Comments

I want to see pictures!

Posted by Leonard Klaatu at October 1, 2007 11:37 AM

Tom
Thanks for sharing your personal experience as a one-man complex adaptive system employing robust adaptive strategies (sorry, thats what they taught me to say in school).

How does a business keep from getting distracted/off course from a potentially great source of profit by pursuing the many serendipitous opportunities it might encounter--assuming you don't have capital to fund them all? How do you build a house without ending up with the Winchester mansion (assuming you don't want doors to nowhere and stairs that go into the ceiling)?

I like your approach, I'd just like to know where (if) you draw the line between persistence and futility, or pursuit of serendipitous opportunity and flakiness/lack of commitment.

Posted by Paul at October 1, 2007 2:08 PM

Systems 4.0 - run, walk, lift weights, bike, triathlon, elliptical train & in the best free enterprise sense - hire people to do the heavy lifting & brush sifting - while totally enjoying mother nature as an ultimate leisure lounger :>]

Posted by John at October 1, 2007 4:02 PM

Can you please post a few pictures of your Zen garden work in progress.

Posted by Sven at October 1, 2007 7:30 PM

Is there a difference between "systems thinking" and "systems acting?"

If I know that the work I do is about improving the overall performance of a system, then I should probably have a theory about that system. What do I think will happen when I push this button, pull this string?

The problem I see you've identified is that the understanding that one is dealing with a complex system often leads to paralysis. It leads to more studies about what might happen when different buttons are pushed. And those studies will never be conclusive... and so we get more studies... and so on.

And thats why you, Tom, have been an inspiration to me. I might even be considered a certified systems thinker... but it was reading In Search of Excellence when I was 19 that helped me on my road to becoming a dedicated button pusher. For SURE, we have a thought about what the button might do... but we work in a political environment... you never know until you push it.

Your work tells us to be systems actors. To realize that everything we do won't have a linear outcome, but to act anyway. Have confidence in your ability to deal with the eventualities, and to surround yourself with people who LOVE doing just that.

Keeps me going, I know that.

Posted by Terry Rock at October 1, 2007 9:42 PM

"I like your approach, I'd just like to know where (if) you draw the line between persistence and futility, or pursuit of serendipitous opportunity and flakiness/lack of commitment."--Paul. Life-business is pure art, not science. Which is to say that by definition there is no answer to your pivotal question. I think I read somewhere that Richard Branson's head teacher once told him, "You'll either end up famous or in jail." GEN U.S. Grant is my hero--a man of "relentless" action--he won a war so he's a hero; if he'd lost he'd be a goat.

Posted by tom peters at October 2, 2007 10:54 AM

"If I know that the work I do is about improving the overall performance of a system"--Terry Rock

You see, Terry, I'm not even sure about that. During my political science training I was hammered by the continual horror of "unintended consequences." You can be totally oppossed to G Bush, but we must surely acknowledge that his goal in Iraq was not to strengthen Al Quaeda's recruiting pitch--which seems to have been an unintentional byproduct of faulty execution of the primary goal. So I find it hard to be arrogant enough (that's not aimed at you, but at myself) to "know" that I am even in the proccess of improving overall system performance. It's that John Lennon line, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans."

Bottom line (per me): One muddles through--and prays for the occasional stroke of luck. (We are "celebrating" the 25th anniversary of In Search of Excellence this month--and if you don't think it's incredible takeoff was a matter of luck, you're smoking funny stuff.)

Posted by tom peters at October 2, 2007 11:05 AM

Well said Tom – with you 100% … Long live randomness and chance discoveries ... life (and work) should be about getting your fingers slightly hot – you don’t have to get them burned … Just try it .. And the best plan is to have no plan …

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 2, 2007 1:20 PM

Trevor: "No one rises so high as he who knows not where he is going"--Ollie Cromwell. (I had a power boat on our Lake Champlain years ago. I named it "The Cromwell," solely in tribute to OC's quote above.)

Posted by tom peters at October 2, 2007 1:43 PM

Thanks, Tom. Great perspective.

Posted by Paul at October 2, 2007 2:41 PM

If Gen. Grant had lost the war, would he still be your hero?

Posted by Paul at October 2, 2007 2:53 PM

Thank Tom - William Pitt - youngest ever Prime Minister in Britain at 24 in 1783 said to his similar age friend the immortal William Wilberforce - 'We are too young to know certain things are not possible' - Don’t you just love that?

