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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
From the winner of the INCOSE Pioneer Award 2022
The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues.
Leaders of international bodies such as the UN, OECD, UNESCO and WHO — and of major business, public sector, charitable, and professional organizations — have all declared that systems thinking is an essential leadership skill for managing the complexity of the economic, social and environmental issues that confront decision makers. Systems thinking must be implemented more generally, and on a wider scale, to address these issues.
An evaluation of different systems methodologies suggests that they concentrate on different aspects of complexity. To be in the best position to deal with complexity, decision makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and learn how to employ them in combination. This is called critical systems thinking. Making use of over 25 case studies, the book offers an account of the development of systems thinking and of major efforts to apply the approach in real-world interventions. Further, it encourages the widespread use of critical systems practice as a means of ensuring responsible leadership in a complex world.
The INCOSE Pioneer Award is presented to someone who, by their achievements in the engineering of systems, has contributed uniquely to major products or outcomes enhancing society or meeting its needs. The criteria may apply to a single outstanding outcome or a lifetime of significant achievements in effecting successful systems.
Comments on a previous version of the book:
Russ Ackoff: ‘the book is the best overview of the field I have seen’
JP van Gigch: ‘Jackson does a masterful job. The book is lucid ...well written and eminently readable’
Professional Manager (Journal of the Chartered Management Institute): ‘Provides an excellent guide and introduction to systems thinking for students of management’
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Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
Part I: Systems Thinking in the Disciplines
1 Philosophy
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Kant
1.3 Hegel
1.4 Pragmatism
1.5 Husserl and Phenomenology
1.6 Radical Constructivism
1.7 Conclusion
2 The Physical Sciences and the Scientific Method
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Scientific Method and the Scientific Revolution
2.3 The Physical Sciences in the Modern Era
2.4 The Scientific Method in the Modern Era
2.5 Extending the Scientific Method to Other Disciplines
2.6 Conclusion
3 The Life Sciences
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Biology
3.3 Ecology
3.4 Conclusion
4 The Social Sciences
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Functionalism
4.3 Interpretive Social Theory
4.4 The Sociology of Radical Change
4.5 Postmodernism and Poststructuralism
4.6 Integrationist Social Theory
4.7 Luhmann's Social Systems Theory
4.8 Action Research
4.9 Conclusion
Part II: The Systems Sciences
5 General Systems Theory
5.1 Introduction
5.2 von Bertalanffy and General System Theory
5.3 von Bertalanffy's Collaborators and the Society for General Systems Research
5.4 Miller and the Search for Isomorphisms at Different System Levels
5.5 Boulding, Emergence and the Centrality of “The Image”
5.6 The Influence of General Systems Theory
5.7 Conclusion
6 Cybernetics
6.1 Introduction
6.2 First‐Order Cybernetics
6.3 British Cybernetics
6.4 Second‐Order Cybernetics
6.5 Conclusion
7 Complexity Theory
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Chaos Theory
7.3 Dissipative Structures
7.4 Complex Adaptive Systems
7.5 Complexity Theory and Management
7.6 Complexity Theory and Systems Thinking
7.7 Conclusion
Part III: Systems Practice
8 A System of Systems Methodologies
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Critical or “Second‐Order” Systems Thinking
8.3 Toward a System of Systems Methodologies
8.4 The Development of Applied Systems Thinking
8.5 Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity
8.6 Conclusion
Part III Type A Systems Approaches for Technical Complexity
9 Operational Research, Systems Analysis, Systems Engineering (Hard Systems Thinking)
9.1 Prologue
9.2 Description of Hard Systems Thinking
9.3 Hard Systems Thinking in Action
9.4 Critique of Hard Systems Thinking
9.5 Comments
9.6 The Value of Hard Systems Thinking to Managers
9.7 Conclusion
Part III Type B Systems Approaches for Process Complexity
10 The Vanguard Method
10.1 Prologue
10.2 Description of the Vanguard Method
10.3 The Vanguard Method in Action
10.4 Critique of the Vanguard Method
10.5 Comments
10.6 The Value of the Vanguard Method to Managers
10.7 Conclusion
Part III Type C Systems Approaches for Structural Complexity
11 System Dynamics
11.1 Prologue
11.2 Description of System Dynamics
11.3 System Dynamics in Action
11.4 Critique of System Dynamics
11.5 Comments
11.6 The Value of System Dynamics to Managers
11.7 Conclusion
Part III Type D Systems Approaches for Organizational Complexity
12 Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking
12.1 Prologue
12.2 Description of Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking
12.3 Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking in Action
12.4 Critique of Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking
12.5 Comments
12.6 The Value of Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking to Managers
12.7 Conclusion
13 Organizational Cybernetics and the Viable System Model
13.1 Prologue
13.2 Description of Organizational Cybernetics
13.3 Organizational Cybernetics in Action
13.4 Critique of Organizational Cybernetics andthe Viable System Model
13.5 Comments
13.6 The Value of Organizational Cybernetics to Managers
