Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu>
Bill Braun asked why organizations don't function well.
That seems worthy of a thread.
I'll suggest that two requirements of a thriving organism or organization are that it be in touch with itself, and it be in touch with reality.
These are systems effects and feedback loops.
In system terms, there should be a closed feedback loop connecting people who are aware of reality (usually on the bottom) to those making decisions (usually on the top), where those on the top take into consideration the news that the working model is wrong from those on the bottom.
And, there should be a feedback loop connecting actual outcomes of customers to product or service creation activities within the
organization. In Toyota / Lean terms - there should be customer pull.
Steering by process measures, or internal outcomes (also known as short- term ""in-come"") is not adequate to remain responsive and adaptive.
I suppose a third requirement is not falling into pitfalls, particularly ones with feedback, such as sacrificing tomorrow for today's ""progress"", making tomorrow harder, leading to even more sacrificing the next day to ""progress', etc. in a death spiral.
We could go on about asking ""why"" five more times for each of those, but I think the list is long enough as it is, and sufficient to model the majority of corporate disasters and failures to thrive.
Wade Schuette
Ann Arbor,MI
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:48:09 -0400 _______________________________________________
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
-
""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@
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Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.co
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6540)
Posted by Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.com>
Thank you for the response Wade. I am prone to philosophizing; in this case I was being concrete. Jay talks about managers as designers, that is, [re]designing an organization.
I find your points right on the mark insofar as a philosophical foundation are concerned. The driving question that has my attention is, what are the core, basic, building blocks of organizational design, tangible and specific, in the spirit and application of Jay's question, ""why can't we design organizations with the specificity of chemical plants?"" More to the point (me thinks) is, what questions will reveal what we need to know to design such an organization?
I'm not naive about the variability of human behavior; that said, if mental models give rise to structure which in turn give rise to events (SPE pyramid) specifically what are the structural elements?
In other words, if all the members of this list were offered an obscene amount of money to design an organization (where its environment and market was known) what would we do? How would we use SD to accomplish such a thing?
This is seemingly at odds with Jay's admonition of being problem focused; yet, if structure leading to behavior is a valid theory (not expressing doubt here), is it reasonable to pose the problem of, how do we design an organization in such way that it is capable of responding to what ever happens in the external environment in such manner that it sustains its existence? This is akin to Jay's point that the most important person as far as airline safety goes is not the pilot, but the engineer who designed the plane to fly safely under a variety of conditions.
Bill Braun
Posted by Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.com> posting date Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:30:39 -0400 _______________________________________________
Thank you for the response Wade. I am prone to philosophizing; in this case I was being concrete. Jay talks about managers as designers, that is, [re]designing an organization.
I find your points right on the mark insofar as a philosophical foundation are concerned. The driving question that has my attention is, what are the core, basic, building blocks of organizational design, tangible and specific, in the spirit and application of Jay's question, ""why can't we design organizations with the specificity of chemical plants?"" More to the point (me thinks) is, what questions will reveal what we need to know to design such an organization?
I'm not naive about the variability of human behavior; that said, if mental models give rise to structure which in turn give rise to events (SPE pyramid) specifically what are the structural elements?
In other words, if all the members of this list were offered an obscene amount of money to design an organization (where its environment and market was known) what would we do? How would we use SD to accomplish such a thing?
This is seemingly at odds with Jay's admonition of being problem focused; yet, if structure leading to behavior is a valid theory (not expressing doubt here), is it reasonable to pose the problem of, how do we design an organization in such way that it is capable of responding to what ever happens in the external environment in such manner that it sustains its existence? This is akin to Jay's point that the most important person as far as airline safety goes is not the pilot, but the engineer who designed the plane to fly safely under a variety of conditions.
Bill Braun
Posted by Bill Braun <bbraun@hlthsys.com> posting date Fri, 31 Aug 2007 18:30:39 -0400 _______________________________________________
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Paul Holmström <ph@holmstrom.
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6540)
Posted by Paul Holmström <ph@holmstrom.se>
Requisite Organization Theory also known as Stratified Systems Theory offers a rigorous approach to organizing, with a specificity which might appeal to many system dynamists but also for that reason is abhorred by many organizational and behavioral academics and professionals, who might be more ""flavor of the month""-oriented. Most of the basic research in the field was done in the 50-80s, with such a finality that there was little to add.
