Reference #353: Thinking in Systems
When encountering a problem, a systems thinker looks at the history of the system, not just at individual events. She seeks to understand not only the "what" but the "why". The key to understanding a system is to connect events to patterns of behaviour (performance over time rather than a point in time), and then connecting behaviour to system structure.
Meadows. Thinking in Systems, 2008. (88-89)