13.7 Conclusion
Part III Type E Systems Approaches for People Complexity
14 Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing
14.1 Prologue
14.2 Description of Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing
14.3 Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing in Action
14.4 Critique of Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing
14.5 Comments
14.6 The Value of Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing to Managers
14.7 Conclusion
15 Interactive Planning
15.1 Prologue
15.2 Description of Interactive Planning
15.3 Interactive Planning in Action
15.4 Critique of Interactive Planning
15.5 Comments
15.6 The Value of Interactive Planning to Managers
15.7 Conclusion
16 Soft Systems Methodology
16.1 Prologue
16.2 Description of Soft Systems Methodology
16.3 Soft Systems Methodology in Action
16.4 Critique of Soft Systems Methodology
16.5 Comments
16.6 The Value of Soft Systems Methodology to Managers
16.7 Conclusion
Part III Type F Systems Approaches for Coercive Complexity
17 Team Syntegrity
17.1 Prologue
17.2 Description of Team Syntegrity
17.3 Team Syntegrity in Action
17.4 Critique of Team Syntegrity
17.5 Comments
17.6 The Value of Team Syntegrity to Managers
17.7 Conclusion
18 Critical Systems Heuristics
18.1 Prologue
18.2 Description of Critical Systems Heuristics
18.3 Critical Systems Heuristics in Action
18.4 Critique of Critical Systems Heuristics
18.5 Comments
18.6 The Value of Critical Systems Heuristics to Managers
18.7 Conclusion
Part IV: Critical Systems Thinking
19 Critical Systems Theory
19.1 Introduction
19.2 The Origins of Critical Systems Theory
19.3 Critical Systems Theory and the Management Sciences
19.4 Conclusion
20 Critical Systems Thinking and Multimethodology
20.1 Introduction
20.2 Total Systems Intervention
20.3 Systemic Intervention
20.4 Critical Realism and Multimethodology
20.5 Conclusion
21 Critical Systems Practice
21.1 Prologue
21.2 Description of Critical Systems Practice
21.3 Critical Systems Practice in Action
21.4 Critique of Critical Systems Practice
21.5 Comments
21.6 The Value of Critical Systems Practice To Managers
21.7 Conclusion
Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
f06
Table 1 The structure of the book.
Chapter 4
Table 4.1 Silverman's ideal type of action theory.
Chapter 5
Table 5.1 A summary of Boulding's (1968) hierarchy of complexity.
Chapter 8
Table 8.1 Beer's arbitrary classification of systems.
Chapter 10
Table 10.1 Command‐and‐control versus systems thinking.
Table 10.2 Description of “check,” “plan,” “do.”
Table 10.3 Value/failure demand at Tees Valley.
Table 10.4 Potential annual efficiency gains in the three pilots.
Chapter 14
Table 14.1 Stakeholders listed in the study for the Humberside Cooperative Devel...
Table 14.2 Significant assumptions concerning the stakeholders listed in Table 1...
Chapter 15
Table 15.1 Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) fundamental changes.
Chapter 18
Table 18.1 The boundary categories and questions of critical systems heuristics.
Chapter 20
Table 20.1 The total systems intervention meta‐methodology.
Chapter 21
Table 21.1 The Critical Systems Practice multimethodology.
Table 21.2 Constitutive rules for the Critical Systems Practice multimethodology...
Table 21.3 Main elements of a generic functionalist systems methodology.
Table 21.5 Main elements of a generic emancipatory systems methodology.
List of Illustrations
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1 A closed‐loop feedback system.
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1 The Lorenz attractor. Because the system never exactly repe...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1 Jackson's extended version of Jackson and Key's “ideal‐type”...
Figure 8.2 Systems approaches related to problem contexts in the system...
Figure 8.3 Snowden's Cynefin framework.
Figure 8.4 High Force and myself.
Chapter 9
Figure 9.1 The systems analysis methodology.
Figure 9.2 Types of analytic model.
Figure 9.3 The positioning of hard systems thinking on the SOSM.
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1 End‐to‐end times taken to make repairs.
Figure 10.2 The positioning of The Vanguard Method on the SOSM.
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 Feedback loops creating an “addiction to prescription.” ...
Figure 11.2 Increasing dependence on aid: an example of the “shifting t...
Figure 11.3 Stock‐and‐flow diagram.
Figure 11.4 System dynamics of claims processing in the insurance indus...
Figure 11.5 The positioning of system dynamics on the SOSM.
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 The positioning of Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking on the...
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1 Variety engineering.
Figure 13.2 The Viable System Model (VSM)
.
Figure 13.3 Triple recursion levels: an example.
Figure 13.4 Measures of performance.
Figure 13.5 Recursion levels in SINA.
Figure 13.6 The viable system model: an ecoregion as the system in focu...
Figure 13.7 The positioning of the Viable System Model on the SOSM.
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1 Churchman's 12 social systems categories.
Figure 14.2 Assumption rating chart.
Figure 14.3 The positioning of strategic assumption surfacing and testi...
Chapter 15
Figure 15.1 A circular organization..
Figure 15.2 The positioning of interactive planning on the SOSM.
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1 Root definition and conceptual model relevant to service t...
Figure 16.2 The cycle of action research.
Figure 16.3 The learning cycle of Soft Systems Methodology.
Figure 16.4 The two‐streams version of Soft Systems Methodology.
Figure 16.5 The iconic representation of Soft Systems Methodology's lea...
