These developments are forcing changes in not only the shape of organisations, but in the way managers need to think and operate. New approaches have emerged which can help us to better understand our new circumstances. At the heart of these approaches are three key concepts - systems thinking, organisational learning and action learning . These concepts form the basis of this Masters program. Systems thinking Systems thinking emphasises that to understand organisations we must use processes of synthesis as distinct from our more commonly understood analytic techniques.
Analysis involves trying to understand organisations as an aggregation of parts.
We all know that any organisation is more than the sum of its parts. To capture this view of the world we need to take a more holistic view - we need to take a systems perspective. When we view an organisation from a systems perspective we first of all recognise that to understand an organisation we must first understand its interrelationship with its environment. This means that we must think of an organisation as an open system. Furthermore, when thinking about the operation of an organisation we are more concerned with managing the underlying processes which deliver our goods and services and not just concentrating on particular functions as though they exist in isolation.