xiv Fundamentally, simple solutions fail because they are not holistic
or creative enough.
They are not holistic because they concentrate on the parts of the organization rather than on the
whole... Management fads also stifle creativity. They pander to the notion that there is one best solution in all circumstances.
xv Because of the frequent failure of the panaceas they have offered, managers are looking for alternatives.
In increasing numbers they are turning toward systems thinking. Systems thinking managers know that simple solutions
are bound to fail when pitched against complex problem situations.
p.3 The more we study the major problems of our time, the
more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that
they are interconnected and interdependent. Capra (1996)
p.3 Simply defined, a system is a complex whole the functioning of which
depends on its parts and the interactions between those parts.
p.3 The whole emerges from the interactions between the parts,
which affect each other through complex networks of relationships.
p.4 Holism considers systems to be more than the sum of their parts. It
is of course interested in the parts and particularly the network of relationships between the parts, but primarily in terms
of how they give rise to and sustain in existence the new entity that is the whole... It is the whole that is seen as important
and gives purpose to the study.
p.7-8 The two key concepts introduced by Wiener into the systems
lexicon were control and communication... It was [Norbert] Wiener's insight that all such [purposeful] behaviour
requires negative feedback. In this process, information is transmitted about any divergence of behaviour from a present goal
and corrective action taken, on the basis of this information, to bring the behaviour back towards the goal... In
this way, systems regulate themselves and are controlled, in the face of environmental disturbances, through
effective communication of information. It is of course very important that the sensor and comparator operate continuously
and rapidly. This ensures that discrepancies are identified at the earliest possible opportunity and corrective action
can immediately be initiated.
p.10 Social and organizational systems, therefore, have multiple purposes:
they are purposeful.
p.11 Systems thinking emerged as a transdiscipline, in the 1940s and 1950s,
in large part as a reaction to the reductionism of the traditional scientific method and the failure of that reductionism
to cope with the complexity inherent in the biological and social domains... More recently, however, the physical sciences
seem to have undergone their own systems revolution and holism, and the concepts associated with it have been welcomed in
physics and chemistry as offering new forms of explanation and new avenues of exploration.
p.12-13 I am keen, however, to close the chapter with just four arguments
as to why you should bother with the systems language.
First, as we have seen, the emphasis on holism offers a useful corrective
to the reductionism that still governs much management thinking. Organizations are complex and the relationships
between the parts are crucial... Second is the emphasis modern systems thinking puts on process as well as structure...
Allowing a process to take place can lead to innovative behaviour and ways forward that could not have been foreseen before
the process was embarked on. Third is the transdisciplinarity of systems thinking. It draws its ideas and concepts,
as we have seen, from a variety of different disciplines and in so doing can draw on their different strangths...
Finally, the systems language has proven itself more suitable for getting to grips with real-world management problems
than that of any other single discipline.
p.15 As systems thinking evolved, and systems concepts
developed in the way described in the previous chapter, increasing attention was given to whether it could be used
to tackle practical real-world problems.
p.17 The "reality" facing today's managers is so complex and subject to change that it is impossible to
reduce problem situations to a form that would make them amenable to such modelling. How can we distinguish exactly which
elements contribute to the problem situation, identify the relevant interactions between them and quantify their influence?
... In managerial situations the establishment of agreed objectives will often lie at the very heart of the problem to be
tackled.
p.20-21 it is often difficult to define precise objectives... In these circumstances, methodologies
demanding a predefined goal cannot get started because they offer no way of bringing about any consensus or accommodation
around a particular goal to be pursued.
p.21 The aim of hard systems thinking was to optimize the system of concern in pursuit of a known goal,
and to do this it appeared necessary to model the interactions between all those elements or subsystems that might affect
the system of concern. In complex systems, the vast numbers of relevant variables and the myriads of interactions make this
an impossible requirement. The solution... was to identify those key mechanisms or structures that govern the behaviour
of the elements or subsystems and, therefore, are fundamental to system behaviour. It is regarded as impossible to
mathematically model the relationships between all the variables that "on the surface" appear to be involved in what the system
does. You can, however, determine the most important structural aspects that lie behind system viability and performance.