Figure 16.6 Rich Picture of vice in the West End of London.
Figure 16.7 Rich Picture of the Trussell Trust's current strategic situ...
Figure 16.8 A conceptual model derived from the root definition present...
Figure 16.9 An initial picturing of the problem situation in the resear...
Figure 16.10 An activity model relevant to carrying out R'D in the comp...
Figure 16.11 An activity model that expands activity 7 of Figure 16.10...
Figure 16.12 The positioning of Soft Systems Methodology on the SOSM.
Chapter 17
Figure 17.1 An icosahedron showing how 30 “people” (edges) are connect...
Figure 17.2 The positioning of team syntegrity on the SOSM.
Chapter 18
Figure 18.1 Ulrich's table of boundary categories.
Figure 18.2 The positioning of critical systems heuristics on the SOSM....
Chapter 20
Figure 20.1 The structure of Hull Council for Voluntary Service.
Figure 20.2 The structure of Hull CVS Executive Committee.
Figure 20.3 The six relevant systems related to Beer's VSM.
Figure 20.4 Conceptual model of the policy processing system (root defi...
Chapter 21
Figure 21.1 The positioning of liberating systems theory on the SOSM. ...
Figure 21.2 North Yorkshire Police as a viable system.
Figure 21.3 Selby division as a viable system.
Figure 21.4 Conceptual model to provide for coordinated implementation ...
Figure 21.5 Conceptual model to provide a consultative style of decisio...
Figure 21.6 Hull University Business School as a viable system.
Figure 21.7 The University of Hull as a viable system.
Figure 21.8 A rich picture outlining the multiple pressures on staff in...
Figure 21.9 A rich picture to help explore the strategic positioning of...
Figure 21.10 The positioning of Critical Systems Practice on the SOSM. ...
Guide
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Table of Contents
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E1
Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity
Michael C. Jackson
Copyright
This edition first published 2019
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data applied for
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Dedication
To Pauline, Christopher and Richard:
This book is what I think. It is not all I know.
That, I hope, I have conveyed to you in other ways.
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows
Like harmony in music; there is a dark
Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles
Discordant elements, makes them cling together
In one society.
Wordsworth (The Prelude, 1850)
Preface
There is a considerable debate about how to describe the modern world. Alternatives include the following: a global village, postindustrial society, consumer society, media society, network society, risk society, late capitalism, high modernity, postmodernity, liquid modernity, and the information age. To some, the new names just signal the rapid acceleration of changes in society that started to emerge between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. To others, we have crossed a threshold and entered a completely new era. What no one doubts is that things have become much more complex. We are entangled in complexity.
An IBM survey of more than 1500 Chief Executive Officers worldwide states:
The world's private and public sector leaders believe that a rapid escalation of ‘complexity’ is the biggest challenge confronting them. They expect it to continue – indeed, to accelerate – in the coming years.
(2010)
An OECD report begins:
Complexity is a core feature of most policy issues today; their components are interrelated in multiple, hard‐to‐define ways. Yet governments are ill‐equipped to deal with complex problems.
(2017)
At the global level, economic, social, technological, and ecological systems have become interconnected in unprecedented ways, and the consequences are immense. We face a growing set of apparently intractable problems, including the nuclear threat; continual warfare; terrorism; climate change; difficulties in securing energy, food, and water supplies; pollution; environmental degradation; species extinction; automation; inequality; poverty; and exclusion. Attempts to provide solutions to these ills only seem to make matters worse. Unpredictable “black swan” events (Taleb 2007), like the fall of the Soviet Union, 9/11, and the financial crisis, have become frequent and have widespread impact. On top of this, there are fewer shared values that help tame complexity by guaranteeing consensus. At the more local level, leaders and managers, whether operating in the private, public, or voluntary sectors, are plagued by interconnectivity and volatility and are uncertain about how to act. They have to ensure that objectives are met and that processes are efficient. They also have to struggle with complex new technologies and constantly innovate to keep ahead of the competition and/or do more with less. They have to deal with increased risk. Talented employees have to be attracted, retained, and inspired, and the enterprise's stock of knowledge captured and distributed so that it can learn faster than its rivals. This requires transformational leadership and the putting in place of flexible, networked structures. Changes in the law and in social expectations require managers to respond positively to different stakeholder demands and to monitor the impact of their organization's activities. They have to manage diversity and act with integrity.
Various authors have sought to summarize what they see as the key features of the complex world in which we live. Boulton et al. (2015, p. 36) provide some valuable generalizations, seeing it as:
Systemic and synergistic
: interconnected and resulting from many causes that interact together in complex ways
Multiscalar
: with interactions across many levels
Having variety, diversity, variation, and fluctuations that can give rise to both resilience and adaptability
Path‐dependent
: contingent on the local context, and on the sequence of what happens
Changing episodically
: sometimes demonstrating resilience, at other times “tipping” into new regimes
Possessing more than one future
: the future is unknowable
Capable of self‐organizing and self‐regulating and, in some circumstances, giving rise to novel, emergent features
Warfield (2002) sets out 20 “laws of complexity,” emphasizing that 70% of these result from the nature of human beings. For him, it is our cognitive limitations, dysfunctional group and organizational behavior, differences of perception (“spreadthink”), and the conflict we engage in that have to be overcome if we are to get to grips with complexity.