There is a huge bibliography (>500 pages) as well as books and articles available at http://www.globalro.org/
Paul Holmstrom
Posted by Paul Holmström <ph@holmstrom.se> posting date Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:24:40 +0200 _______________________________________________
Requisite Organization Theory also known as Stratified Systems Theory offers a rigorous approach to organizing, with a specificity which might appeal to many system dynamists but also for that reason is abhorred by many organizational and behavioral academics and professionals, who might be more ""flavor of the month""-oriented. Most of the basic research in the field was done in the 50-80s, with such a finality that there was little to add.
There is a huge bibliography (>500 pages) as well as books and articles available at http://www.globalro.org/
Paul Holmstrom
Posted by Paul Holmström <ph@holmstrom.se> posting date Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:24:40 +0200 _______________________________________________
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""John Gunkler"" <jgunkler@sp
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6540)
Posted by ""John Gunkler"" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Bill Braun writes: ""This is seemingly at odds with Jay's admonition of being problem focused."" -- and that, I think, gets us to part of the answer.
What I've always railed against in organization design is that it is not ""problem"" focused. In my experience, the design of the organization is the last thing you do when trying to make things better. That is, ""form follows function"" -- or, figure out the best process (or system) that you can, test it out (get data), revise the process -- and only when you feel confident that you have a system that produces what you want it to produce with the least waste (""solves the problem"" the best way you can devise) -- ONLY then do you consider what is required in the design of the organization.
There are some very wealthy people who have made careers out of doing this the other way around (think McKinsey & Co. for example) -- but I don't know of any data that shows that their method actually works. They act as if changing organization structure will drive other, desired changes. But I believe that is backward. It's merely ""moving the deck chairs on the Titanic"" or ""rotating bald tires"" as my mentors told me.
There are methods out in the business world these days that do this the right way around, I think. Design for Six Sigma (which is an extension of ""design for manufacturability"") and Design for Lean Production both start from the problem/opportunity statement, work from a proven process/system, and build the organization around them. And they get results.
John
Posted by ""John Gunkler"" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com> posting date Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:07:18 -0400 _______________________________________________
Bill Braun writes: ""This is seemingly at odds with Jay's admonition of being problem focused."" -- and that, I think, gets us to part of the answer.
What I've always railed against in organization design is that it is not ""problem"" focused. In my experience, the design of the organization is the last thing you do when trying to make things better. That is, ""form follows function"" -- or, figure out the best process (or system) that you can, test it out (get data), revise the process -- and only when you feel confident that you have a system that produces what you want it to produce with the least waste (""solves the problem"" the best way you can devise) -- ONLY then do you consider what is required in the design of the organization.
There are some very wealthy people who have made careers out of doing this the other way around (think McKinsey & Co. for example) -- but I don't know of any data that shows that their method actually works. They act as if changing organization structure will drive other, desired changes. But I believe that is backward. It's merely ""moving the deck chairs on the Titanic"" or ""rotating bald tires"" as my mentors told me.
There are methods out in the business world these days that do this the right way around, I think. Design for Six Sigma (which is an extension of ""design for manufacturability"") and Design for Lean Production both start from the problem/opportunity statement, work from a proven process/system, and build the organization around them. And they get results.
John
Posted by ""John Gunkler"" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com> posting date Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:07:18 -0400 _______________________________________________
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Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@we
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better? (SD6540)
Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de>
Organizations have a tendancy to stay in their given paths, even when they face real and pressing problems, this can be called policy restistance as John Sterman calls that phenomen.
Everywhere on the planet companies want to follow suit Toyota as this company shows everybody how processes could be managed (not only in the automobile sector as Toyota is also active in home building and other fields). There is though a big difference as Toyota was facing the big problems while they were a tiny dot on the automobile market back some 70 years ago and back then they changed the design of the organization to a ""learning organization"". This is more difficult today when the culture is set, mental models are fixed (not easily broadened!) and people are forced to change the way they have done their work in the past years, decades or their lifetime.
As Lean Thinking supposes small changes -eliminating the waste that leads in most cases to other shortcomings (reinforcing loops in the processes)- are a way to start. But people don't see the positive effects in their own time horizons that is mostly very short compared to effects due to change programs.
This hinders momentarily the changes that would be essential to being able to use systems thinking and system dynamics in companies. On the other hand the problems are not as pressing as in health care, energy or environment (where is SD is used already in a practical way, see the NIH video lectures), as there is still a way to cut costs the easy way (move production to cheaper countries laying off workers at home - shifting the burden!).
In my opinion there has to be the cut where to step in and stop that vicious cycle.
The question is, ""What is the right statement or way to connect managers to that ""new"" point of view seeing the whole?""
