Troy Giles

Manish Jain is a true systems thinker. I had the profound opportunity to share with my Systems Thinking Workshop cohort to learn from Manish. I am truly grateful for this opportunity to review and reflect on our mental models and develop a little more Systems Thinking Awareness. Manish has craftily created a curriculum that re-enables one's ability to THINK – thus he calls himself our teacher.

Here are but a few of the topics that we covered: Philosophy crash-course, Knowledge of Knowledge, Anxiety inducing Beer Game, Signals, Systems, Mental Models, Bathtubs and in/out flows, The Cobra Effect, Taylorism – Efficiency, Evaluation, Measurement, Dr. Deming's 14 Points for Management, Jay Forrester – System Dynamics, Operation Cat Drop (Borneo), Fireflies Simulation, Parable of the Polygons, Giffen Good, Braess's paradox… and we just scratched the surface.

I understand that it takes years to truly become a skilled systems thinker. I know that I must first focus inward to fix myself and take responsibility to observe the signals and systems around me. I am to specify the problem statement, develop a mental model and collaborate with others who will refute and thus refine that model, and forever strike "unintended side-effects" from my vocabulary. Of course, it is not that simple, and I now have a brighter path to knowledge and understanding before me.

I highly recommend Manish Jain and his systems thinking workshop. It is well worth your time and effort.