Whether complexity arises from systems or from people, decision‐makers are finding that the problems they face rarely present themselves individually as, for example, production, marketing, human resource, or finance problems. They come intertwined as sets of problems that are better described as “messes” (Ackoff 1999a). Once they are examined, they expand to involve more and more issues and stakeholders. Rittel and Webber (1981) call them “wicked problems” and argue that they possess these characteristics:
Difficult to formulate
It is never clear when a solution has been reached
They don't have true or false solutions, only good or bad according to the perspective taken
A solution will have long drawn out consequences that need to be taken into account in evaluating it
An attempted solution will change a wicked problem so it is difficult to learn from trial and error
There will always be untried solutions that might have been better
All wicked problems are essentially unique; there are no classes of wicked problems to which similar solutions can be applied
They have multiple, interdependent causes
There are lots of explanations for any wicked problem depending on point of view
Solutions have consequences for which the decision‐makers have responsibility
Summarizing, they describe the difficulties “wicked problems” cause decision‐makers as follows:
The planner who works with open systems is caught up in the ambiguity of their causal webs. Moreover, his would‐be solutions are confounded by a still further set of dilemmas posed by the growing pluralism of the contemporary publics, whose valuations of his proposals are judged against an array of different and contradicting scales.
(Rittel and Webber 1981, p. 99)
What help can decision‐makers expect when tackling the “messes” and “wicked problems” that proliferate in this age of complexity? They are usually brought up on classical management theory that emphasizes the need to forecast, plan, organize, lead, and control. This approach relies on there being a predictable future environment in which it is possible to set goals that remain relevant into the foreseeable future; on enough stability to ensure that tasks arranged in a fixed hierarchy continue to deliver efficiency and effectiveness; on a passive and unified workforce; and on a capacity to take control action on the basis of clear measures of success. These assumptions do not hold in the modern world, and classical management theory provides the wrong prescriptions. This is widely recognized and has led to numerous alternative solutions being offered to business managers and other leaders, for example, lean, six sigma, business analytics, value chain analysis, total quality management, learning organizations, process reengineering, knowledge management, balanced scorecard, outsourcing, and enterprise architecture. Occasionally, they hit the mark or at least shake things up. It is sometimes better to do anything rather than nothing. Usually, however, they fail to bring the promised benefits and can even make things worse. They are simple, “quick‐fix” solutions that flounder in the face of interconnectedness, volatility, and uncertainty. They pander to the notion that there is one best solution in all circumstances and seek to reduce complex problems to the particular issues they can deal with. They concentrate on parts of the problem situation rather than on the whole, missing the crucial interactions between the parts. They fail to recognize that optimizing the performance of one part may have consequences elsewhere that are damaging for the whole. They often fail to consider an organization's interactions with its rapidly changing environment. Finally, they don't acknowledge the importance of multiple viewpoints and internal politics. Fundamentally, and in the terms used in this book, they are not systemic enough. In the absence of more thoroughly researched ways forward, however, managers are left to persevere with their favorite panacea in the face of ever diminishing returns or to turn to whatever new fad has hit the market.
This book proposes systems thinking as the only appropriate response to complexity. In systems thinking, the study of wholes, and their emergent properties, is put on an equal footing with the study of parts. The approach also insists that a wide variety of stakeholder perspectives is considered when engaging with problem situations. It has a long history, but it is only recently that it has become possible to recommend systems thinking to leaders and managers as the cornerstone of their practice. This is because the philosophy and theory have now been translated into useful and usable guidelines for action. It possesses a range of methodologies that can be used to confront different aspects of complexity according to the circumstances. In its most advanced form, the systems approach encourages the employment of a variety of methodologies in combination to manage “messes” and “wicked problems.” Critical systems practice informs this way of working and demonstrates how decision‐makers can achieve successful outcomes by becoming “multimethodological.”
The genesis of the book goes back to the early 1980s when Paul Keys and I, at the University of Hull, established a research program to inquire into the theoretical coherence and practical value of different systems approaches to management. One outcome was a much cited paper (Jackson and Keys 1984), which outlined a “system of systems methodologies.” The research continued in the late 1980s and I wrote Systems Methodology for the Management Sciences (1991a), which provided an overview and evaluation of various strands of systems thinking and sought to provide a theoretical justification for critical systems thinking and the meta‐methodology of “Total Systems Intervention” (TSI). In the same year, Bob Flood and I published a popularizing text, called Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention, which was the first practical guide to using different systems approaches in combination. Creative Problem Solving did well. However, in some important respects, it was flawed. Having completed another major theoretical tome in 2000 – Systems Approaches to Management – I became confident that I had done enough additional research to generate new thinking about the difficult issues surrounding the combined use of systems methodologies to ensure successful interventions. Again, I wanted to make the results of the work available in a more popular format. The outcome was Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers (2003), which provided a richer array of background material, a more thorough analysis of the various systems methodologies and their strengths and weaknesses, and new material advocating a creative way of using systems approaches in combination. Fortunately, the book found a ready audience and was widely read and used by managers, researchers, and students. It has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. I promised, in its preface, that it would be my last book.