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 2, 2007 4:12 PM

Complex financial systems' & health systems' mastery is a must - otherwise one lives a disease ridden subprime lifestyle - caution & healthfulness tossed carelessly to the wind awaiting the next "immortal" breakdown :>]

Posted by John at October 2, 2007 6:06 PM

Tom, you say, "You can be totally opposed to G Bush, but we must surely acknowledge that his goal in Iraq was not to strengthen Al Quaeda's recruiting pitch--which seems to have been an unintentional byproduct of faulty execution of the primary goal."

No one faulted or disputed George Bush's goal - ie Saddam's removal and a peaceful, democratic, Iraq.

The problem with the "unintentional byproducts" is that the rest of the world - and the likes of Colin Powell - saw it coming. Idealism and action is all fine, but maturity is what was needed - the maturity to think about consequences, and the consequences of those consequences.

Moreover, you can't just blame faulty execution - as though this is simply some kind of business strategy that didn't work out well. This is a war, and people - especially innocent and powerless Iraqis - have lost their lives. That's the reason people are opposed to Bush - that as the US President, he, above all, should have clearly thought through what was going to happen. He did not do that.

No doubt you think George Bush has a "bias for action". But especially in things like wars, it's better to have the evidence you claim you have - that Saddam indeed had WMDs (he didn't), and that Saddam had links with Al Qaida (he didn't). You can't use a prototyping approach for a war - try something, see what works, and try again. Because when you wage war, in the process of trying something, you are first breaking something. And that something (Iraq) was not George Bush's to break.

Remember Colin Powell's pottery barn rule: you break it, you own it. And the problem with countries is that once you break them, they are not easy to fix. I know, because India and Pakistan are still living with the legacy of colonial Britain's breaking us apart. Presumably, the Brits weren't thinking of the consequences and the consequences of those consequences (still being felt 60 years on). Obviously, thinking things through wasn't a big deal for the colonial Brits, but millions of Indians and Pakistanis lost their lives. You don't have to live with Bush's "unintentional byproducts", so it's easy for you to say.

In a recent article in the NY Times, Tom Friedman wrote that the US's biggest export is now fear, not hope. He's right on the button, because all of us now fear the US's "bias for action" - in other words, quick on the trigger. But sadly, maybe fear is what Americans want us non-Americans to feel.

Posted by Chetan Dhruve at October 3, 2007 12:20 AM

Another way to understand the whole issue of thinking & acting is "ecosystem thinking" and "going with the flow."

Ecosystems are essentially not created by people. People are part of the larger ecosystem, and we need to discover that by observing the signs. Ecosystems (the macro system of being, and the micro-systems - carbon cycle, business cycle, life cycle, etc.) have a dynamic, which we simply understand by exploration and discovery.

Once we master and understand certain underlying patterns within the ecosystem, we make them part of our repertoire of methods. The key here is to not stick to one method, but to move from one pattern to another given the novelty of the situation as it evolves. In other words, do lateral thinking.

In essence both linear and networked/ star fish connections are not the contradiction of each other, but part of the larger whole.

The problem is the mind's tenacity to one pattern or micro-system - which gives birth to the misnomer (IMO) "systems thinking." It should be renamed as "sticking-to-singular-pattern thinking."

The ancients, who essentially had to do things by hand and make discoveries out of necessity therefore "got it." For us civilized generations who have delegated the task of living and working to machines, and built stakes in non-changing/ permanent systems (wherein lies the problem) - discovery by conscious effort is needed.

A conscious, willful decision to pick up the tools and shape a garden, for instance. This is how the ancient learned the arts and sciences. We are only dwelling on derivatives of their knowledge and experience.

I think it's going to be one a very important and revealing experience for you, Tom, and for us, your readers. Your words remind one of.. Michaelangelo(?) who saw the shape within the stone, and simply chiseled off the unnecessary parts to reveal the sculpture he could "see" within.

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Photos, please.

Posted by Ramla A. at October 3, 2007 4:53 AM

Chetan, I disagree with your assessment. I don't think we can recognize, with any degree of accuracy, the full 1st order consequences of a major action such as war, much less the second order consequences, or "consequences of the consequences", as you termed it. To believe that we are that capable is epistemic arrogance. Bush's administration likely DID try to anticipate 1st and 2nd order consequences, only they anticipated the ones they wanted to see. Others anticipated less optimistic consequences, and time proved them to be right. It does not mean they were any better at it--I believe a high degree of luck was involved.

