I first met Barry Dunn in 2010. It was at a leadership program sponsored by the American Simmental Association, and it was hosted by South Dakota State University. He had just become he Dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences. He’s since become the president of the school itself.

I recall him to be a slight man, tall and thin. He wore wire rim glasses. It all made it hard to picture him working cows. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of profanity in him.

I was there to learn new things. I suppose I thought I already knew a great deal at the time. A few of the things I thought I knew, I still know. One is that the cattle business is a people business.

The topic he chose to discuss was related to cattle production. Its application went far beyond that, however. Occasionally, I am able to dust it off and make some use of it.

“Have any of you heard of the idea of Systems Theory?”

I hadn’t. If anyone else in the room had, they decided to keep it to themselves.

“Systems Theory is an idea that has been around for awhile. It pops in a lot of places, and can be found in several of the sciences. The idea is that in order to properly understand something, we need to look at how the thing or individual functions and is impacted by the whole of the system it is in.

The popular author, Malcom Gladwell, uses the following story to describe the ideas of Systems Theory. It goes something like this:

On the most basic level there are two types of systems in life: simple and complex. The simple system works along the following lines: You are in your house. You are cold. You turn the thermostat up. You are warm.

The complex system, on the other hand, functions as follows: You are in your house. You are cold. You turn the thermostat up. You get colder.

We spend most of our lives convinced that we live in simple systems. What we fail to see is that most of the systems we are in are actually complex. In such a manner, we spend our time actively working against that which we most desire.”