Introduction
Systems thinking can be defined as a conscious rational approach to the analysis of events and the design of interventions, combined with a knowledge of systems theory. The role of the conscious mind is to check and verify decisions presented to it by the unconscious mind before we act on them. So, systems thinking does not preclude unconscious creativity. However, if practiced regularly, it can train the unconscious mind to make better informed decisions.
Systems thinking is not new. Only the term used to describe it is new. We have practiced systems thinking for millennia but only recently has it become a formal discipline. Although it applies to systems of all types, the present-day focus is on information and management systems because a living can be earned from expertise in those areas. However, there are two problems associated with this focus. Firstly, it can be assumed, incorrectly, that systems rules applicable to human organisation also apply more generally. Secondly, social pressures mean that practitioners can ignore the elephant in the room, i.e., organisational leaders with dark personality traits.
Proto-Systems-Thinking
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a young professional civil engineer, my more experienced seniors taught me that every design, or solution to a problem, had both benefits and disbenefits. Clearly, the benefits related to the problem to be solved, e.g., how to move water, people, or vehicles from A to B. However, the disbenefits often applied to apparently unrelated things. So, it was necessary to identify those disbenefits by thinking of the proposed design in its environment and at all stages in its lifecycle, i.e., construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning. For example, a reservoir might improve water supply, but increase the risk of people drowning. Safety is an obvious area of potential disbenefit, but there were many other areas to consider: maintenance, environmental impact, public nuisance, and so on. Those potential disbenefits had to be identified and their risk assessed. This was done largely by group critique and the exercise of imagination. The process required us to be honest with ourselves and others about the potential disbenefits of our designs before they were built. If necessary, these disbenefits then had to be treated as problems requiring solutions in their own right. For example, the reservoir might need to be fenced to mitigate the risk of drowning. However, the fence might create its own disbenefits, and so, the process was an iterative one. Obviously, if the mitigation of a significant disbenefit was impractical, then we would have to backtrack and try another potential solution.
At the time, this process was something that practicing professional engineers passed on to one another; not something that we learnt through formal training. The process is probably familiar because it is a form of systems thinking that we carry out almost intuitively, and that was practiced long before the term was coined, and long before it became a formal discipline.
Systems Thinking Formalised
The main advantages of systems thinking becoming a formal discipline are that it can identify good practices, such as the one described above, help to train new practitioners, and help to disseminate the practices to others who might benefit. However, it would be wrong to think that professional systems thinkers have invented it.
The term “Systems Thinking” was originally coined in 1994, by Barry Richmond, and is now widely used. Richmond defined systems thinking as “the art and science of making reliable inferences about behavior by developing an increasingly deep understanding of underlying structure”. Importantly, he went on to say that “people embracing Systems Thinking position themselves such that they can see both the forest and the trees; one eye on each” (Richmond 1994).
To expand on this definition, systems thinking is a cognitive perspective in which everything is seen as comprising interconnected systems, i.e., processes with inputs and outputs, the outputs of every process acting as inputs to others. Properties can emerge from the whole which do not apply to the parts.
According to this definition, systems thinking can be applied wherever systems are encountered, that is, everywhere and in every discipline. I refer to this perspective as “Pure systems thinking”, therefore.
However, because properties emerge with increasing complexity, the rules of human organisation do not necessarily apply in less complex arenas.
Pure and Applied Organisational Systems Thinking
In a letter to the Editor of Systemist, Frank Stowell, then of DeMontfort University, Milton Keynes, UK, said that “If we consider the situation within current systems thinking and practice, we find that systems have been hijacked. Management and Information Systems dominate most of our activities.” (Stowell, 1998). Clearly, the most important systems to us are human ones. This is, therefore, where systems thinking has since focussed; particularly on business organisations. Thus, whilst the basic definition of systems thinking has remained much the same, as time has moved on, the concept has increasingly become associated with organisational problems and improvement. To distinguish this highly coloured form of systems thinking from the pure one, I refer to it as “Applied organisational systems thinking”.
So, why has this change taken place, and why have applied organisational systems thinkers ignored the elephant in the room?
The Influence of Industry on Applied Organisational Systems Thinking
Unfortunately, scientists, especially those acting as consultants, can become beholden to business. A full list of strategies that industry uses to control science is given in a 2021 paper by Legg, Hatchard, & Gilmour, referred to below. In particular, strategies include: funding “safe” research; controlling the reporting and supressing the publication of unfavourable science; and monitoring and attacking scientists and organisations. Clearly therefore, industry can control scientific funding, reputations, and career advancement. So, to make themselves useful to business leaders, and thus earn a living, consultants may conform to industry requirements.
I can confirm from personal experience that such industry influence does exist. In one example, scientific research contrary to the commercial interests of a US company was driven off the internet. In another example, a consultant in the employ of a US company succeeded in changing the policy of a professional society to align with his employer’s interests, despite much objective evidence to the contrary.