Times change and I decided to completely update and rewrite Systems Thinking: Creative Holism for Managers. My reasons are threefold. First, a lot of excellent research has been undertaken in the field since 2003 and I wanted to acknowledge and take account of that in developing my own conclusions. Much of the research relates to specific areas of systems thinking, and I will make reference to these contributions in the relevant chapters. Suffice it to say, at this point, that the research communities around complexity theory, system dynamics, organizational cybernetics, soft systems methodology, and critical systems thinking have been particularly active. Of the texts covering the wider field, I need to mention a few. From the Open University, that long‐time bastion of systems thinking, have come Reynolds and Holwell, eds, Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide (2010), and Ramage and Shipp Systems Thinkers (2009). They are both very good. The former has an introduction to the various systems approaches and covers five methodologies in chapters written by their originators and/or advocates. The latter provides brief summaries of the work of 30 leading systems thinkers and an extract from the work of each. We are all grateful to Gerald Midgley (2002) for his four volumes of collected papers on “Systems Thinking.” Comprehensive and well‐edited, I have benefited from their existence throughout the writing of this book. Stowell and Welch (2012) cover the ground but with something of a bias toward soft systems thinking. Of the more specialized texts, Capra and Luisi's The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (2014) provides an excellent overview of systems thinking in the physical and life sciences. It was a constant companion for most of my time writing the book although, I hope, I was eventually able to add to its conclusions by paying more attention to the social sciences. As will become obvious, my thinking, since 2003, has been influenced by a more careful reading of Luhmann (e.g. 2013). The volume I enjoyed reading most, in preparing the book, was Pickering's The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future (2010), covering “British cybernetics” in the 1960s. I guess that is because I am a child of that decade when, in MacDonald's words: “The Beatles felt their way through life, acting or expressing first, thinking, if at all, only later” (2008, p. 22). It was not only the Beatles.
Second, as my thinking developed, I came up with new ways of explaining the material and a different understanding of what is useful to decision‐makers and what is not. This altered my perception of the best way to structure the book and what to include. There is more upfront on basic philosophy as I have come to recognize the significance, for example, of Kant in orientating the systems worldview. I appreciate the value of complexity theory as a description of the world, and regard it as complementing and enriching the earlier systems view. On the other hand, complexity theory has failed to come up with anything resembling a practical methodology to address the issues it identifies. I do not, therefore, include a chapter on complexity theory in the “systems practice” section. In terms of the individual methodologies that are included, I have found space for chapters on “The Vanguard Method” and “Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking.” The Vanguard Method earns its place because of the popularity it has attained, especially in local government. The Socio‐Technical approach played an important role in the early days of applied systems thinking and could have been included in the previous book. It shouldn't have fallen out of favor. I have dropped the chapter on “Postmodern Systems Thinking.” In the crude terms of the previous book, I now see it as a retreat from the problems posed by complex‐coercive situations rather than as an attempt to do something about them. I continue to employ ideas from postmodernism when it seems helpful. There are 10 individual systems approaches covered. They are, I think, the ones that are the most philosophically sound and thoroughly researched, and which have a good track record of application. Of course, there is a lot of subjectivity in this choice. I made a determined effort to “inhabit” and believe in each of the 10 methodologies during the weeks I was writing about it. I tried to become a Vanguard Method person, a system dynamics advocate, a soft systems thinker, and so on, for that period. It is up to the reader to decide whether I succeeded. Finally, there is more on “Critical Systems Thinking.” There is a separate chapter on critical systems theory and its use in other management subdisciplines; a chapter on the variety of multimethodological approaches; and a chapter on my own latest thinking on “Critical Systems Practice.”
The third reason for doing a new book is personal. In 2011, I was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer. This is incurable, once it has spread, but it usually gives you some time. Steve Jobs died of the disease the same year I was diagnosed. As a fellow sufferer, Alan Rodger, quipped: “Of all the things for me to have in common with the multi‐billionaire, world‐renowned genius, it had to be his illness.” I was lucky that they could operate and I had most of my insides removed. Until recently, I did not think I would survive long and writing a book seemed low on the list of priorities (give me Hull Kingston Rovers, Hull City, and Yorkshire cricket for entertainment any day!). However by 2017, and despite another operation for a recurrence, it seemed I might still have a few years left. I just started writing. I hope you enjoy Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity.
Three apologies before I pass on to some acknowledgments. First, John Pourdehnad counseled me against using the phrase “the management of complexity” in the title. In his view, we need to “navigate” through complexity; we can't manage it. This is a good point and one with which I largely agree. However, I decided to keep the title as it is. There are some aspects of complexity that we can “manage”; the book is primarily for managers, broadly defined; and managing can carry the meaning of “handling,” “coping,” and “getting by,” as well as controlling. Second apology: in a book covering this much ground I was driven, necessarily, to make use of a lot of secondary sources. I can claim to have read most of the original material at some time in my career, and only hope that has helped me to choose my secondary sources well. Third, the way the material is arranged in the book emphasizes some of the connections between authors and ideas and puts others into the shade. I have thought this through carefully and done the best I can to highlight the most significant linkages. I apologize for not doing better. There is a lot of work still to do.
