The Fifth Discipline - by Peter M. Senge Notes for Systems Thinking class:

Transcription

1 The Fifth Discipline - by Peter M. Senge Notes for Systems Thinking class: Discipline - set of practices based on principles; never arive ; ongoing proces; Rationalism - reductionism methodology; most of our training; Wholism - easier for children - not yet trained out; often called intuitive - for lack of better term Major task for organizations & their leaders is to develop Learning Organizations - fostered through the development & practice of a set of 5 personal disciplines as an ensemble with full & significant integration: 1. SYSTEMS THINKING 2. PERSONAL MASTERY - proficiency; in the service of one s highest aspirations; 3. MENTAL MODELS - often hidden; shared; important to surface & chalenge ; both internal & external; need to balance inquiry & advocacy; 4. BUILDING SHARED VISION - need for genuine vision; translating individual vision into shared; achieving commitment & enrollment; match with goals, values, missions; 5. TEAM LEARNING - collective learning; why do most teams, whose members all exceed 120 IQ, collectively score less than 63 IQ?; urgent need to instill skills of DIA-LOGOS (dialog) from Greek thinking together - suspension of assumptions & entry into genuine free flowing of meaning through group effort; not DISCUSSION which shares roots with percussion & concussion; need for awareness of, & mechanisms to overcome, patterns of group behavior which undermine dialog. What this is NOT: best practices - typically a piecemeal copying & catch-up routine; NOT: emulation of a model organization, or method; Learning IS: human, creative, generative; it is NOT a mere taking in of information (e.g. reading how to ride a bicycle is not the same as learning how to ride it) Common Organizational Learning Disabilities: filename = 5THDISCI.DOC page 1 of 5 13 February, 2007

2 1. I AM MY POSITION - not the purpose of the larger enterprise, & not overall results 2. THE ENEMY IS OUT THERE - someone/something outside oneself to blame 3. THE ILLUSION OF TAKING CHARGE - proactive is too often reactive in disguise; instead, we need to see how we contribute to our own problems; 4. THE FIXATION OF EVENTS - we are almost programmed to seek event explanations - these distract us from seeing longer term patterns; 5. THE BOILED FROG - parable for our difficulty in perceiving gradual processes; 6. THE DELUSION OF LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE - our dilemma is we never directly experience the consequences of most of our important decisions. 7. THE MYTH OF THE MANAGEMENT TEAM - skiled incompetence - the mix of compensatory behaviors intended to hide ignorance or uncertainty & to give the appearance of decisiveness, action, & cohesion; Walt Kelly - Pogo: We have met the enemy and he is us. SIMULATIONS (e.g. the beer game - MIT Sloan School of Mgt s) unequivocal demonstration that problems originate in basic ways of thinking & inteacting, more than peculiarities of any organization. SYSTEMIC STRUCTURE - key interrelationships among key variables including people; usually do not see structures - instead feel compelled to act in certain ways; thus we do not perceive that we have the power to alter the structures; Explanations: Systemic Structure (generative)---->patterns of Behavior (responsive)----> Discrete Events (reactive) The reason that structural explanations are so important is that only they address the underlying causes of behavior at a level that patterns of behavior can be changed. Structure produces behavior, and changing underlying structures can produce different patterns of behavior. In this sense, structural explanations are inherently generative. Moreover, since structure in human systems includes the operating policies of the decision makers in the system, redesigning our own decision making redesigns the system structure. - page 53 filename = 5THDISCI.DOC page 2 of 5 13 February, 2007

