Abstract for: Systems Thinking makes you Wise, System Dynamics helps you test that Wisdom

There have been many instances where applying systems thinking has helped individuals and groups of people derive systemic insights. Applications of group model building, participatory systems thinking approaches and community-based system dynamics have shown success in helping people better understand key systems structures responsible for producing the behaviours as observed in the real world. But is that enough to allow people to identify and then design new system structures for it to produce the desired behaviour? In this paper, through the use of real-world case, we demonstrate that applying systems thinking makes people gain wisdom about the systems structure and the reasons for their counterintuitive behaviour. But it does not allow them to completely test their wisdom by answering specific questions. Systems thinking done without the use of system dynamics can often lead to people moving towards enlightenment, thinking systemically and asking systemic questions. But then are left high and dry searching for answers. The use of system dynamics becomes necessary at this stage and thus must always be applied together with systems thinking to create a higher impact. Applying systems thinking would likely make people gain wisdom but not always allow them to test their newly gained wisdom to find answers.