Stephen G Haines - Collected Quotes

"Delay time, the time between causes and their impacts, can highly influence systems. Yet the concept of delayed effect is often missed in our impatient society, and when it is recognized, it’s almost always underestimated. Such oversight and devaluation can lead to poor decision making as well as poor problem solving, for decisions often have consequences that don’t show up until years later. Fortunately, mind mapping, fishbone diagrams, and creativity/brainstorming tools can be quite useful here." (Stephen G Haines, "The Managers Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking & Learning", 1998)

"Our simplistic cause-effect analyses, especially when coupled with the desire for quick fixes, usually lead to far more problems than they solve - impatience and knee-jerk reactions included. If we stop for a moment and take a good look our world and its seven levels of complex and interdependent systems, we begin to understand that multiple causes with multiple effects are the true reality, as are circles of causality-effects." (Stephen G Haines, "The Managers Pocket Guide to Systems Thinking & Learning", 1998)

"Strategic planning and strategic change management are really 'strategic thinking'. It’s about clarity and simplicity, meaning and purpose, and focus and direction." (Stephen G Haines, "The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management", 2000)

"Systems thinking is based on the theory that a system is, in essence, circular. Using a systems approach in your strategic management, therefore, provides a circular implementing structure that can evolve, with continuously improving, self-checking, and learning capabilities [...]" (Stephen G Haines, "The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management", 2000)

"The systems approach, on the other hand, provides an expanded structural design of organizations as living systems that more accurately reflects reality." (Stephen G Haines, "The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management", 2000)

"This is what systems thinking is all about: the idea of building an organization in which each piece, and partial solution of the organization has the fit, alignment, and integrity with your overall organization as a system, and its outcome of serving the customer." (Stephen G Haines, "The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management", 2000)

"True systems thinking, on the other hand, studies each problem as it relates to the organization’s objectives and interaction with its entire environment, looking at it as a whole within its universe. Taking your organization from a partial systems to a true systems state requires effective strategic management and backward thinking." (Stephen G Haines, "The Systems Thinking Approach to Strategic Planning and Management", 2000)