At the First Global Conference on Research and Implementation, held in Canberra, Australia, in September 2013, Gerald Midgley gave an introductory talk on systems thinking. Midgley is a British organizational theorist, professor of systems thinking, director of the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, and past president (2013-14) of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. Other presidents of the ISSS that I have already written about, sometimes fleetingly, include Ashby (1962-64), Stafford Beer (1971), Mead (1972), Checkland (1986), Ackoff (1987), Churchman (1989), Mitroff (1992, pointed out to me by David Ing, himself president in 2011-12), Linstone (1993), Nelson (2000), and Jackson (2001). So now it’s the turn of Midgley, whom I know indirectly through my work with Bob William as a co-author of Wicked Solutions. Midgley’s talk is superbly concise (just 23 minutes if we leave out the introduction and the questions), so I decided…