System Failure? Look Upstream (David Korten)

I realized it was the same lesson my business school professors had drummed into my head in my student days. "The visible problem-a defective product or an underperforming employee-is a symptom of system failure. Look upstream to find and fix the problem at its source. Step back and look at the big picture."

Tim summed up his observation with a profound lesson, "If you act to correct a problem without a theory about its cause, you inevitably treat only the symptoms."

I soon found myself asking a yet larger question: "Why does our economic system consign billions of people to degrading poverty, destroy Earth's ecosystem, and tear apart the social fabric of civilized community?"

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