SATM 5.5 The Status of Applied Systems Thinking

It seems to be the case that the shelf life of management "fads" is diminishing. "Total Quality Management" (TQM) had a long run but was eventually overtaken by "Business Process Reengineering" (BPR), wich had its today before being replaced by the "Learning Organization", which had its moment, and so on. It is also widely accepted that change programs based on TQM, BPR, "Rightsizing", "knowledge Management", or whatever, fail, in the great majority of cases, to bring the benefits expected.

Systems thinking as a practical approach to problem-solving. Why we should grand high status to applied systems thinking. There are five arguments we might reasonably make at this stage.

The first very general argument concerns the need to do careful research and over reasonably long periods of time. Before we go about proclaiming that we know the answers to all the problems facing managers, we have an obligation to undertake serious research. 

Systems thinking can reasonably claim that the progress it has made along the two dimensions framing the SOSM, allowing it to tackle more complex problems and problems involving values and interests, has been based on such research. Along the complexity continuum, for example, there have now been many applications of social-technical systems theory, and of Beer's "viable system model".

Mention was made of the hundreds of applications of "interactive management", "interactive planning" and "soft systems methodology" as the values/interests dimension was developed.

"Mode 2" research programs running in systems thinking for a good number of years. In the best cases they have produced learning about the "framework of ideas" (F) brought to bear in the research, the methodology or methodologies (M) employed, and the area of application (A) that was being addressed.

A second main point involves the need to be open to learning during the research process. We have not pretended to know what makes organizations efficient and effective and what makes them reasonable places to work in. I still would not claim to be sure whether it is getting the structure right or the processes right, or managing the culture, or dealing with the politics. It seems to require something of all these but we need to carry out further research to be sure. Serious research is better based on an acknowledge ignorance than upon "truths" known in advance.

This brings me to a third point. Compared to the holism encouraged by systems thinking, the solutions to problems offered by other management thinkers often seem extremely partial.

Too much management thinking is partial in what is regarded as crucial to business success, First it is culture, then flexibility, then structure. An overall, holistic vision is missing.

Systems thinking is able with its holistic view to see the broader picture and the true complexity of the management task.

My fourth point builds on the second and third. Applied systems thinking has invested much time in unearthing the philosophical and sociological underpinnings of the intervention methodologies it employs. 

Fad writers are often the slaves of academic scribblers a few years back, but because they cannot recognize a theoretical orientation in previous work similar to that implied by their own efforts, they do not learn from previous and simply duplicate it in an impoverished form.

The failure to reflect on the theory on which their recommendations are based also ensures that the advocates of fads cannot relate their experiences back to theory so as to learn why some interventions succeed while others fail. Unless one understands the assumptions one makes in doing things a particular way, one cannot really learn from an intervention so that one can modify those assumptions and improve one's chances of success on later occasions.

Reasoned intervention based on theory can help us to learn and can reduce costs.

If one does not know what one's theories are, one cannot make links with other disciplines or explain one's knowledge and pass it on to the next generation. One has to deliver insights as a guru. If one does not have a theoretical check, it is impossible to appreciate that the methods being used might be working for the "wrong" reason - perhaps because they appeal to the powerful and lend themselves to authoritarian usage.

We are led onto final point, which is abort the purpose of management knowledge from the point of view of applied systems thinking. Are we doing the right things as well as trying to do things right? Are we questioning ends as well as means? Who benefits? These are the sorts of questions which, with its theoretical awareness and ethical commitment, critical systems thinking has been prepared to raise.

(Jackson, Michael (2000). Systems Approaches to Management. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers. NY. P101~104)