Looking forward to further comments on the initial question
Ralf
PS.: I stepped into the SD field from the practical side as I face topics that cover complete processes chains and to solve these it is not easy to get people on board. SD can be the solving key as the mental models of non SD people get broader;-) Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de> posting date Sun, 2 Sep 2007 15:47:24 +0200 _______________________________________________
Organizations have a tendancy to stay in their given paths, even when they face real and pressing problems, this can be called policy restistance as John Sterman calls that phenomen.
Everywhere on the planet companies want to follow suit Toyota as this company shows everybody how processes could be managed (not only in the automobile sector as Toyota is also active in home building and other fields). There is though a big difference as Toyota was facing the big problems while they were a tiny dot on the automobile market back some 70 years ago and back then they changed the design of the organization to a ""learning organization"". This is more difficult today when the culture is set, mental models are fixed (not easily broadened!) and people are forced to change the way they have done their work in the past years, decades or their lifetime.
As Lean Thinking supposes small changes -eliminating the waste that leads in most cases to other shortcomings (reinforcing loops in the processes)- are a way to start. But people don't see the positive effects in their own time horizons that is mostly very short compared to effects due to change programs.
This hinders momentarily the changes that would be essential to being able to use systems thinking and system dynamics in companies. On the other hand the problems are not as pressing as in health care, energy or environment (where is SD is used already in a practical way, see the NIH video lectures), as there is still a way to cut costs the easy way (move production to cheaper countries laying off workers at home - shifting the burden!).
In my opinion there has to be the cut where to step in and stop that vicious cycle.
The question is, ""What is the right statement or way to connect managers to that ""new"" point of view seeing the whole?""
Looking forward to further comments on the initial question
Ralf
PS.: I stepped into the SD field from the practical side as I face topics that cover complete processes chains and to solve these it is not easy to get people on board. SD can be the solving key as the mental models of non SD people get broader;-) Posted by Ralf Lippold <ralf_lippold@web.de> posting date Sun, 2 Sep 2007 15:47:24 +0200 _______________________________________________
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Schuette, Wade <wschuett@jhsp
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Schuette, Wade <wschuett@jhsph.edu>
Bill, the SPE pyramid doesn't explain where the Structure came from in the first place or why it persists.
Probably earlier structure generates processes that generates more elaborate later structure. To paraphrase John Gall, complex systems that work have invariably evolved from simple systems that worked, and can't be designed directly. (Air Traffic Control system designers take note.)
Still, the fascinating difference between a social system and a computer-feedback-controlled aircraft is that none of the parts
of social systems are guaranteed to stay where you put them.
So every question of stabilty of what a SD system does has a corresponding question of stability of what the system IS.
Still that might be a feature, not a bug. Maybe, as in theory Y of management, the parts know more than the designer and we should let them move slowly to the positions they want to be in.
Is the right question how to design an organization, or how to stop getting in the way of an organization reinventing itself continually successfully?
Near the Theory X point (top down control), variations that way are highly unstable. near the theory X point (bottom up emergent design) variations that way are the whole point.
So, that would imply, I think, that the way to get a large complex organization that works is to start with a smaller one, down to one person, who has the two basic cybernetic loops already working -- they are in touch with themself and in touch with
the customer's outcomes. Then, add people to increase scale
and depth, but at each step attend to restoring the loop invariant and getting those core loops re-established and always at the
most stable point. That's the design formula.
The theory I see as to why that works better than doing some large engineering design is that life is fractally complicated, and people aren't very good perceivers to begin with, so there are very low odds you can design, from scratch, a system that will
take into account everything it needs to. But, if the system
evolves and remains near the agile and responsive point, those things will show up and be adapted to as you go.
One way to break that evolution is if the people 'at the top' begin to think they can see everything and know everything, and start over-riding everyone else and doing planning in secret. Another is if the system attempts to grow faster than it can digest change and so it cannot re-establish the loop invariants. (Which would imply that venture capitalists who demand 40 percent growth per year are largely shooting themselves in both feet.)
Then both loops break and successful adaption to reality stops.
It's a simple model that suggests a few good things to look for.
If those loops aren't in place, survival would seem to be unlikely.
They may not be sufficient, but they strike me as necessary, and something that can be assessed before getting lost in detail.
Wade
Posted by Schuette, Wade <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Thu, 6 Sep 2007 15:46:40 -0400 _______________________________________________
Bill, the SPE pyramid doesn't explain where the Structure came from in the first place or why it persists.
