Peter Senge: 'Systems Thinking for a Better World' - Aalto Systems Forum 2014

Peter Senge's keynote speech "Systems Thinking for a Better World" at the 30th Anniversary Seminar of the Systems Analysis Laboratory "Being Better in the World of Systems" at Aalto University, 20 November 2014.

Peter Senge is a Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Sustainability at the MIT. He is the founding chair of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) and the author of the widely acclaimed book, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization. The Journal of Business Strategy (September/October 1999) named Senge one of the 24 people who has had the greatest influence on business strategy over the last 100 years.

Peter Senge:

Other videos from the seminar:
Raimo P. Hämäläinen: Milestones of Systems Analysis
Harri Ehtamo: Games People Play
Ahti Salo: Understanding Systems of the Future
Esa Saarinen: Systems Intelligence as Life Philosophy
Launch of the book "Being Better Better - Living with Systems Intelligence"

More information about the seminar:

Systems Analysis Laboratory is a major academic institution in Finland in the field of systems and operations research with a team of internationally acknowledged scholars.

Video by Peter Simontschuk & Janne Lummaa / Aalto University IT
Editing by Jussi Tarvainen

[Samtaremwa]

What a big big puzzle, "How do we fall in love again with the World". Thank you so much Peter Senge. Connecting with this wisdom, when i am a few weeks into a Master of Arts in Environment and Management is indeed so helpful and sets a big big challenge right away!

[stevendelgado]

Is not about the knowledge but about the intensity and the reason that created the purpose to seek such knowledge

[TheWsteed]

Beautiful, thought-provoking delivery. This is the kinda gent I'd love to share a cup of coffee with

[joenitajoya.baguio]

Our professor presented this to us. Thank you for this informative video!

[seanchance]

Great speech Peter Senge your delivery was great.

[xinxu]

One of best book that I read this year.

[riya-jxvv]

One of the best videos and speaker I have coke across. I believe to feel lucky to watch this video at an early age of my life and would surely carry so much from it.

[michellewaters]

Having studied Senge's Systems Thinking, I was very pleased recently to read the insightful sentiment by Pope Francis' in his encyclical on the environment. Hope abounds.

[factsmarketingagency]

Amazing work from an amazing mind. Thank you Aalto University for sharing.

[samarjsingh]

Really insightful talk ... and no powerpoint!
I think the insight of those Baja California marine biologists in devising the strategy they used is really representative of systems thinking applied to daily life.
The intuitive thought that comes to mind is - how can we train people to lead like that. The answer and the succeeding question comes from Peter Senge again when he says that we are innate systems thinkers of a loving species.... so does that mean training is not necessary? However, he talks about humans innate ability for  music and he says that we need musical tools help us cultivate that innate ability for music

My question is what are the tools that we can use for cultivating systems thinking in our schools and how can we best use them and how can we measure the impact they produce and demonstrate that impact to the world.

[RichardKusiima]

If you simply listen to Peter Senge, as an audio not a video, you will think you are listening to Seth Goddin!

I can argue, without a doubt, they are the same personality (Not behaviour)!

Looks like I have these two to listen to cause Seth has impacted me greatly cause he speaks in one area that is key to what I do, marketing, and now, I guess, Peter seems to have taken the systems part of things in regards to what I do!

[frankaguirre_]

This is so weird. I live in Finland for over a year almost 13 years ago, I still feel that place like my second homeland, and I am from La Paz, the place Peter refer as an example in Mexico... loved the quote, love the video, vielä rakkaustan Suomesta...

[scottcoston]

MIT and IIT (Dov Dori) have an amazing graduate program in Systems Architecture with is based on systems thinking.
Great book by Crowley on Systems Architecture and phenomenal books by Dori on OMP which is a language that supports and encourages Systems Thinking during the design process.

[ancapopa]

What a wonderful speech... and today is more relevant than ever. Love and awareness are always the answer

[festivalportrait]

Yes it, s true for many our independence has grown and our awareness of interdependence has declined, maybe this has to do with humans having innate systems intelligence which allows for an innate predisposition for systems manipulation. This lecture sets a positive framework for positive change and understanding etc, etc, Nice One.

[Shardikful]

Interdependence is a logical consequence of determinism. It probably even IS determinism... People are system ignorant, because children are no longer being raised to observe and think... And there aren't any different systems... Only one system: The universe. Nothing is ever independent from anything else.

[huffuniversityofcalifornia]

Corrections: Essentially, his point is correct if you substitute the word fossil fuels in place of the word coal. This comment is offered, not to distract from his presentation, but to add clarity. He makes a number of excellent observations in his presentation. PDH

[renatochencinski]

38:11 - Restoring of fisheries, and success story in Mexico
44:00 - Start of success story in Mexico (without context)

[Delight]

There is a lot of good stuff in this talk, insights based on experience. Happy that Peter voices his respect for the way people in less materialistic and more spiritual cultures have lived lives for 15.000 years and longer. And I couldn't agree more with the LOVE we feel for Life.
However I wonder if the parameters of the talk don't need to be extended to a degree that most people will find difficult, especially when used to sitting in these neat conferences :) . I'm sorry to conclude based on my deep research that the proposition "we continually produce results we don't want, that NOBODY wants" is only partially correct. There are forces - about to be defeated by VERY LOVING STARFAMILY as well as AWARE HU-mans - that were actually engaged in clearing Earth' humanity for their own kind (from somewhere off-planet). It's all nice and well to blame us people for the pollution in our sky and land, and I don't wish to remove any co-responsibility, however when chemtrails filled with neurotoxins poison our skies and land and seem to be part of a transhumanist (=anti-humanist) agenda, don't we have to broaden the parameters of the 'discourse'? And when we find out 'democracy' is a situation at least Europe and the US do not experience at this time... that no matter how intense people protest for example food fascism, Monsanto in the US still forces its agenda on the people and the land.... that mind-control via the media, owned by only 6 companies, is rampant.... that in my view accounts for a lot of things 'not going the way we want'!
So I toast to our innate loving systems intelligence to incorporate truthful info - often not to be found in the controlled places of 'Learning' in the way we speak about so*u*lutions??  Now that even the positive military's intelligence services are talking about the treaties the US government has made with 17 extra-terrestrial groups? (most of them benevolent, and the negative, dictatorial et's being defeated more and more). I would say YES, let us humans become aware to the highest degree of our interconnectedness and reclaim our sovereignty and Source-given rights, for the benefit of ALL Life <3 !

[kkshest]

When using common sense, we'll jump into conclusion and take a quick fix right at the spot, but a solution usually will bring up another problem(s). A change at one instance trigger both positive and negative impacts. System thinking guides you along the whole chain, or what we say all the processes in the whole system, study and understand the interactions among all the processes (or all stakeholders), determine and evaluate possible solutions with the most positive and the least negative impacts.