Coevolving Innovations

In the IBM Archives, there’s a “IBM Management Principles & Practices” document that reflects the culture of an organization where I spent 28 years.  The 19 pages includes articles by seven IBM chairmen over a span of 90 years (published in 2002):

The article that led my interest was “Basic Beliefs and Management Principles”, which alphabetically happens to be first.  The “codification of the basic beliefs” is placed in the year 1962 by the IBM Archives, so the 1969 restatement by Thomas J. Watson, Jr. came seven years later.  The letter was addressed to IBM managers:  the first three points review the basic beliefs, followed by four principles for managers to heed:

Basic Beliefs and Management Principles

As you all know, we have long held to three basic beliefs in the conduct of this business: Respect for the individual, the best customer service and superior accomplishment of all tasks.  Read more... (2614 words, 1 image, estimated 10:27 mins reading time)

When can learning about system thinking be fun (and when can’t it be)?  This was the focus question for the third Systems Thinking Ontario meeting. We had a slight change in format from the reading-oriented prior agendas, as Steve Easterbrook led us through a more experiential approach to systems thinking.  As usual, participants were provided with pre-readings, this time from Linda Booth Sweeney.  As a change for the in-person meeting, Steve went directly to exercises from the Systems Thinking Playbook, which he has been using in classes such as Systems Thinking for Global Problems.  While the exercises are appropriate for students down into the primary school level, Steve has found that graduate students also enjoy and learn from them.  In the short time available, we played through two exercises and then broke out into discussion subgroups.

The first exercise was called “Frames”.  Steve provided each of us with a piece of paper with a small aperture cut out of the centre.

The playbook gives the following directions.

Geographic Framing

Step 1:  Ask all participants to hold their viewing holes out at arm’s length.

Ask them to look through the holes and focus on a specific object; for example, a cluster of tennis balls on a table, a poster, you, or whatever object you choose.  [....]

Step 2:  Ask the following questions, pausing for 10-20 seconds after each, so participants have time to ponder their answer.

• “What do you see within this frame?”
• “What questions could you answer with the information available to you through your frame?”
• “What professions might be interested in the data you are gathering?”
• “What actions could you take to influence the objects or processes that you see?”  [Sweeney and Meadows 2010, pp-140-141]

Steve had scattered a variety of toys around the room, on the floor and on a desk.  Some people looked at the periodic table on the wall, since we were in a chemistry lab.

After the discussion about the frame at arm’s length, the playbook next directs bringing the aperture closer.  Read more... (1488 words, 14 images, estimated 5:57 mins reading time)

A guest lecture on systems thinking for the Creativity Sustainability program at Aalto University provided an opportunity to stretch out on the plenary presentation that I had given at ISSS 2012.  In San Jose last July, plenary speakers (including myself) were constrained to 45 minute slots preceding dialectic panelists.  In Helsinki in November, the luxury of time allowed me to explain the ideas more fully.  The lecture took 85 minutes, and was then followed by a question and answer session.

Versions of the web video can be viewed on Youtube, or viewed or downloaded at http://media.isss.org , at 480x272p, 720x400p, and 1280x720p.  The video shoot and post-production editing of the lecture was done by Seungho Lee, on behalf of the Creative Sustainability program.

The presentation on “Rethinking Systems Thinking” is probably the most comprehensive talk that I’ve given (and may ever give).  It is a personal perspective on systems, gained since the attending my first ISSS meeting in 1998 — that’s 14 years with the society.  My focus has recently shifted from the international audience to the local audience around Toronto, with Systems Thinking Ontario.  Systems thinking can be doled out in smaller chunks.  Over the Internet, viewers may choose to use the pause button.

 Read more... (257 words, 1 image, estimated 1:02 mins reading time)

The pre-reading of Emery (1967), “The Next Thirty Years: Concepts, Methods and Anticipations” was introduced as a challenging article for the second meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario on Feb. 21, 2013.  The theme for the evening was “Systems Thinking and Future Studies”, so there was some irony in looking backwards to 1967 to have a discussion on looking forward.

In my role as reviewer in Systems Thinking Ontario sessions, I would prefer to try to stick to the text rather than adding editorializing.  However, since this Emery (1967) article is particular rich, I tried to provide some additional context to make the reading easier.

Fred Emery is especially known for his work with the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, as one of the pioneers of the field we know today as organization science, including organization development and organization design.  In 1967, systems thinking was new:  The Systems Approach would be published by West Churchman in 1968, and On Purposeful Systems by Ackoff and Emery would follow years later in 1972.  The Club of Rome was founded in 1968.  In this article, Emery was thinking about how systems thinking frames viewing the future.