Probably earlier structure generates processes that generates more elaborate later structure. To paraphrase John Gall, complex systems that work have invariably evolved from simple systems that worked, and can't be designed directly. (Air Traffic Control system designers take note.)
Still, the fascinating difference between a social system and a computer-feedback-controlled aircraft is that none of the parts
of social systems are guaranteed to stay where you put them.
So every question of stabilty of what a SD system does has a corresponding question of stability of what the system IS.
Still that might be a feature, not a bug. Maybe, as in theory Y of management, the parts know more than the designer and we should let them move slowly to the positions they want to be in.
Is the right question how to design an organization, or how to stop getting in the way of an organization reinventing itself continually successfully?
Near the Theory X point (top down control), variations that way are highly unstable. near the theory X point (bottom up emergent design) variations that way are the whole point.
So, that would imply, I think, that the way to get a large complex organization that works is to start with a smaller one, down to one person, who has the two basic cybernetic loops already working -- they are in touch with themself and in touch with
the customer's outcomes. Then, add people to increase scale
and depth, but at each step attend to restoring the loop invariant and getting those core loops re-established and always at the
most stable point. That's the design formula.
The theory I see as to why that works better than doing some large engineering design is that life is fractally complicated, and people aren't very good perceivers to begin with, so there are very low odds you can design, from scratch, a system that will
take into account everything it needs to. But, if the system
evolves and remains near the agile and responsive point, those things will show up and be adapted to as you go.
One way to break that evolution is if the people 'at the top' begin to think they can see everything and know everything, and start over-riding everyone else and doing planning in secret. Another is if the system attempts to grow faster than it can digest change and so it cannot re-establish the loop invariants. (Which would imply that venture capitalists who demand 40 percent growth per year are largely shooting themselves in both feet.)
Then both loops break and successful adaption to reality stops.
It's a simple model that suggests a few good things to look for.
If those loops aren't in place, survival would seem to be unlikely.
They may not be sufficient, but they strike me as necessary, and something that can be assessed before getting lost in detail.
Wade
Posted by Schuette, Wade <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Thu, 6 Sep 2007 15:46:40 -0400 _______________________________________________
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Alan Graham <Alan.Graham@paco
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Alan Graham <Alan.Graham@paconsulting.com>
It turns out there's some more direct empirical support for non-speedy rates of change leading to evolutionary progress.
Scott Rockart's work on magazine strategy demonstrates statistically that the more successful magazines didn't vary from their strategy (balance of content vs advertising, advertising rates, etc.) very much, whereas less successful magazines did.
Scott, correct any misstatements I've made.....
Cheers,
Alan
Alan K. Graham, PhD
PA Consulting Group
One Memorial Drive
Cambridge, Mass. 02142 USA
Posted by Alan Graham <Alan.Graham@paconsulting.com> posting date Sun, 9 Sep 2007 21:05:44 -0400 _______________________________________________
It turns out there's some more direct empirical support for non-speedy rates of change leading to evolutionary progress.
Scott Rockart's work on magazine strategy demonstrates statistically that the more successful magazines didn't vary from their strategy (balance of content vs advertising, advertising rates, etc.) very much, whereas less successful magazines did.
Scott, correct any misstatements I've made.....
Cheers,
Alan
Alan K. Graham, PhD
PA Consulting Group
One Memorial Drive
Cambridge, Mass. 02142 USA
Posted by Alan Graham <Alan.Graham@paconsulting.com> posting date Sun, 9 Sep 2007 21:05:44 -0400 _______________________________________________
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""Jim Hines"" <Jim@ventanasys
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
Jim T.,
The ""one in a hundred million"" means one error for every one hundred million nucleotides replicated.
Jim H.,
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 12:23:43 -0500 _______________________________________________
Jim T.,
The ""one in a hundred million"" means one error for every one hundred million nucleotides replicated.
Jim H.,
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 12:23:43 -0500 _______________________________________________
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""Jim Thompson"" <james.thomp
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Jim Thompson"" <james.thompson@strath.ac.uk>
Jim Hines wrote:
>> In biological systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about
>> one in a hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare
>> person who doesn't want to try something new.
In my high school years I lived near a pond that would cover with blue-green algae every summer. It seemed to me that the algae would shift around on the surface, depending on the breeze or temperature.
Later I went to work for a big company, and every year people would shift around on the surface, depending on the budget or corporate earnings.
I read somewhere that this sort of algae (cyanobacteria) hadn't changed in a billion years and may be the most highly evolved organism we can observe.
I'm curious. What is the unit of measure in the observation ""one in a hundred million""?
