Network Thinking and Design Thinking

Manuel Lima on LinkedIn:

Following a devastating collapse of the cod stocks in Newfoundland in the late 1990s, millions of seals were killed in an effort to bring back the golden days of cod fishing. However, as suggested by many studies, the indiscriminate killing of seals had an opposite effect on the ecosystem by contributing to the spread of bacteria on the ocean floor, which in turn led to hypoxia—a condition where areas of the ocean lose their dissolved oxygen and are unable to sustain any type of fish or marine life.

The use of seals as scapegoats is symptomatic of the broad mismanagement of fisheries and wildlife and, sadly, is the result of a prevalent view that sees predators as problems to be controlled and not as integral parts of a functioning ecology. Even today, many decision makers have a naive view of nature and look at food webs as simplified trees of dependencies. However, when we talk about ecosystems, we are dealing with highly challenging problems of organized complexity, where thousands of species shape an intricate mesh of interdependence.

The renowned zoologist David Lavigne has long been fighting against this misconception. To prove that seals were not the only intervening agent in the cod collapse, Lavigne produced a stunning visual representation of the vast Northwest Atlantic cod food web (depicted below), showing close to a hundred different species in a dense network of interrelation. This intricate aquatic lattice shows how infantile our conceptions of natural systems—like the linear predator-prey diagrams we learned at school—have been.

Thinking nature is to think systemic—to think in networks.

Earlier he talked about the value of design thinkers to be systemic thinkers.

Design thinking should become synonymous with network thinking. This is the only way for us to fully understand repercussions, to design more consciously and sustainably. Thinking in networks ultimately means thinking about reciprocity, causation, symbiosis, and interdependence. It also means asking big, unusual, and often uncomfortable questions. What is the connection between weather and human conflict? Between the availability of a product in Miami and a storm in Asia? Between deforestation and hunger? Between plastic production and human health?