[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Book Review of Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems

## Details

**Authors** Solin

**Year** 2017

**Publisher** Journal of Sustainability Education (February 2017 issue)

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Education

**Kind of engagement** reach

[Read it](https://www.susted.com/wordpress/content/book-review-of-systems-thinking-made-simple-new-hope-for-solving-wicked-problems_2017_01/)

## In authors' words

### Abstract

As an educator for the past 20 years, I would have told you that systems thinking was at the core of my approach to teaching - helping people understand things from a critical systems perspective. What I have come to realize is that my understanding of systems thinking was helping people understand systems science, but not using systems science to understand their own thinking. Dr. Derek Cabrera a cognitive and systems scientist at Cornell, and author, along with his partner Laura, of Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems, helped me to connect systems and thinking. In Systems Thinking Made Simple, the Cabrera's lay out the case for understanding thinking as a complex adaptive system (CAS). A CAS is a system of autonomous individuals acting together to create some collective, emergent behavior. Think schools of fish, murmurations of starlings. Also think human organizations, hives of bees, evolution and thinking. And, interestingly, complex adaptive systems often have simple rules that direct behavior. The murmuration of starlings or the school of fish does not have a leader directing movement; instead each individual is following simple rules (e.g., stay equal distance from those around, move in the same direction as those next to you, and avoid predators). The same is true of thinking. The four simple rules of thinking are: making Distinctions, organizing ideas into parts and wholes of Systems, identifying Relationships, and taking Perspectives (DSRP) (pp. 47-50). DSRP are the simple rules that we follow to build knowledge using information; said another way, DSRP is how we think. Systems Thinking Made Simple is essentially a handbook for this new way of understanding and practicing systems thinking. The book is organized into three sections. In Section 1, the Simple Rules of Systems Thinking, the case and explanation for DSRP is described. Section 2, Becoming a Systems Thinker, walks readers through applying DSRP in everyday and advanced settings. And, Section 3, 7 Billion Systems Thinkers, discusses what's needed to democratize systems thinking and to apply systems thinking to organizational development.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A Journal of Sustainability Education review of Systems Thinking Made Simple, written by an educator of twenty years.

### What they found (results)

The book connects systems and thinking — thinking is a complex adaptive system run on four simple rules, DSRP — and the reviewer, who thought systems thinking was already at his core, realized he had been teaching systems science, not thinking about thinking.

## Commentary

### In short

A signed journal book review that evaluates the DSRP book and reports applying DSRP, MAC and VMCL in the ThinkWater national education program.

**Patterns it shows** S

## Refers to

- [Systems Thinking Made Simple](https://dsrpevidence.org/element/184)

**Added** 2026-08-12

**How to cite this** Solin (2017). Book Review of Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems. Journal of Sustainability Education (February 2017 issue).