Systems thinking by Diana Montalion is a 2024 book about systems thinking as a career path or work role.

It is an account of choices, skills, learnings and insights of the author over her career.

There is some valuable advice in the book: focus on communication, make your case effectively, be humble about your shortcomings, use feedback, etc. Most of the things that I would describe as experience milestones.

However, the premise of the book is that systems thinking is a career path separate from other paths. A space to grow into for people that think in the broad scope too much.

I was with the book in the first few chapters. But as the book progressed there wasn’t any strong insight, methodology or justification for the systems thinking process. It is as if the author is contemplating the successes of her career and labelling it as systems thinking in retrospective.

Two books came to mind when I was reading it: Eric Evans’ Domain Driven Design and Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems. They both share some insights from their career as well and they both label something in retrospective.

In my view the difference between Systems thinking and these two books is that when I read Thinking in Systems I got insight on a different way of thinking. A new methodology, new names and reframing of common patterns. DDD also created a new methodology and concepts that influenced the way that people think.

In contrast this book feels backwards. A collection of techniques to use the term to label your path, rather than a new path with new insight.