3 CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS: 1. TODAY S PROBLEMS COME FROM YESTERDAY S SOLUTIONS - those who solved first problem are diferent from those who inheret the new problem 2. THE HARDER YOU PUSH, THE HARDER THE SYSTEM PUSHES BACK - compensating feedback; unintended consequences/responses (e.g. welfare) 3. BEHAVIOR GROWS BETTER BEFORE IT GROWS WORSE - low leverage interventions often work in the short term; compensating feedback usually involves a delay (time lag); especially makes political decisionmaking counterproductive where factors other than intrinsic merits of alternative courses of action weigh heavily in making decisions (e.g. power bases, looking good, pleasing the bos, etc.); symptoms cures vs. core solutions. 4. THE EASY WAY OUT USUALLY LEADS BACK IN - comfort in applying familiar solutions; (e.g. look for the keys under the light; also - what we need here is a bigger hammer ) 5. THE CURE CAN BE WORSE THAN THE DISEASE - easy/familiar solution not only ineffective, but often addictive & dangerous; need more & more of the solution - dependency; lessened ability of locals to solve own problems; this is so common that systems thinkers cal it shifting the burden to the Intervenor 6. FASTER IS SLOWER - virtually all natural (&/or complex) systems have intrinsically optimal rates of growth or processing, with compensating mechanisms 7. CAUSE & EFFECT ARE NOT CLOSELY RELATED IN TIME & SPACE - underlying all the above problems; effects are the obvious symptoms; causes are the interactions of the underlying system most responsible for generating the symptoms, which (if recognized) could lead to changes producing lasting improvement; this is a problem because most of us assume cause & effect are close in time & space; fundamental mismatch between nature of reality in complex systems & our predominant ways of thinking about that reality 8. SMALL CHANGES CAN PRODUCE BIG RESULTS, BUT AREAS OF HIGHEST LEVERAGE ARE OFTEN THE LEAST OBVIOUS - systems thinking sometimes called the new dismal science because most obvious solutions don t work; improve the short run but worse in long run; leverage - when minimum focussed action leads to lasting significant improvement; nonobvious to most (e.g. trim tab left/right/left/right); learning to see underlying structures rather than events; systems archetypes may suggest areas of potential high & low leverage filename = 5THDISCI.DOC page 3 of 5 13 February, 2007

4 9. YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE & EAT IT TOO, BUT NOT AT ONCE - (e.g. quality vs. cost) 10. DIVIDING AN ELEPHANT IN HALF DOES NOT PRODUCE TWO SMALL ELEPHANTS - living systems & organizations have integrity; principal of the system boundary (regardless of parochial organizational boundaries); often masked by rigid internal divisions, or leaving problems behind for others to clean up; sometimes divided elephant anyway - results in a mess - a complicated problem with no leverage available because opportunities cannot be seen within the piece currently held; 11. THERE IS NO BLAME - we tend to blame outside circumstances; someone or something else did it to us; SYSTEMS THINKING - wholistic thinking; whole/health/hale/hearty - all have the Old English root hal; discipline for seeing wholes, interrelationships vs things; paterns of change vs. static snapshots ; a set of disciplines spanning the physical & social sciences, engineering & management; also a set of specific tools & techniques originating in feedback (cybernetics) & servomechanisms (engineering); also a sensibility for subtle interconnectednes which gives living systems their unique character; needed due to complexity & accelerated change; complexity tends to undermine confidence & responsibility; Systems Thinking (ST) is the cornerstone underlying all 5 learning disciplines; produces a shift of mind: from seeing parts to seeing wholes; interrelationships vs linear cause-effect chains; from seeing people as helpless reactors to seeing them as active participants in shaping their reality; from reacting to the present to creating the future; seeing processes of change rather than snapshots; without ST there is neither incentive nor means to integrate the learning disciplines; Example: US-USSR arms race; despite many systems analysts, the spiral continued; these were not the type of systems thinkers we are talking about here; TWO TYPES OF COMPLEXITY: DETAIL & DYNAMIC Detail - deals with many variables; Dynamic - cause & effect are subtle; effects over time of interventions are not obvious; if same action has dramatically different effects in short & long run, or if an action has one set of consequences locally & a very different set of consequences in another part of the system - there surely is dynamic complexity; also present if obvious interventions produce non-obvious consequences; filename = 5THDISCI.DOC page 4 of 5 13 February, 2007

5 Leverage - real opportunity for leverage in most management situations lies in understanding Dynamic Complexity, not Detail Complexity; most so called systems analysts focus on Detail Complexity (i.e. fighting complexity with complexity) the antithesis of real Systems Thinking Practice of ST - starts with the concept of feedback - how actions can reinforce or counteract (balance) each other - builds to learning to recognize types of structures that recur again & again - generic or archetypal (e.g. arms race = gang turf = marriage demise = advertising battle) - forms a rich language for describing a vast array of interrelationships & patterns of change - ultimately simplifies by helping see deeper paterns behind events/details - difficult at first, but people have latent skills undeveloped or repressed filename = 5THDISCI.DOC page 5 of 5 13 February, 2007