I am grateful to the following for their permission to reproduce previously published material: Random House for Figure 7.1; Vanguard Press for Figure 10.1; SNCSC for Figure 10.2 and Table 18.1; Productivity Press for Figure 11.4; Plenum Press for Figure 16.6; and Elsevier for Figure 16.7.
I have been lucky to make and retain friends from school, from the universities I attended and the places where I have worked. They will know who they are because they will receive a signed copy of this book – whether they like it or not! I am grateful to them. Thanks to those who helped me in my systems career, especially Peter Checkland and the late Russ Ackoff, and to others with whom I have worked closely in developing systems ideas, particularly Paul Keys, Bob Flood, Ramses Fuenmayor, Amanda Gregory, Angela Espinosa, and Gerald Midgley. My thinking has also benefitted significantly from exchanges with various “sparring partners” for whose work I have the greatest respect – John Mingers, Werner Ulrich, Richard Ormerod, and Ralph Stacey. I have been influenced by the work of Jonathan Rosenhead and Colin Eden from the “Soft‐OR” community. I am grateful to the many staff, acknowledged in Chapter 19, who worked with me in the Centre for Systems Studies. I was lucky to tutor some excellent masters' students. The contributions of Said Medjedoub, Joseph Ho, Mary Ashton, Ellis Chung, Steve Green, and Raj Chowdhury are referred to in the book. The work of many of my PhD students is acknowledged in the text and all of them contributed to the thinking: Mo Salah, E.A. Youssef, D.P. Dash, Giles Hindle, Nasser Jabari, Martin Hall, Alejandro Ochoa‐Arias, Bridget Mears‐Young, Amanda Gregory, Luisa Garcia, Andres Mejia, Alvaro Carrizosa, Maria Ortegon, Beatriz Acevedo, Clemencia Morales, Roberto Palacios, Catherine Gaskell, Gokhan Torlak, and Luis Sambo. Thanks to those who helped me to establish and make a success of Hull University Business School between 1999 and 2011. It was a huge endeavor, a fantastic learning experience, and great fun. Bill Walsh was an excellent chair of its Advisory Board for many years. Thanks to Dr. Andrew Chen who has generously established an annual lecture in my name at Hull. Special acknowledgment is due to my surgeon at St James Hospital, Leeds, Professor Peter Lodge, whose knowledge and skills have ensured I am still here. The members of the “Old Gits' Club” have never been completely convinced by systems thinking and keep my feet on the ground. Nevertheless, one of them, David Tucker, helped me to improve the manuscript. As ever, I owe so much to my immediate family. The book, as with all the best things in my life, would not have been possible without the unwavering support of my wife Pauline. It is dedicated to her and my two sons Christopher and Richard. I can also announce that, with the birth of Freddie to Christopher and Tess, the next generation of Jacksons has started to arrive. Kelly passed away, so Molly is now the dog enjoying the walks on Beverley Westwood. I have enjoyed the process of thinking through and writing the book in Beverley; the North Yorkshire Moors; and Blanca, Spain. But it is definitely my last book.
Beverley, 2 October 2018
Michael C. Jackson
Introduction
The book is divided into four parts.
Part I considers the development and impact of systems ideas in four broad disciplinary areas: Philosophy (Chapter 1), the physical sciences (Chapter 2), the life sciences (Chapter 3), and the social sciences (Chapter 4). This theoretical background is necessary because it provides an introduction to the language of systems thinking and to the key concepts it employs. In the case of the social sciences, for example, a number of the systems thinkers studied in Parts II–IV have either developed their systems approaches with the help of social theory or, at least, related their work to social theory. This is significant because it can provide a basis for critique. The strengths and weaknesses of the different systems methodologies are related to the particular social theories they endorse. The intention in Part I is to make the absorption of the philosophical material as painless as possible for the reader and only to introduce those aspects of theory essential for understanding the practical systems approaches that are covered later.
Part II considers the development of systems thinking as a separate transdiscipline. Transdisciplines are unconstrained by normal academic boundaries and can recognize “messes” and “wicked problems” and not just, for example, individual marketing, production, human resource, and finance problems. Chapters 5 and 6 outline the emergence and significance of general systems theory and cybernetics, the two intellectual pillars on which systems thinking rose to prominence in the mid‐twentieth century. Chapter 7 covers complexity theory, another transdiscipline that has come to the fore more recently. Complexity theory offers a complementary approach to systems thinking, adding to its theoretical armory and providing some new concepts that are appropriate for describing contemporary organizations and society.
Part III of the book turns to systems practice and the way systems ideas can be put to use in dealing with the problems posed by complexity. It begins by providing, in Chapter 8, an overview of applied systems thinking in the form of an updated “system of systems methodologies” (SOSM). Following this orientation, Part III is divided into sections, emphasizing that different types of systems approach have different visions of where the main sources of complexity arise. This broad division offers a starting point for discussion. There are six sections:
Systems approaches for technical complexity (Type A)
Systems approaches for process complexity (Type B)
Systems approaches for structural complexity (Type C)
Systems approaches for organizational complexity (Type D)
Systems approaches for people complexity (Type E)
Systems approaches for coercive complexity (Type F)
Using these headings for guidance, we consider (Chapters 9–18) 10 of the most significant attempts that have been made to construct a systems approach capable of improving the practice of management. The 10 methodologies outlined make use of the systems theory and concepts presented in Parts I and II. The manner in which they use systems ideas and the range of concepts employed are however different – in particular, in terms of what they regard as the most important aspects of the manager's task. There will be howls of anger that the different systems approaches are being “pigeon‐holed.” But we have to start somewhere. I will be absolutely clear about my starting point. The individual chapters will detail how the different approaches diverge from the broad distinctions initially employed and how some have evolved in an attempt to tackle other aspects of complexity. Each of the 10 approaches is presented in terms of its history, philosophy, and theory, methodology and methods, and examples of application are provided. The theoretical considerations set out earlier in the book are used to provide a critique of each approach.
