The Systems Thinking Playbook: Exercises to Stretch and Build Learning and Systems Thinking Capabilities
8	Jamshid Gharajedaghi	Systems Thinking, Second Edition: Managing Chaos and Complexity: A Platform for Designing Business Architecture
9	Dennis Sherwood	Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager's Guide to Applying Systems Thinking
10	John D. Sterman	Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World
11	Russell L. Ackoff, Herbert J. Addison	Systems Thinking for Curious Managers: With 40 New Management f-Laws
12	Peter Checkland	Systems Thinking, Systems Practice: Includes a 30-Year Retrospective
13	Stephen G. Haines	The Manager's Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking and Learning
14	Joy Richmond, Lees Stuntz, Kathy Richmond, Joanne Egner	Tracing Connections: Voices of Systems Thinkers
15	John Boardman, Brian Sauser	Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems
And I'm tossing in two extra books that aren't really about Systems Thinking, but they seem to be mentioned regularly among systems thinkers...
-	John Gall	The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small
-	Lars Skyttner	General Systems Theory

Jurgen is an experienced author, trainer, and speaker. Why don’t you hire him to add some spice to your company event or seminar?

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