Posted by ""Jim Thompson"" <james.thompson@strath.ac.uk> posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 09:17:54 -0400 _______________________________________________
Jim Hines wrote:
>> In biological systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about
>> one in a hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare
>> person who doesn't want to try something new.
In my high school years I lived near a pond that would cover with blue-green algae every summer. It seemed to me that the algae would shift around on the surface, depending on the breeze or temperature.
Later I went to work for a big company, and every year people would shift around on the surface, depending on the budget or corporate earnings.
I read somewhere that this sort of algae (cyanobacteria) hadn't changed in a billion years and may be the most highly evolved organism we can observe.
I'm curious. What is the unit of measure in the observation ""one in a hundred million""?
Posted by ""Jim Thompson"" <james.thompson@strath.ac.uk> posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 09:17:54 -0400 _______________________________________________
-
""Ken Lloyd"" <kalloyd@wattsy
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Ken Lloyd"" <kalloyd@wattsys.com>
>> Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
>>
>> Wade Schuette brings evolutionary processes into the discussion of
>> why organizations don't function better.
>>
>> It turns out that evolution (toward something fitter) has a few
>> requisites that are probably not well satisfied by most
>> organizations. One of the most important is a **very small**
>> probability of changing what others have done before. In biological
>> systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about one in a
>> hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare person who
>> doesn't want to try something new.
>> A high rate of change severely limits the level of complexity that
>> can evolve.
Jim, evolution is evaluated by how well a system (living or not) positions
and perpetuates itself in a context. The context with the system embedded in
it decides winning and losing. Therefore, a winning adaptation means
adaptation to the context. The context is chock full of other systems
involved in the same process. This is a process of energy and entropy
exchange between the system and its context toward a Nash Equilibrium.
There are several strategies that may be measured on Maslow's Hierarchy - so
obviously any strategy that does not achieve (minimally) survivability is
very risky. Why? This can be understood in the simple dynamics of the
Prisoner's Dilemma - a dynamic interaction of a decision system (a prisoner)
with its context (other prisoners). The ""best"" solution for the system AND
context is NOT the optimal solution for the individual system. Thus,
disruptive technologies (adaptations) are often treated as virulent by the
context environment, and attacked (Prisoner's Dilemma with Evolution).
Every once in a while, the context does not perceive the ramifications of
the perturbation (David and Goliath), and a new Nash Equilibrium achieved
(attempted, after Goliath is buried). It is a rare System Dynamicist that
gets his mind around the complexity of this interaction over time and with
myriad perturbation dynamics going on. Computers can help. This may explain
the policy decisions outlined in your paper. Remember, Jim Hines != Context.
Posted by ""Ken Lloyd"" <kalloyd@wattsys.com>
posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 08:27:51 -0600
_______________________________________________
>> Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
>>
>> Wade Schuette brings evolutionary processes into the discussion of
>> why organizations don't function better.
>>
>> It turns out that evolution (toward something fitter) has a few
>> requisites that are probably not well satisfied by most
>> organizations. One of the most important is a **very small**
>> probability of changing what others have done before. In biological
>> systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about one in a
>> hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare person who
>> doesn't want to try something new.
>> A high rate of change severely limits the level of complexity that
>> can evolve.
Jim, evolution is evaluated by how well a system (living or not) positions
and perpetuates itself in a context. The context with the system embedded in
it decides winning and losing. Therefore, a winning adaptation means
adaptation to the context. The context is chock full of other systems
involved in the same process. This is a process of energy and entropy
exchange between the system and its context toward a Nash Equilibrium.
There are several strategies that may be measured on Maslow's Hierarchy - so
obviously any strategy that does not achieve (minimally) survivability is
very risky. Why? This can be understood in the simple dynamics of the
Prisoner's Dilemma - a dynamic interaction of a decision system (a prisoner)
with its context (other prisoners). The ""best"" solution for the system AND
context is NOT the optimal solution for the individual system. Thus,
disruptive technologies (adaptations) are often treated as virulent by the
context environment, and attacked (Prisoner's Dilemma with Evolution).
Every once in a while, the context does not perceive the ramifications of
the perturbation (David and Goliath), and a new Nash Equilibrium achieved
(attempted, after Goliath is buried). It is a rare System Dynamicist that
gets his mind around the complexity of this interaction over time and with
myriad perturbation dynamics going on. Computers can help. This may explain
the policy decisions outlined in your paper. Remember, Jim Hines != Context.