One conclusion from Part III is that the different systems approaches emphasize and seek to address different aspects of complexity. Another is that they are heavily influenced by different philosophies and social theories and their particular strengths and weaknesses stem in part from the theoretical assumptions they take as their starting point. It follows that we have the best chance of managing complexity overall if we can understand and capitalize on their different strengths and compensate for their different weaknesses by using them in combination. This way of looking at things is called critical systems thinking and is the focus of Part IV of the book. Critical systems thinkers argue that the different systems methodologies and methods must be employed together, creatively and in a theoretically informed way, to improve leadership and managerial and organizational performance. Part IV has three chapters. Chapter 19 looks at the theory that underpins critical systems thinking and its relevance for the management sciences generally. Chapter 20 considers some different ways that have been developed for using systems approaches in combination. My own latest version of “Critical Systems Practice” is set out in Chapter 21.
The book ends with a short conclusion.
In this introduction, I have sought to make clear the structure of the book and the logic underlying that structure. This is summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 The structure of the book.
Introduction
Part I: Systems Thinking in the Disciplines
Chapter 1
: Philosophy
Chapter 2
: The Physical Sciences and the Scientific Method
Chapter 3
: The Life Sciences
Chapter 4
: The Social Sciences
Part II: The Systems Sciences
Chapter 5
: General Systems Theory
Chapter 6
: Cybernetics
Chapter 7
: Complexity Theory
Part III: Systems Practice
Chapter 8
: A System of Systems Methodologies
Type A: Systems Approaches for Technical Complexity
Chapter 9
: Operational Research, Systems Analysis, Systems Engineering (Hard Systems Thinking)
Type B: Systems Approaches for Process Complexity
Chapter 10
: The Vanguard Method
Type C: Systems Approaches for Structural Complexity
Chapter 11
: System Dynamics
Type D: Systems Approaches for Organizational Complexity
Chapter 12
: Socio‐Technical Systems Thinking
Chapter 13
: Organizational Cybernetics and the Viable System Model
Type E: Systems Approaches for People Complexity
Chapter 14
: Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing
Chapter 15
: Interactive Planning
Chapter 16
: Soft Systems Methodology
Type F: Systems Approaches for Coercive Complexity
Chapter 17
: Team Syntegrity
Chapter 18
: Critical Systems Heuristics
Part IV: Critical Systems Thinking
Chapter 19
: Critical Systems Theory
Chapter 20
: Critical Systems Thinking and Multimethodology
Chapter 21
: Critical Systems Practice
Conclusion
Part ISystems Thinking in the Disciplines
Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self‐effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance
(Heine 1834)
Part I traces the emergence of systems thinking in philosophy, the physical sciences, the life sciences, and the social sciences. The reason for concentrating on these broad fields of knowledge is that it demonstrates the necessity of systems thinking for making intellectual progress in a wider context than that of individual disciplines. A downside is that individual disciplines impacted by systems thinking, such as geography and political science, are ignored if not central to that purpose. Chapter 1 is a review of the long engagement that has taken place between philosophy and systems thinking. Chapter 2 looks at the physical sciences, the refinement of the “scientific method,” and at how that method (based on “reductionism”) enabled spectacular progress to be made in science and technology in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. It notes, however, that newer discoveries in general relativity, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory are leading to a rethink of the traditional scientific method and requiring the physical sciences to embrace systems ideas. In contrast to the physical sciences, the life sciences, specifically biology and ecology, seemed to require a commitment to systemic thinking from their early days. As a result, they have provided a rich resource of systems concepts and played a major part in establishing systems thinking as a “trans‐discipline.” This is the topic of Chapter 3. In Chapter 4, the focus is on social theory, a field that makes significant use of systems ideas developed elsewhere but has also come up with its own original contributions to the systems approach. The treatment of theoretical matters in Part I is designed to illuminate and guide the practical employment of the systems methodologies that are detailed in Part III.
