Donatella Meadows created real impact wherever she went.
You might also want to look into real-life studies of efficiency and safety by people such as Deming, Weinberg, Womack, Leveson, Dekker, Shewhart, Hollnagel, Ward, etc. There plenty of evidence that it works, even if Meadow's more popular book isn't filled with references.
I read the book twice. I walked away feeling the same as OP. I would appreciate it a lot of you have any other reference material on this, any book or resource that convinced you or helped you. I feel I'm close to grasping the underlying reasoning and benefits, but think I am missing a slightly different angle on this.
I lent my copy to my brother over a decade ago. Still haven't got it back...
Also Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design by Donald Gause and Gerald Weinberg. Really useful advice about questions to ask people to understand what the system really does/should do.
You might also want to look into real-life studies of efficiency and safety by people such as Deming, Weinberg, Womack, Leveson, Dekker, Shewhart, Hollnagel, Ward, etc. There plenty of evidence that it works, even if Meadow's more popular book isn't filled with references.