What is Donella Meadows?

Donella Meadows was a scientist, writer, and systems thinker best known as lead author of 'The Limits to Growth' and for her widely cited list of 'leverage points,' the places within a complex system where a small shift can produce large changes in behavior, ranked from shallow parameters to deep changes in a system's underlying goals and paradigm.

Meadows argued that most people try to intervene at the least effective leverage points, tweaking numbers and rules, while the highest-leverage changes come from shifting a system's goals, information flows, and the mindset out of which the system arises, an insight that remains one of the most cited ideas in the field.