In I. Prediction and Planning, the systems of interest are in the social sciences.  The longer history of systems thinking prior to 1967 would have been a stronger cybernetics orientation.  The research from the Tavistock Institute on the socio-psychological, socio-technical and socio-ecological systems perspectives would have been fresh.  Emery wrote:

In this section we have sought to argue that:

• (a) there is a need for developments in the social sciences that go beyond their present concerns;
• (b) this development needs planning;
• (c) the planning needs to be in a context of expected social developments for several decades ahead;
• (d) the planning should be more than projection or forecasting;
• (e) planning should actively seek to extend the choices men can make, not to dictate them.  [p. 199]

Essentially, the challenge is that human beings can shape their futures, and not just be passive participants in the changes.  Much of the influence that human beings have on the future, particularly when working collectively as a social group, is through planning.

From the article, the figures in II. Conceptual Bases for Predicting the Future were helpful towards deciphering the text.  Read more... (3139 words, 11 images, estimated 12:33 mins reading time)

The inaugural meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario convened in the Lambert Lounge at OCAD U. on the evening of January 17.  The theme for the meeting was “Systems Thinking and Science”, with the focus question for the evening as: “Is the function of systems thinking to be (i) a science or (ii) a complement to science?”

The suggested pre-reading for the session was a rather old (1956) foundational article:

• Boulding, Kenneth E. 1956. “General Systems Theory — The Skeleton of Science.” Management Science 2 (3) (April): 197–208. http://jstor.org/stable/2627132 or doi:10.1287/mnsc.2.3.197 or find a cached version by searching on Google Scholar.

After a preamble on the role of Kenneth Boulding in the founding of the Society for General Systems Research (now known as the International Society for the Systems Sciences), some slides with the major points of the article were provided by attendees.

Towards a goal of organizing general systems theory, Boulding suggested two approaches:  (i) looking empirically for general phenomena across disciplines, and building up general theoretical models, or (ii) arranging the empirical fields into a hierarchy of complexity of organization, while trying to develop an abstraction appropriate to each.

Examples of the first approach included the interactions of populations, behaviours of individuals, growth, and communication and information processes.  Boulding saw that such an approach could lead to a general theory (of dynamics and interaction), but thought that this would be “a long way ahead”.

In the second approach, Boulding proposed a hierarchy of complexity — of (i) frameworks, (ii) clockworks, (iii) thermostat, (iv) cell, (v) plant, (vi) animal, (vii) human, (viii) social organization, and (ix) transcendental systems — that was more systematic.  This “system of systems” had the advantage of giving some idea of gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge.

Antony Upward served as the first commenter on the article.  His comments were framed in three parts:  (i) how far we’ve come (since 1956); (ii) how far we’ve got to go; and (iii) how much we’ve learned in the 60-plus years since Boulding published.  Read more... (1894 words, 6 images, estimated 7:35 mins reading time)

The postgraduate course on Philosophical, Methodological and Pragmatic Approaches to Scientific Futures Research was offered by the Finnish Futures Academy at the University of Turku at the end of November 2012.  I had never taken a course on scientific futures research before.  I had never been to Turku before.  Since I was scheduled to be Finland in mid-November, this presented an opportunity to get expert knowledge from leaders in future studies.  I registered for the course.

In the typical style of Finnish intensive courses, a long list of articles was prescribed in advance.  On the course schedule, a lecture for systemic approaches — naming Soft Systems Methodology — was slated on the last of three days.  Working through the articles, the ties between futures studies and systems thinking led me to read about their parallel development, particularly through the 1970s.  While most graduate students would try to relate the course content to their thesis, I’m so far along on my dissertation that that wouldn’t be productive.  Thus, for my presentation, I decided to talk about the prescribed readings in futures research from my perspective founded in systems thinking.

The philosophy of Finnish school of scientific futures is based much in critical realism (via Alan Musgrave) through Wendell Bell (honoured in an August 2011 issue of Futures, edited by Paul Dragos Aligica).  I came to realize that my view of the world is based much more on foundations on the design of inquiring systems, originating from C. West Churchman.

The first day of the course was scheduled for student presentations.  I had requested to be scheduled near the end of the afternoon.  One of the instructor facilitators was Osmo Kuusi.  As I started my presentation, he asked if I was knew of the work of Ian Mitroff.  I then brought up the slide that described the overall context for my thinking.  Kuusi said that 20 years earlier, he had been encouraged to translate all of the works of Ian Mitroff into Finnish, but had declined to do so.

In the background reading of “Futurists and their schools” (Samet 2010), and Comprehensive Situation Mapping (Acar and Druckenmiller, 2010), I rediscovered the work on Dialectic Inquiry (Mitroff and Emshoff, 1979), and updated the Wikipedia page on Strategic Assumption Surfacing and Testing.

In preparation the presentation for class, I included some slides to describe the design of inquiring systems in order to enable intelligibility.  When Kuusi saw these slides, he asked to borrow them for lectures on the following days.

By the end of the class, I came to have an understanding of the way that scientific futures research is conducted.  I’m clearly more oriented towards the perspectives of systems thinkers, which includes a respect for other approaches such as the evolved Delphi method.

[See the course description and presentation slides on "Reconciling Perspectives in Futures Research and Systems Thinking" on the Coevolving Commons]  Read more... (619 words, 1 image, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)