What is systems thinking?

It is simply thinking in terms of the entire system and not in terms of the indivdual components that make-up the system.That is, seeing the big-picture ratehr than the localised narrow picture. For example, When a doctor performs a surgery on the small-tongue for a throat problem, he or she can not perform the surgery on the organ to be be operated ignoring the impact the surgery may have on the enitre upper respiratory system comprising 3 sub systems called ear, nose and throat system. Thus, the surgeon is expected to have a "systems thinking" before begining the surgery on the small tongue. It may be noted that small tongue is just one of the many componenet-organs in the enitre upper respiratory system, even then the surgeon is expected to think of all inter-related impacts of operation on the other componenets of the respiratory system. This is why all surgeries are complicated as they are highly system-oriented. This kind of thinking is missing in many politicians and quality improvement managers. Many politicians start or stop some projects as a result of isolated-thinking instead of having a systems thinking.For example, environmental system is very often cooly ignored in view of some short-term gains that some projects bring. It is high time the politicians resorted to systems thinking in all their decisions that affect the society.