RE: Challenges to systems thinking

[Miller Charles L SSSD <MillerCL@SUPSHIP.NAVY.MIL>]

  This is word for word out of, "The New Economics".
  Quoted pages 92,93,94,95,96, in Chapter 4 of, "The New Economics".
Chapter 4 s is titled, "A System of Profound Knowledge."
  "Aim of this chapter.  The prevailing style of management must undergo
transformation.  A system can not understand itself.  The transformation
requires a view from outside.  The aim of this chapter is to provide an
outside view---a lens---that I call a system of profound knowledge.  It
provides a map of theory by which to understand the organizations that we
work in.
  The first step.  the first stem is transformation of the individual.  This
transformation is discontinuous.  It comes from understanding of the system
of profound knowledge.  The individual, transformed, will perceive new
meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interaction between people.  
  Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will
apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people.  He
will have a basis for judgement of his own decisions and for transformation
of the organizations the he belongs to.  The individual, once transformed
will:
		Set the example
		Be a good listener, but will not compromise
		Continually teach other people
		Help people to pull away form their current practice and
beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a felling of guilt about
the past
  The outside view.  The layout of profound knowledge appears here in four
parts, all related to each other:
		Appreciation for a system
		Knowledge about variation
		Theory of knowledge
		Psychology
  One need not be eminent in any part nor in all four parts in order to
understand it and to apply it.  The 14 points for management (Out of the
Crisis, Ch. 2) in industry, education, and government follow naturally as
application of this outside knowledge, for transformation from the present
style of Western management to one of optimization.
  Preliminary work.  The various segments of the system of profound
knowledge proposed here can not be separated.  They interact with each
other.  Thus, knowledge of psychology is incomplete without knowledge of
variation. A manager of people needs to understand that all people are
different.  This is not ranking people.  He needs to understand that the
performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in,
the responsibility of management.  A psychologist that possesses even a
crude understanding of variation as will be learned in the experiment with
the Red Beads (Ch. 7) could no longer participate in refinement of a plan
for ranking people.
  Further illustrations of entwinement of psychology and use of the theory
of variation (statistical theory) are boundless.  For example, the number of
defective items that an inspector finds depends on the size of the work load
presented to him (documented by Harold F. Dodge in the Bell Telephone
Laboratories around 1926).  An inspector, careful not to penalize anybody
unjustly, may pass an item that is just outside the borderline (Out of the
Crisis, p. 266).  The inspector in the illustration on page 265 on the same
book, to save the jobs of 300 people, held the proportion of defective items
below 10 percent.  She was in fear for their jobs.
  A teacher, not wishing to penalize anyone unjustly, will pass a pupil that
is barely below the requirement for passing grade.
  Fear invites wrong figures.  Bearers of bad news fare badly.  to keep his
jib, anyone may present to his boss only good news.
  A committee appointed by the President of a company will report what the
President wishes to hear.  Would they dare report otherwise?
  An individual may inadvertently seek to cast a halo about himself.  He may
report to an interviewer in a study of readership that he reads the New York
Times, when actually this morning he bought and read a tabloid.  
  Statistical calculations and predictions based on warped figures may lead
to confusion, frustration, and wrong decisions.
  Accounting-based measures of performance drive employees to achieve
targets of sales, revenue and costs, by manipulation of processes, and by
flattery of delusive promises to cajole a customer into purchase of what he
does not need (adapted from the book by H. Thomas Johnson, Relevance
Regained, The Free Press, 1992).
  A leader of transformation, and managers involved, need to learn the
psychology of individual, the psychology of a group, the psychology of
society, and the psychology of change.
  Some understanding of variation, including, appreciation of a stable
system, and some understanding of special and common causes of variation,
are essential for management of a system, including management of people
(Chs. 6,7,8,9,10).
  What is a system?  As we learned in Chapter 3, a system is a network of
interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of
the system.  A system must have and aim.  Without an aim, there is no
system.  We learned also in Chapter 3 that a system must be managed."
  Respectfully
  Charlie
  millercl@supship.navy.mil
  


-----Original Message-----
From: TQNELSON@aol.com [mailto:TQNELSON@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 26, 2002 3:47 PM
To: den.list@deming.ces.clemson.edu
Subject: Re: Challenges to systems thinking 


Wayne.mack@pec.com writes:

<< First, Dr. Deming wrote of "A" system of profound knowledge not "The" 
system of profound knowledge, and second, Appreciation of Systems, 
Understanding of Variation, Psychology, and a Theory of Knowledge are 
components of Profound Knowledge, not components of a system of profound 
knowledge.
  >>