Posted by ""Ken Lloyd"" <kalloyd@wattsys.com>
posting date Sat, 8 Sep 2007 08:27:51 -0600
_______________________________________________
-
""Jim Hines"" <Jim@ventanasys
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
Wade Schuette brings evolutionary processes into the discussion of why organizations don't function better.
It turns out that evolution (toward something fitter) has a few requisites that are probably not well satisfied by most organizations. One of the most important is a **very small** probability of changing what others have done before. In biological systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about one in a hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare person who doesn't want to try something new. A high rate of change severely limits the level of complexity that can evolve.
For more on organizational evolution from an SD perspective see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/resources.htm. (Truth in advertising: I was involved in that project). The link ""policy origin"" takes you to the paper ""The Source of Poor Policy"", which might be particularly relevant.
Jim Hines
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:51:56 -0500 _______________________________________________
Wade Schuette brings evolutionary processes into the discussion of why organizations don't function better.
It turns out that evolution (toward something fitter) has a few requisites that are probably not well satisfied by most organizations. One of the most important is a **very small** probability of changing what others have done before. In biological systems the probability of a change (mutation) is about one in a hundred million. In organizations, however, it's the rare person who doesn't want to try something new. A high rate of change severely limits the level of complexity that can evolve.
For more on organizational evolution from an SD perspective see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/resources.htm. (Truth in advertising: I was involved in that project). The link ""policy origin"" takes you to the paper ""The Source of Poor Policy"", which might be particularly relevant.
Jim Hines
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:51:56 -0500 _______________________________________________
-
""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@
- Junior Member
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QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu>
Well, Jim, I have to respectfully suggest a fine-tuning to your broad assertion about change and evolution.
John Holland (creator of genetic algorithms) taught a complex adapative systems course here at Michigan, and he asserted that the primary mechanism for evolution is cross-over (""re-assortment""), not mutation.
That's pretty much what we got in Bio 101 as well.
Mutation is a second-order effect that is valuable for getting a whole
species un-stuck from a local maximum in fitness space. Most of
evolution is accomplished by mixing and matching genes each generation and is what ""<b>***</b>"" is good for, and that's why there's way more than a one in 100,000,000 chance that our children don't look identical to us
in all respects -- it's more like a 100% chance. If you clone to
generate children, I suppose you need mutation to change.
So, there looks like there is high change but within a constrained space.
As to organizations, maybe the organizations you've been in change rapidly. I've been in universities and Enterprise IT departments and health care systems, and they are not strong arguments for the dynamism
of all organizations. More like the proverbial supertankers. On the
other hand, they are extremely complex, so maybe that supports your point.
I guess it's hard to build a tall structure if you're building on shifting sand, but it's also hard to get too far if your feet are encased in
concrete !
Wade
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:55:18 -0400 _______________________________________________
Well, Jim, I have to respectfully suggest a fine-tuning to your broad assertion about change and evolution.
John Holland (creator of genetic algorithms) taught a complex adapative systems course here at Michigan, and he asserted that the primary mechanism for evolution is cross-over (""re-assortment""), not mutation.
That's pretty much what we got in Bio 101 as well.
Mutation is a second-order effect that is valuable for getting a whole
species un-stuck from a local maximum in fitness space. Most of
evolution is accomplished by mixing and matching genes each generation and is what ""<b>***</b>"" is good for, and that's why there's way more than a one in 100,000,000 chance that our children don't look identical to us
in all respects -- it's more like a 100% chance. If you clone to
generate children, I suppose you need mutation to change.
So, there looks like there is high change but within a constrained space.
As to organizations, maybe the organizations you've been in change rapidly. I've been in universities and Enterprise IT departments and health care systems, and they are not strong arguments for the dynamism
of all organizations. More like the proverbial supertankers. On the
other hand, they are extremely complex, so maybe that supports your point.
I guess it's hard to build a tall structure if you're building on shifting sand, but it's also hard to get too far if your feet are encased in
concrete !
Wade
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:55:18 -0400 _______________________________________________
-
""Jim Hines"" <Jim@ventanasys
- Junior Member
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
Wade,
1. Too much mutation prevents evolution of complex structures (this is
what I said in my original posting). That point is just not controversial - a mutation in a complex structure is more likely to be harmful than beneficial. That's why prospective parents worry about babies.
2. While too much mutation is bad; a little tiny bit is necessary for
evolution. Mutation creates the diversity that selection needs to operate.
3. Recombination is very important. It speeds up evolution enormously.
(Low rates of) mutation plus selection produces slow evolution. (Low rates
of) mutation + recombination + selection produces much faster evolution.
