Challenges to systems thinking*

[David Kerridge <dfkerridge@mac.com>]

In the course of a very interesting post entitled "Thinking outside
the box" Vic Forte plays Devil's advocate by saying.

At 10:41 am +0100 3/6/02, vic@vicf.com wrote:
>Nature is a great systems thinker. But if we take nature as our model,
>survival is not a requirement of systems within nature - ecology demands
>that the lion consume the antelope; the fish consume the plankton. So is it
>not the case that systems thinking may mislead people and create false
>expectations?

I was sorry to see that no one rose to this challenge, or the other
equally provocative challenges in the same post. In the hope of
persuading others to go back to Vic's message, I offer these thoughts.



It is true that systems theories as developed by various writers
(eg Bertalanffy, Wiener) were explicitly based on models in nature,
and do (in my view) lead people astray.

I don't mean that it has no value. It is interesting to see what sort
of things would happen in a competitive environment - some good,
some not so good. Free and aggressive competition is the model most
widely adopted for the business world.

As I understand it, Deming's theory of a system was, from the
first, a theory of cooperation, not competition. For example,
writing to JUSE about the lectures he was to give in Japan, he
says:

"I shall teach during the forenoons the theory of a system, and
cooperation."

It seems to me, therefore, that Deming's ideas were completely
at odds with the later (but better known) theories based on biology.

This is not to say that one is right, and the other wrong. WED
used to say "Every theorem is true in its own world. The question
is, which world are we in?" Wiener's theory of control,
and Bertalanffy's theory of competition, all have their uses,
just as does the even older theory of Thermodynamic systems
(to which Shewhart explicitly refers).

In general, businesses *are* in the world of unfettered competition.
But we can change any "world" that we control, such as within our
own organisation, if we are the boss. This may influence the
wider world to see that there is a better way.


-- 
Best wishes

David

dfkerridge@mac.com