Integrating Modes of Systems Thinking into Strategic Planning Education and Practice: The Thinking Persons’ Institute Approach

Working periodically between 1995 and 2005, a team of scholar-practitioners involved in related streams of strategic management and systems thinking developed a series of conceptual maps that attempted to integrate ideas from these theoretical and practical fields. Whimsically dubbed the Thinking Persons’ Institute Worldview, these maps provided the basis for an integrated approach that has been used over the past five years to improve teaching and practical interventions in both areas. This paper reports on successful efforts to teach the TPI worldview to classes of students at the University at Albany, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Strathclyde, although the main emphasis is on a one-week seminar at the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. The paper concludes with an evaluation of these experiences.