(Biological evolution with recombination is still slow relative to most human time-spans, but without recombination evolution would be MUCH smaller.
4. The above points are easily demonstrable in a genetic algorithm.
Holland knows all of this and has written about it.
The analogy between biological and organizational evolution is a deep one, but it's necessary to be precise about the analogy. Loose words like ""change"" don't help. Here's the analogy for evolution within an
organization:
Gene = Policy (in the SD sense - i.e. decision rule)
Recombination = Imitation (of a policy)
Mutation = Inexact imitation or intentional change (for any reason including intended improvement - the idea is that organizations are so complicated that any change has intended improvement has a significant ""random""
component).
Selection = Organizational ""pointing and pushing devices"" (e.g. promotion or issuing gold stars or whatever).
For more, once again, see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/ and click on the ""publications"" link.
Your opinion that organizations do change slowly is quite legitimate. I know what you mean. However, consider what the biological example would mean in an organization. If the average gene is 10 thousand base pairs long, a gene can be replicated about 10,000 time with only ONE change. Do you think a manager could communicate, say, his pricing policy to 10,000 other managers so that 9,999 of them could duplicate it exactly?
Jim
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:01:48 -0500 _______________________________________________
Wade,
1. Too much mutation prevents evolution of complex structures (this is
what I said in my original posting). That point is just not controversial - a mutation in a complex structure is more likely to be harmful than beneficial. That's why prospective parents worry about babies.
2. While too much mutation is bad; a little tiny bit is necessary for
evolution. Mutation creates the diversity that selection needs to operate.
3. Recombination is very important. It speeds up evolution enormously.
(Low rates of) mutation plus selection produces slow evolution. (Low rates
of) mutation + recombination + selection produces much faster evolution.
(Biological evolution with recombination is still slow relative to most human time-spans, but without recombination evolution would be MUCH smaller.
4. The above points are easily demonstrable in a genetic algorithm.
Holland knows all of this and has written about it.
The analogy between biological and organizational evolution is a deep one, but it's necessary to be precise about the analogy. Loose words like ""change"" don't help. Here's the analogy for evolution within an
organization:
Gene = Policy (in the SD sense - i.e. decision rule)
Recombination = Imitation (of a policy)
Mutation = Inexact imitation or intentional change (for any reason including intended improvement - the idea is that organizations are so complicated that any change has intended improvement has a significant ""random""
component).
Selection = Organizational ""pointing and pushing devices"" (e.g. promotion or issuing gold stars or whatever).
For more, once again, see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/ and click on the ""publications"" link.
Your opinion that organizations do change slowly is quite legitimate. I know what you mean. However, consider what the biological example would mean in an organization. If the average gene is 10 thousand base pairs long, a gene can be replicated about 10,000 time with only ONE change. Do you think a manager could communicate, say, his pricing policy to 10,000 other managers so that 9,999 of them could duplicate it exactly?
Jim
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:01:48 -0500 _______________________________________________
-
Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasyst
- Member
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>
The conversation seems to have turned to an explanation of organizational performance that doesn't leave much room for the visionary warrior-strategist CEO. Does that say more about the world, or about our world view?
It seems to me that the key evolutionary difference between species and organizational evolution is that individuals face a fitness function that differs from that of the organization. The organization needs to maintain the ybernetic loop that keeps touch with the customer (as Wade put it) in order to acquire resources to sustain existence. The individual in the organization has more choices; success requires some combination of creating value for the organization and taking credit for that value. The individual's behavior thus lies somewhere between symbiont and parasite.
If so, the organization needs additional control loops. One is the preserve- the-genome loop that provides strategic stability, minimizing mutation (Jim) or restricting it to a confined space (Wade). A second, or perhaps a special function of the first, keeps the parasite load down to a tolerable level.
Keeping the parasite load down is a question of attribution, i.e. how do you distinguish making a real contribution from making a few short term fixes, then moving on before the problems come back to bite? It seems like organizations possessing better means of attribution should prosper. If SD and other methods that aspire to know the truth don't have an impact in such an environment, one could conclude that their evolutionary advantage is somehow lacking - perhaps they don't really work (e.g., because individual performance is random and the past is no guide to the future), or they carry a high price, or some other process short-circuits the attribution process.
My pet candidate for a short-circuit is that there are steep gradients out there in the world. The opportunity to reduce labor costs by 90% through outsourcing probably tilts the fitness function so severely that other orthogonal directions (implementing SD) hardly matter, though SD might become more important for organizational fine-tuning in a stable environment (the organizational equivalent of a tropical forest).