This "structuralist" approach enables the analyst to determine, at a deeper level, what is going wrong with the present
functioning of the system and to learn how to manipulate key design features so that the system can survive and be effective
over time by continually regulating itself, and self-organizing, as it adapts to internally and externally generated turbulence.
p.25 System dynamics sees the key to system behaviour as lying in the interrelationships between
the positive and negative feedback loops within which important system elements are bound. If these can be understood, then
the manager can be guided as to how he or she should intervene in order that system behaviour is controlled close to what
is regarded as desirable.
p.35 The brain metaphor, deriving directly from cybernetics, emphasizes active learning rather than
the rather passive adaptability that characterizes the organismic view. This leads to attention being focused on
decision-making, informational processing and control. The organization having decided on its purposes must be designed as
a complex system to respond to environmental disturbances relevant to those purposes.
p.65 Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing the "structures" that underlie complex situations,
and for discerning high from low leverage change... Ultimately, it simplifies life by helping us to see the
deeper patterns lying beneath the events and the details. Senge (1990)
p.66-67 According to the theory of system dynamics, the multitude of variables existing in complex systems
become causally related in feedback loops that themselves interact. The systemic interrelationships between feedback loops
constitute the structure of the system, and it is this structure that is the prime determinant of system behaviour.
p.72-73 Once the feedback structure of a system is understood and captured in a model, it is possible to
further elaborate by building a computer simulation designed to represent its dynamic behaviour. Indeed, "serious" system
dynamicists see this step as essential - regarding causal loop diagrams and system archetypes as mere "training wheels" for
systemic thinking (see Sterman, 2000).
p.74 Sterman (2000) holds out a bright future for system dynamics interacting, through computer
technology, with fields such as complexity science and artificial intelligence, and
in qualitative areas of research concerned with mental models, learning and strategic decision making.
p.78 The strengths of system dynamics rest on the power of its claim that structure is the main determinant
of system behaviour and that structure can be described in terms of the relationships between positive and negative feedback
loops.
p.82 A belief in the existence of these deeper patterns governing surface events, and its ability to unearth
them, gives to system dynamics an ability to cut through apparent complexity.
p.83 Rather than believing that system dynamics can do everything, a critical systems thinker is
likely to want to combine the strengths of system dynamics with what other systems approaches have learned to do better.
p.131-132 complexity theory teaches that:
- The most important thing that managers can do is change their way of thinking, abandoning mechanism and determinism,
and learning to appreciate and cope with relationships, dynamism, and unpredictability.
- Organizations coevolve with their environments, and therefore managing relationships with the environment
is crucial.
- The best managers are able to intuitively grasp the patterns that are driving the behaviour of their organizations
and the environments they are confronting. They look for patterns in the whole and seek small changes that can have the maximum
impact on unfavourable patterns.
p.181-182 SSM [Soft Systems Methodology] is a methodology, setting out principles for the use of methods,
that enables intervention in ill-structured problem situations where relationship maintaining is at least as important as
goal-seeking and answering questions about "what" we should do [is] as significant as determining "how" to do it.
p.183 In the absence of agreed goals and objectives... using systems ideas too early can lead to a distortion
of the problem situation and to jumping to premature conclusions. Analysis, in soft systems approaches, should consist
of building up the richest possible picture of the problem situation rather than trying to capture it in systems models.
p.183 while models produced by hard approaches are meant to be models of the real world or blueprints for
design, human activity system models are contributions to a debate about change. They explicitly set out
what activities are necessary to achieve purpose meaningful from a particular point of view. On the
basis of such models, participants in the problem situation aim to learn their way to what changes are systemically desirable
and culturally feasible. The models are thus epistemological devices [JLJ - epistemology:
the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity] used
to find out about the real world.
p.185 SSM takes reality to be problematical and ceases to worry about modelling it systemically...
Participants use a systemic methodology to learn what changes are feasible and desirable given the peculiarities of
their problem situation... SSM shifts "systemicity from the world to the process of enquiry into the world."
p.186 The concept of "organization" set out by Checkland and Holwell suggests, following Vickers
(1965, 1970), that management is much more about managing a richly unfolding set of relationships than it
is about taking rational decisions to achieve goals. This, of course, is exactly what SSM seeks to do.
p.208 SSM asks managers to replace the goal-seeking approach with which they have been inculcated
with a model based on relationship maintaining. Using human activity system models they can learn their way
to what changes to the problem situation are desirable and feasible
p.208 SSM does not require the establishment of clear goals before problem resolving can begin;
rather, it maps onto the normal managerial tasks of considering the "mess", suggesting ways forward
p.209 SSM, with its associated principles and methods, is an achievement that revitalized
the systems approach and has hugely increased its relevance to business and management.
