 Systems thinking is a way of describing the world in a more holistic manner based upon the model of a system. But let's start from the beginning. We can understand the world as things, that is parts or components, and their relations, that is how they are connected or fit together. So take a car for example. It is made up of parts, car parts such as engine, wheels and so on, and these parts are put together or organised in a specific way so as to make them function as a vehicle or transport. Now we call a group of things that are not organised in this way a set. So we would call a group of cups on a table a set of cups because unlike the parts to our car, they have not been designed to serve some collective function. Because the group of cups is simply the sum of its parts, we would describe them by describing the individual properties of each cup and this would tell us everything we need to know about them. This approach to describing things is called analysis or reductionism. Reductionism is a traditional approach taken within modern science that tries to describe complex phenomena in terms of their individual parts. Now take the human body that is highly organised through a complex set of relations between its parts. Out of the arrangement of these parts in a specific way, we get the overall functioning of the living organism. Because the parts are so strongly defined by their connections and function within the body as an entirety, to properly describe the parts we need to first understand the functioning of the whole body. This approach to describing things, that is that we can best describe things by understanding their place within the functioning of the whole they are a part of, is called synthesis and synthesis is the foundations of systems thinking. Thus we have two different approaches to describing things. On the one hand analysis that is interested in describing the individual components and synthesis that talks about the relationship between these components and their functioning as a whole. Ok so now that we know a bit about systems thinking, let's put our newfound knowledge to use. Say a car manufacturing company has employed us to design their next great model. Now we could take two different approaches to this problem applying analytical thinking or our friend's systems thinking. If we approach a problem from a traditional perspective we would start by analysing the car and looking for ways to optimise it. We might come away with a design that minimises the car's drag by reducing its height by a few centimetres to increase its fuel efficiency. Now if we applied systems thinking to this problem we would start by identifying the car's function, that is personal transportation and the system it is a part of, the transportation system. From this perspective we might not even need to design a new car at all but end up designing some service that connects pre-existing resources to provide the same desired functionality. From this example we can see how systems thinking is often employed when the current paradigm or way of doing things has reached its limit and gives us a fresh perspective on things. Systems thinking is the beginning of another closely related area called systems theory that goes on to give us a whole suite of tools for analysing and modelling systems and their interaction dynamics as they evolve over time. So we can wrap up by saying that systems thinking is an emerging paradigm within many areas from science to engineering and business management that presents an alternative to our traditional modern analytical methods of enquiry by emphasising the need for a more holistic and contextualised understanding of the world.