From the course: Design Thinking, Social Innovation, and Complex Systems

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 24,100 courses taught by industry experts.

Understanding systems stories

Understanding systems stories

From the course: Design Thinking, Social Innovation, and Complex Systems

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Understanding systems stories

“

- Many well-intentioned efforts to address chronic social challenges generate short-term solutions that exacerbate the problem. Visualizing systems stories can prevent this. System stories are a tool to build a community's appreciation for the complexity of the systems that affect them. David Peter Stroh, author of Systems Thinking For Social Change, tells a system story called, Fixes That Backfire, where decision makers look for a quick fix to a problem that only addresses the symptoms rather than the underlying causes. You can think about this as taking an aspirin for a headache that's being caused by a brain tumor. The relief we feel from the aspirin doesn't help our long-term problem. In fact, it hides it. He uses the example that 70% of Americans freed from prison end up back behind bars within three years of their release. This is because prisoners serving longer sentences in harsher environments are exposed to…

Contents