Customer Reviews

The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small

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Great book. Somewhat tongue in check.

For those of us that work on (or in) system, this is a must read book.

You'll understand why the Federal government and computer systems work the way they do.

After reading this, every time a colleague complained about a system (computer or otherwise) I'd just smile and think of something I read in this book. System's have their own behaviors and own rules.

Reading this book will help you understand the trade-offs of systems.

In this book, author John Gall creates a tongue-in-cheek approach to systems behavior that is refreshing, eye-opening and a delightful respite from the usual academic or mechanistic perspectives that have overwhelmed our literature on the subject since 1990 when Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline became a bestseller.

I first read it in the early 1990s as "Systemantics," which is no longer available under that title. The author has added to it substantially and changed the title (which I wish he hadn't done) but it is still a light-hearted review of all those dysfunctional systems upon which we continue to rely. God bless them all!

I first found a copy of Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail. It was the first edition of The Systems Bible. If you wonder why the world cannot be fixed by creating more systems, this book is for you. Even if you haven't wondered, this book is still for everyone who likes to ask questions and wants clear answers. In short, the system does not do what the systems says it's doing, and reality is what is being reported to the system. Clear insights like these allow you to recognize the absurdity of so many things we take for granted. What's more, this book brings it to you with a great sense of humor, in itself a vehicle to open up to John Gall's geniality in analyzing our castle of cards.