1/ Developing a basic understanding and intuition around how complex systems work may be the most important thing I've learned in the last five years.
2/ Here are some of the resources I've found helpful...
4/ I'm normally not a big course person and prefer books, but being able to run simulations with different parameters and see how they affect system behavior did a lot to hone my intuition.
5/ Per Bak's Sandpile metaphor is extremely helpful and well summarized here - nautil.us/issue/23/domin…
6/ Almost all of Nassim Taleb's work is about how human misunderstand the behavior of complex systems. Start with Fooled by Randomness - amzn.to/2GLp5IK
7/ Benoit Mandelbrot's Misbehavior of Markets uses complex systems thinking to absolutely annihilate the efficient market hypothesis and all the financial orthodoxy built on top of it - amzn.to/2FD2fE5
8/ The Cynefin Framework from James Snowden is really helpful for understanding when you are dealing with a complex system as opposed to a simple, complicated or chaotic one - hbr.org/2007/11/a-lead…
9/ Chaos by @JamesGleick was the book that brought the field into the popular consciousness and reads like a thriller - amzn.to/2F3z8Mj
10/ Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows creates a vocabulary to be able to talk about systems and gives a good high-level overview - amzn.to/2F3z8Mj
11/ Though not explicitly about complex systems, @Ribbonfarm's archives have a certain complex sensibility that influenced me. Particularly got a lot of mileage out of hedgehogs vs. foxes - ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the… and the calculus of grit - ribbonfarm.com/2011/08/19/the…
12/ John Boyd's OODA Loop framework is a practical and actionable framework for operating within complex systems. I wrote a summary - taylorpearson.me/ooda-loop/
13/ All the 8020 stuff by @RichardKoch8020 (amzn.to/2FxXqf2) and @PerryMarshall (amzn.to/2HLj6oG) offers very helpful and actionable advice and how to apply complex systems thinking to life and business
14/ Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott offers a detailed case study of the devastation that happens when people who don't understand complex systems try to meddle in them - amzn.to/2FAP6ve
15/ There is probably no better example of a complex system than evolution. I really like Ernst Mayr's What Evolution Is - amzn.to/2ESSWmi and Dawkin's Blind Watchmaker - amzn.to/2FAIKM0
16/ Tolstoy wins my vote for the fiction author who most deeply understood complex systems and is breathtakingly beautiful to boot - amzn.to/2HKmkIZ
Oh, and how could I forget John Kay's wonderful book Obliquity on complex thinking applied to goal setting - amzn.to/2Fyeq4K
