The traditional approach to thinking within an organization focuses on linear thinking. This is the focus on system components analyzed separately and rapid solutions within the organization for the most visibly broken parts (Alman, 2011). Systems thinking moves away from examining the constituent parts of the organization and instead focuses on the whole system and how the parts are interrelated. Systems thinking was developed in the field of system dynamics and was founded in 1956 by an MIT professor named Jay Forrester. (Aronson, 1998) Systems thinking is used to provide insight into the underlying systemic dynamics of an organization. It is a way of understanding reality within an organization by focusing on the relationships and connections between the components of the system rather than the components separately (Green Plus, 2013). A system is a set of elements that interact to produce behavior and all parts of a system are interdependent. Organizations are viewed as interdependent, interconnected, and interdependent systems. Systems thinking is therefore suitable for organizations. Systems thinking results in a better understanding of deeper issues within an organization and provides effective solutions. Systems thinking focuses on the organization as a whole, interactions between parts, and therefore not the parts themselves, how systems affect other systems, recurring patterns rather than individual events, changes over time and how feedback affects parts of the system (CPS HR consultancy, 2012). Systems thinking is different from traditional forms of analysis. Systems thinking calls for synthesis. Synthesis is a thinking tool that makes sense of the interactions of components...... middle of paper ......e in the industry (Figure 3). The design team along with representatives from each of the other redesign teams were brought together to develop a systemic analysis of the overall company image. Figure 4 illustrates the systems mapping which revealed that the root cause of the company's high supply chain costs was the continued efforts of sales and marketing organizations to increase the product mix to improve the profitability. The increase in product mix led to many unintended consequences that both increased supply chain costs and ultimately reduced revenue. With this newly acquired knowledge, management streamlined its product line and achieved both higher revenues and lower costs. (Stroth, 2012)Figure 3: Graph illustrating the trends of different variables over time (Stroth, 2012)Figure 4: The system map (Stroth, 2012)