1Philosophy
(Aristotle n.d., 350 BCE, VIII: line 1)
1.1 Introduction
Fritjof Capra (1975) has, for some time, been pointing to similarities between the holistic understanding of the world supplied by Eastern philosophy and the findings of modern science. Churchman regarded the I Ching, with its emphasis on dynamic changes of relationship between interconnected elements, as presenting the oldest systems approach (Hammond 2003, p. 13). Boulton et al. (2015) claim Daoism, with its sense of interconnection and co‐creation, as a precursor of complexity theory. This book will restrict itself to the Western intellectual tradition. It is upon Western sources that systems practitioners have, probably to their detriment, almost exclusively drawn. As with so much in this tradition, we owe the first attempts to use systems ideas to the ancient Greeks. von Bertalanffy (1971) and Prigogine (1997) cite the pre‐Socratic philosopher Heraclitus as an influence. More specifically, Aristotle (n.d.) 350 BCE was the first to imply that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.” Indeed, he reasoned, the parts only obtain their meaning in terms of the purpose of the whole. The parts of the body make sense because of the way they function to support the organism. Individuals can only find meaning in helping the state to achieve its purpose. The other great master in the Greek philosophical tradition, Plato, also found value in employing systems ideas across different domains. There is a Greek word kybernetes meaning the art of steersmanship. The word referred principally to the control of a vessel, but Plato (1999, pp. 230–231) used it to draw comparisons with steering the ship of state. Both uses imply regulation, which is why the name cybernetics was given to the new science of “communication and control” in the 1940s.
1.2 Kant
Moving forward two millennia, to the latter part of the eighteenth century, we reach Immanuel Kant. Kant is often seen as the greatest philosopher of the modern era and provided the Enlightenment with its motto: Sapere aude! (Dare to know!). Knowledge should be based solely on reason rather than superstition and tradition. Kant's work is significant for systems thinking for three reasons. First, he thought that science could obtain true knowledge, as it had with Newtonian physics, and he wanted to show why this was the case. He also wanted to understand the limitations of science. The second reason lies in his interest in “organicism” as a complementary approach to mechanistic thinking, especially in the study of nature. Third are his arguments about the capacity of humans to generate principles of moral conduct because, uniquely, they possess “the autonomy of the will.”
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant sought to expose the shortcomings of both “rationalism” and “empiricism” as approaches to gaining knowledge. Rationalists, such as Descartes, believe that it is possible to employ cogent thinking alone to arrive at knowledge about the nature of things. In Kant's view using rational thought on its own leads to contradictions, for example, to proofs that God exists and doesn't exist. Reason has to be grounded in experience if it is to yield true knowledge. Empiricists (e.g. Locke, Berkeley, and Hume) believe that all knowledge has to be derived directly from experience through the senses. Kant thought that this was too subjective and opened the door to skepticism because our senses can easily deceive us. We need something more certain to rely on. Kant used the famous phrase: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions [perceptions] without concepts are blind” (quoted in Kemp 1968, p. 16).
If we are to overcome the weaknesses of rationalism and empiricism, we require, Kant says, a revolution in philosophy akin to that of Copernicus in cosmology (Kemp 1968). Instead of seeing knowledge as dependent upon our minds representing what actually exists in reality, we should see it as based upon what we perceive conforming to the nature of the mind. It is because all human minds structure the experiences they receive in a particular way that shared perceptions and knowledge are possible. This notion of mind as the creator of reality becomes clearer if we consider the latest brain research. According to Armson:
My senses receive 400 thousand million bits of data every second. My brain only deals with 2000 bits per second so I only notice a very small fraction – a half a millionth of one percent – of what I see, hear and smell. More extraordinary still is the observation that the 100 bits per second that trigger my visual perception are not enough to form any image of what is going on around me. My brain fills in the deficiency. It is hard to defend any claim to an objective view under such circumstances.
(Armson 2011, loc. 975)
The world does not present itself to us as already organized. The mind must play an active role for humans to experience it as they do.
In pursuing this argument, Kant requires a distinction between “phenomena,” things as they appear to our senses, and “noumena,” things as they actually are in themselves. Knowledge is possible because there is an inevitable correspondence between our minds and things as they appear to us. This arises because our minds structure the sense impressions we receive in order that we can perceive them in the first place. Far from the mind being a tabula rasa (blank slate) upon which reality writes its script, it actually provides the framework that makes experiences possible. According to Kant, the human mind possesses “sensibility,” which delivers experiences, and “categories” which organize those experiences and provide understanding. There are two elements of sensibility, space and time, which supply the mind with perceptions. There are 12 ordering categories, which Kant derives from Aristotle's logic, with four broad classes of quantity, quality, relation, and modality, each divided into three subclasses. Examples of the categories are “substance” and “cause.” The idea of substances with attributes and the idea of universal causation are not given to us in experience but are provided by the mind and impose order on our perceptions. Since these structural features of the mind are innate in human beings, the world appears to all people in essentially the same form. William Golding's (1955) novel The Inheritors is a brilliant attempt to capture what the world might have looked like to Neanderthal people in contrast to our world. In the case of the Neanderthal mind, the sensibilities and categories are not quite fully established.
In short, we can only have the experiences we have because of our minds, and so there is a necessary correspondence between the structure of the mind and the way the world appears. Logic, mathematics, and sciences such as physics, Kant argues, also depend on the concepts of space and time and the 12 categories, and it is this that makes it possible for them to be successful and to add to our stock of knowledge. They are able to produce knowledge that is universally true. This is the case even though we can never have access to the external world that provides the things we sense, i.e. the noumena or things in themselves. We will never know about the world of noumena. We are human beings who observe the world through our senses so we can only ever know things as they appear. Scientific knowledge is only possible because it restricts itself to elucidating what the mind makes available through the senses.