The Elephant in the Room
The elephant in the room is the existence of toxic business cultures and the leaders with dark personality traits (Narcissism, Psychopathy and Machiavellianism) who establish them. These toxic cultures are a major cause of organisational failure and the adverse impact of organisations on their social and natural environment. In the search for organisational and even personal benefits, potential disbenefits to these environments are, either deliberately or inadvertently, ignored. Yet, in general, applied organisational systems thinking fails to address this issue. No consultant can expect to earn a living and avoid retribution if they do encounter a toxic culture or a dark leader and address the problem head on. Instead, they may respond in a similar way to an environmental consultant I once met. Over drinks, he openly admitted to me that he “tells the client what he wants to hear”. Unfortunately, he was employed to advise on work in a part of the Amazon rainforest, so I am not entirely sure how he managed to reconcile that approach with his conscience.
The Risk of Anthropomorphism
Frank Stowell goes on to say that “If we look at the past three UKSS conferences, the major streams have been either Business/Management or Information Systems. There has been very little contribution towards [pure] systems thinking as opposed to the development of existing ideas in any of the past conferences.” He goes on to ask “Has Peter Checkland said it all, i.e., that a system can be characterised by emergence, communication, and control – and [is that] a fact? Is anyone critically evaluating this assertion?” This is a good question, to which the answer is “No, it is not a fact.” Not all systems are characterised by communication and control. Systems can be categorised as: non-living, living, or artifacts, i.e., products of living things. (Korn, 2023). Communication and control emerged with life, and so, apply only to living things and the artifacts they produce. They do not apply to other non-living systems. (Challoner, 2023). Clearly, therefore, applied organisational systems thinking and its focus on human organisation may be leading pure systems thinking astray.
Summary
In summary therefore, applied organisational systems thinking seems to have pushed pure systems thinking into the background. This is: a) because living systems are of particular significance to us; and b) because scientists can obtain funding and consultants can earn a living by making themselves useful to industry. Unfortunately, this gives industry power over the direction that applied organisational systems thinking takes. In particular, it means that it ignores the elephant in the room, i.e., leaders with dark personality traits and the cultures they create.
Furthermore, applied systems thinking can pollute pure systems thinking with the assumption that what applies to life and its artifacts applies to everything. A form of anthropomorphism can take place. For example, information is organised matter or energy. It is recognised and transmitted only by living things and their artifacts. However, despite a lack of evidence, systems practitioners sometimes regard information as being metaphysical, and thus, as applying to everything. The same is true of concepts such as control, requisite hierarchy, purpose, and so on.
Solutions
To address the dominance of applied organisational systems thinking, Mr Stowell suggests “the promotion of [pure] systems research as a distinct entity”. In a Facebook article dated 3rd February, 2021, Christopher Chase says that after teaching systems thinking to classes at Kyushu University, Japan, “many of these Japanese University students said understanding how all the sciences fit together as a unified whole was the most interesting thing they had learned, and that they felt it should be included as part of a formal Science education for children (and young people) in Japan and elsewhere. That the compartmentalisation of topics in education hampered their ability to fully understand how in reality all the sciences are connected to each other, and also to the arts, history, economics, everything.” (Chase, 2021). Unfortunately, the examples given at the end of this quote are, once again, drawn from human society. Nevertheless, the argument is a good one. Clearly, there is an appetite for, and benefit to be gained from pure systems thinking, as opposed to the applied organisational version.
To address the problem of the elephant in the room, I would suggest that applied organisational systems thinkers:
- recognise that they are a part of the system on which they are advising;
- recognise that all interventions have both benefits for the problem to hand, and associated disbenefits that must be mitigated. As in the case of AI and the atomic bomb, it is not sufficient to pursue the benefits and, only when a solution has been implemented, hope to mitigate its disbenefits; and
- develop a professional code of ethics for their consultancy work. See (Institution of Civil Engineers, 2015) for an example.
References
Challoner, J.A., (2023). “Systems Theory from a Cognitive and Physicalist Perspective”. https://www.academia.edu/95027266/Systems_Theory_from_a_Cognitive_and_Physicalist_Perspective
Chase, C., (2021). “The Need for a Unified Systems Science Education”. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2391509563/permalink/10158720702184564/
Institution of Civil Engineers (2015), “Civil Engineering Ethics Toolkit: ‘say no’” https://www.ice.org.uk/engineering-resources/best-practice/civil-engineering-ethics-toolkit-say-no
Korn, J., (2023). “Existence as a Web of Problem Solving Systems”. https://www.academia.edu/100451240/EXISTENCE_AS_A_WEB_OF_PROBLEM_SOLVING_SYSTEMS
Legg, T., Hatchard, J., & Gilmour, A.B. (2021). “The Science for Profit Model—How and why corporations influence science and the use of science in policy and practice”. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0253272
Richmond, B. (1994). “Systems Dynamics/Systems Thinking: Let’s Just Get On With It”. In International Systems Dynamics Conference. Sterling, Scotland.
Stowell, F., (1998). “Opinion; systems is a spent force”. Systemist, Journal of the UK Systems Society, v20 n4, 1998.
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