This is exactly why I asked Tom if Grant would still be his hero had he lost. Is Grant a great general because he won the war, or did he win the war because he was a great general? Has Bush's war policy failed because he is a poor strategic planner, or is Bush a poor strategic planner because his war policy failed?

This is precisely why action is so important. We have far, far less ability to predict outcomes than we think we do. Much deliberation is needless, and I think the outcomes are more random than we realize (yet we trick ourselves into thinking it worked out because we planned it that way). The most we can hope for is to get out there, "thrash around", and see if something good happens. If something doesn't, keep moving.

I absolutely believe hard work and skill play their role, too, so don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that a lot of what we attribute to those two actually belongs to luck as well.

Read Arrian's account of the Battle of the Granicus. Alexander rushes into battle against the judgment of his wise old general Parmenion. You will see that Alexander comes within inches of death in his very first battle! Had he been killed (which he easily could have been), would we then consider him a poor, arrogant general, rather than one of the best of all time? What a role luck plays, then!

Perhaps your experience in war has been much different than mine, but in my experience we constantly tried something, saw if it worked, and kept at it if it did, abandoned it if it didn't.

I have no doubt you are intelligent, but to think that the development of nations like India and Pakistan could have been foreseen in any reliable way is a shortsighted mistake that many intelligent people make. I do not agree that the Brits merely "thinking about it" a little longer would have made a lick of difference. Things may have turned out differently, but they would have equal chance of being worse as they would better.

IMHO.

Posted by Paul at October 3, 2007 2:32 PM

Fascinating exchange Paul and Chetan … A few months ago I read ‘Shackleton’s Way’ a wonderful book that I recommend for anyone who with an interest in leadership. Ernest Shackleton ‘lost’ in some people’s opinion because he failed in his expedition to the Antarctic – that was the goal. Shackleton planned the expedition in great detail and had contingency plans if things went wrong – a plan B I guess. However, Shackleton has been called ‘the greatest leader that ever came on God’s earth bar none’ for saving the lives of the 27 men stranded with him on an Antarctic ice floe for almost two years.

I respectfully suggest there is a sort of link between Shackleton’s story and the discussion between you two guys. Personally I say Shackleton is a great leader for saving 27 men yet others will argue he is not because he ‘lost’ - he didn’t achieve the intended outcome.

cheap viagra on line mastercard Don’t know whether this helps or confuses the debate but thank you both for forcing me to think!! – That is one of the joys of TP Blog.

And BTW Chetan - I love the Ghandi remark when asked what he thought of Democracy in the western world – Ghandi replied ‘I think it would be a very good idea’ I am pretty sure my Brit predecessors did not always get it right. The biggest problem I have is that if we really are so bright in 2007 then why don’t we learn from history? Invading other countries – to try and impose ‘our view’ of ‘right and wrong’ will never work – when will we understand that? – It really is not that complicated is it?

I am lucky not to have been involved in military conflict so I am not critical of our wonderful troops for whom I have the utmost respect. My gripe is with politicians and leaders who demonstrate that - by their actions - they believe meeting violence with violence is a sensible adult strategy in 2007 and a civilised way of solving problems when we mere mortals just know that approach never works.

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 4, 2007 8:20 AM

Tom,
I was very favorably impressed with your "loose-tight" idea.
As in act and react, but do the accounting. Art and science.
Did I misunderstand?
John

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Posted by ShakespearesFool at October 4, 2007 1:58 PM

Tom,
Back to the rocks and trees.
You remind me
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall
That sends the frozen ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun. . . . "

and

"I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene. . . . "

John

Posted by ShakespearesFool at October 4, 2007 2:13 PM

If you want true inspiration, check out the Japanese Zen Gardens in Portland. Several rock gardens and a few water gardens will definitely wet your appetite.

Posted by Joe S at October 9, 2007 2:59 PM

Hello Trevor, first a correction – Gandhi wasn’t asked about western democracy, but western civilization.

Second, your predecessors weren’t the only ones who messed up. India intervened militarily in Sri Lanka’s civil war in the 1980s, with the result that over a thousand Indian soldiers died. Luckily the Indian government saw the light and withdrew its troops, though former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was nonetheless assassinated for his role in the conflict. I guess the decision to withdraw was made ‘easier’ because Sri Lanka doesn’t have oil. The civil war in Sri Lanka continues to this day.

Posted by Chetan Dhruve at October 12, 2007 11:48 AM