A person cannot make lasting changes to the behavior of a system without first understanding its structure.

The structure of a system determines the limits of its performance—what events will it produces and what patterns will those event form.

Causal Loop Diagrams provide one way to describe the structure of systems.

Examples of systemic structure:

• fractional reserve banking, the Fed’s power to create reserves, and mental models of those in charge. A structure that influences the natural market forces to expand credit without limit (reinforcing process)
• the capacity of the government to spend money. It drives increasing taxes, borrowing, and inflationary monetary policy (reinforcing process)
• the free market system. It gives the greatest influence to consumers for all levels of the market (generally balancing process)