Comments

I agree with this, but for me System thinking is about doing something, seeing how it chnages the system and then doing something else. So action plays a very big part in al of this.
Without action no theory works

Posted by Yves Hanoulle at October 4, 2007 11:21 AM

Amused with much of Paul's spin. Saw Nassim Taleb on CSPAN the other day - & he is totally in command of his professionalism - that is for sure.

Enjoy "Black Swan" and it changed me right down to investment choices. Dinesh D'Souza is another flexible & clear thinker/doer - he understands the Iran/Iraq war & Islamic heritage better than most anyone & that Shia easily can be at war with each other = power quest & not sects v. sects per se.

Free enterprise media is a big "systems thinking & luck" challenge - 90% focus on Britney, et al & 10% on real value :>]

Posted by John at October 4, 2007 12:36 PM

We like to think "A" causes behavior "Z." But we know in organizations it's more like A+B+C+D+E cause "Z" to occur. Many change efforts fail because the big picture (systems thinking) isn't used to consider how the various factors and processes interact to produce behavior. The bigger the organization the more difficult it is to identify the key driving factors and understand how they interact. If I pull lever one what happens? Organizational behavior is complex and dynamic In my experience most managers/leaders are action oriented. But without some systems thinking--just "doing something" may stop the bleeding, but it probably won't raise performance to a new level. The system is still broken.
I'm a big fan of the 7S model. When I consider changing one of the organizations Ss I know there is a good chance that 2 or 3 others Ss will require change if I expect some new behavior to stick.

Posted by Paul Thornton at October 4, 2007 12:57 PM

"But without some systems thinking--just 'doing something' may stop the bleeding ..."

Paul, I'd be a fool not to agree. But my unshakeable belief is that, in sizeable organizations, "doing something" is the rarest of occurences. Bob W and I said, 25 years ago, that problem #1 in Big Biz is "too much talk, too little do." Nothing has changed in that regard, or as the pace of change has accelerated, things have gotten worse.

Posted by tom peters at October 4, 2007 1:06 PM

"Nothing has changed in that regard ..." Tom - please explain - everything has changed in 25 years - USA "doing" is entrenched worldwide with many corporate revenue streams mainly offshore. Exceptions of course like GM who's healthcare is so extravagant that they are the #1 consumer of Viagra :>]

Posted by John at October 4, 2007 1:38 PM

Tom,
My experience--there's lots of "doing"--reorganizations, new comp systems, six sigma, reduce layers of management, work redesign, new initiatives focused on customer satisfaction or employyee satisfaction etc. The problem is when these changes are implemented they're done in a piecemeal fashion. No one is looking/considering the bigger picture/system. Sooo each initiative has some initial impact but fads away because all the support pieces haven't changed.
As you have taught me--real change requires alignment, intergration, and execution of all the parts.

Posted by Paul Thornton at October 4, 2007 2:09 PM

Having elicited a 'duh' from Tom about my 'everything is connected' comment - I run the risk of another, BUT can't resist. Just because we can't figure out how the system works (any order of consequence)does not mean it isn't a system. Randomness is inexplicable/ misunderstood/ unexpected result/consequence, but it is still a consequence. And I'll be b*ggered if I am going to yield to the gods of chance: it is our duty as homo sapiens to try to understand. (Is my understanding of chaos theory WRONG if I think it says there is NO chaos, and that there IS a pattern to everything? If not, systems thinking rules...:-)

Posted by Dennis at October 4, 2007 4:11 PM

Dennis,

The post below is a little long but it definatly keeps with the everything is connected theme, explains randomeness in a way I (and probably most) hadn't seen before and does it terms of initially reviewing the "Black Swan".

http://perfdynamics.blogspot.com/2007/09/black-swans-instantons-hedge-funds-and.html

Posted by Stephen at October 4, 2007 6:33 PM

Does anyone care to comment on the role "willing" system change?

Consider this excerpt about causation and will from Tolstoy's war and peace:

"While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable conflicts of various wills!"

Posted by Rich at October 5, 2007 1:24 PM

Tom and everyone, I apologize in advance for my lengthy response.

1. Paul states, “I don't think we can recognize, with any degree of accuracy, the full 1st order consequences of a major action such as war.”

If you (a superpower) don’t know with any degree of accuracy what’s going to happen in a war against a weak, impoverished, sanctions-hit and fearful nation, don’t start a war. Innocent people (who don’t have a vote about the war) are going to die.

2. Paul talks about randomness and luck.

If you (a superpower) are partly counting on luck to win the war and the peace against a weak, impoverished, sanctions-hit and fearful nation, don’t start a war. Innocent people (who don’t have a vote about the war) are going to die.

The real question is not of luck but of probability. How much effort was put into making sure that there was 100% probability that America would win the war, compared to the effort in making sure that the aftermath would be 100% peaceful?

3. Paul asks, “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?”

These are irrelevant questions because Bush does not think he has failed. Saddam was ousted, and that’s Bush’s main measure of success; that’s why “Mission Accomplished” was flaunted so quickly and so publicly.

4. Paul says, “This is precisely why action is so important…..The most we can hope for is to get out there, "thrash around", and see if something good happens.”

If the most you (a superpower) can hope for is to get out there, and “thrash around” to see if something good happens in a war against a weak, impoverished, sanctions-hit and fearful nation, don’t start a war. Innocent people (who don’t have a vote about the war) are going to die.

How would you like it if I started a war in your neighborhood, and in the process of thrashing around, smashed down the door to your home in the dead of night, humiliated you (and perhaps carted you off to an Abu Ghraib equivalent) while your terrified – and probably hungry - wife and kids cowered pitifully on the floor? How about if I didn’t care how delicately balanced your society was? How about if I accidentally (though with extreme regularity) killed your fellow citizens and didn’t care how many I’d killed (“we don’t do body counts”)?

Sorry, I keep forgetting that I am supposed to say “collateral damage”.

5. In the case of India’s Partition, the British needn’t have put any effort into deep thinking. They simply could have asked the resident expert in the region what he thought. That resident expert happened to be Mahatma Gandhi, and he was dead set against Partition.

Although I’m not comparing Gandhi with Colin Powell, Bush didn’t ask his resident expert Powell what he thought about the war. In his book, Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward says, “In all the discussions, meetings, chats and back-and-forth, the president had never once asked Powell, Would you do this? What’s your overall advice? The bottom line? Perhaps the president feared the answer.”

Finally, Systems Thinking does not mean paralysis. It simply means you had better look at all the crazy things that can happen. If these things are so complicated that you can’t figure out what will happen, don’t start a war, because innocent people (who don’t have a vote about the war) are going to die.

Posted by Chetan Dhruve at October 12, 2007 11:32 AM