It's stunning to me that many people think this is some sort of novel and patentable idea, even though it's very general and widespread. It's a great idea, cer

It's stunning to me that many people think this is some sort of novel and patentable idea, even though it's very general and widespread. It's a great idea, certainly, but this type of thinking has been around for decades. The first major adoption was probably W. Edwards Deming's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming) quality principles that were used to pull Japan out of the post-WWII recession. His ideas on systems thinking and management are still relevant today. This idea -- that systems thinking is valuable, and how to approach it -- is such a generic concept as to be unattributable. It would be nice to have a nod toward history, certainly, and it would help support his writing; but I just like to see it in the first place. We need more of this.