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# Holistic Flexibility for Deploying Systems Thinking as a Cognitive Skill

## Details

**Authors** Rajneesh Chowdhury

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Systemic Practice and Action Research 36(5)

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Systems Science

**Secondary disciplines** Business & Management

**Reading level** technical

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-022-09626-8) 
10.1007/s11213-022-09626-8

## In authors' words

### Abstract

“Considering Systems Thinking (ST) as a cognitive skill can create greater acceptability of and openness to the discipline from practitioners and researchers outside operations research and management science… This paper highlights how the conceptual lens of Holistic Flexibility can help practitioners deploy ST as a cognitive skill without the application of any traditional systems methodology.”

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

A conceptual paper with two retrospective consultancy case studies. It critiques methodology-bound systems thinking, develops Holistic Flexibility as an alternative conceptual lens, and analyzes two real consulting interventions in India to illustrate ST as a cognitive skill.

### What they found (results)

Systems thinking can be practiced effectively as a cognitive skill without directly applying a formal systems methodology. Chowdhury proposes Holistic Flexibility—holistic thinking, flexibility, learning, responsibility, and pragmatic practice—as a conceptual lens that allows practitioners to work systemically while adapting methods to context.

## Commentary

### In short

Supportive scholarly engagement. Chowdhury explicitly cites Cabrera and Cabrera's argument that systems thinking need not be defined by methodologies but by cognitive operations—making Distinctions, organizing Systems, recognizing Relationships, and arriving at Perspectives. He uses this as support for his broader thesis that ST should be treated as a cognitive skill.

### In more detail

The paper reviews the historical waves and methodologies of ST, critiques methodological fragmentation and jargon, then argues for cognitively grounded ST. Two prior consulting projects—one involving employee engagement and one involving sustainable urbanization—are retrospectively analyzed through Holistic Flexibility. Neither project directly used a formal systems methodology. The cases nevertheless show boundary distinctions, part/whole organization, interrelationships, and multiple perspectives/worldviews. For example, the Earthmovers case explicitly renegotiated study boundaries and analyzed interrelationships across employee categories, while the Technologies case considered interconnected company, solution, and stakeholder levels.

### Response

Chowdhury cites Cabrera and Cabrera's argument that systems thinking is defined by cognitive operations rather than by methodologies, and builds Holistic Flexibility on that footing — then tests it against two consultancy interventions in India. Published in Systemic Practice and Action Research, outside the lab's own venues, by an author using the cognitive framing as a premise for his own alternative.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-09-01

**How to cite this** Rajneesh Chowdhury (2023). Holistic Flexibility for Deploying Systems Thinking as a Cognitive Skill. Systemic Practice and Action Research 36(5).