A practical systems thinking glossary covering stocks, flows, feedback loops, archetypes, and leverage points in plain language.
Foundational Terms
A stock is an accumulation (water, money, trust); a flow is the rate that fills or drains it. This systems thinking glossary starts here because nearly every other concept builds on these two.
Feedback and Loop Terms
Reinforcing loops amplify change; balancing loops resist it and seek a goal. Delay describes the lag between cause and visible effect, often the reason systems overshoot before correcting.
Structural and Pattern Terms
Archetypes are recurring loop patterns, like limits to growth or shifting the burden, that show up across unrelated domains. Emergence describes system-level behavior that no single part exhibits alone.
Intervention Terms
Leverage points are places to intervene in a system, ranked from weak (adjusting a number) to strong (shifting the system’s underlying goal or paradigm). A well-used systems thinking glossary keeps these distinctions sharp rather than treating all interventions as equal.