It would be helpful to know more, because the answers could guide our interventions. Are we in SD a beneficial mutation, caught by the host's autoimmune response? Are we the fleas on the tail that wags the dog, or the flea collar?
I'll stop now while I still have a few half-baked analogies in reserve.
Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com> posting date Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:54:17 -0600 _______________________________________________
The conversation seems to have turned to an explanation of organizational performance that doesn't leave much room for the visionary warrior-strategist CEO. Does that say more about the world, or about our world view?
It seems to me that the key evolutionary difference between species and organizational evolution is that individuals face a fitness function that differs from that of the organization. The organization needs to maintain the ybernetic loop that keeps touch with the customer (as Wade put it) in order to acquire resources to sustain existence. The individual in the organization has more choices; success requires some combination of creating value for the organization and taking credit for that value. The individual's behavior thus lies somewhere between symbiont and parasite.
If so, the organization needs additional control loops. One is the preserve- the-genome loop that provides strategic stability, minimizing mutation (Jim) or restricting it to a confined space (Wade). A second, or perhaps a special function of the first, keeps the parasite load down to a tolerable level.
Keeping the parasite load down is a question of attribution, i.e. how do you distinguish making a real contribution from making a few short term fixes, then moving on before the problems come back to bite? It seems like organizations possessing better means of attribution should prosper. If SD and other methods that aspire to know the truth don't have an impact in such an environment, one could conclude that their evolutionary advantage is somehow lacking - perhaps they don't really work (e.g., because individual performance is random and the past is no guide to the future), or they carry a high price, or some other process short-circuits the attribution process.
My pet candidate for a short-circuit is that there are steep gradients out there in the world. The opportunity to reduce labor costs by 90% through outsourcing probably tilts the fitness function so severely that other orthogonal directions (implementing SD) hardly matter, though SD might become more important for organizational fine-tuning in a stable environment (the organizational equivalent of a tropical forest).
It would be helpful to know more, because the answers could guide our interventions. Are we in SD a beneficial mutation, caught by the host's autoimmune response? Are we the fleas on the tail that wags the dog, or the flea collar?
I'll stop now while I still have a few half-baked analogies in reserve.
Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com> posting date Tue, 11 Sep 2007 11:54:17 -0600 _______________________________________________
-
Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasyst
- Member
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com>
I agree that an organization depends on its employees, but it doesn't follow that the employees are dependable.
Outside a firm, markets provide some discipline - many inducement-contribution pairs are easy to verify because there are prices and enforceable contracts.
As soon as you get inside the organization, it's not so simple. Resources are seldom priced and often shared. The consequences of actions may be remote in time and space, particularly with respect to the boundaries within which employees are evaluated. When it comes time to decide where to offer inducements, the organization has a problem: who is contributing, who's trying but with negative side effects, and who's faking it?
If contributing is costly and attribution is problematic, selection pressure should favor ""faking it"". Even if it's possible to weed out the fakers, there's no guarantee that selection pressure will favor good ideas over bad.
The symptoms could range from putting more than one's fair share of work into the typing pool, to getting promoted for launching a strategy that's successful ... for a while.
I'm not suggesting that all employees are parasites. But it seems to me that limiting parasitism and other forms of non-contributing membership must be a function of the control loops of an organization, or else part of its lifecycle (increasing prevalence of exploitation with age).
Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com> posting date Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:34:51 -0600 _______________________________________________
I agree that an organization depends on its employees, but it doesn't follow that the employees are dependable.
Outside a firm, markets provide some discipline - many inducement-contribution pairs are easy to verify because there are prices and enforceable contracts.
As soon as you get inside the organization, it's not so simple. Resources are seldom priced and often shared. The consequences of actions may be remote in time and space, particularly with respect to the boundaries within which employees are evaluated. When it comes time to decide where to offer inducements, the organization has a problem: who is contributing, who's trying but with negative side effects, and who's faking it?
If contributing is costly and attribution is problematic, selection pressure should favor ""faking it"". Even if it's possible to weed out the fakers, there's no guarantee that selection pressure will favor good ideas over bad.
The symptoms could range from putting more than one's fair share of work into the typing pool, to getting promoted for launching a strategy that's successful ... for a while.
I'm not suggesting that all employees are parasites. But it seems to me that limiting parasitism and other forms of non-contributing membership must be a function of the control loops of an organization, or else part of its lifecycle (increasing prevalence of exploitation with age).
Tom
Posted by Tom Fiddaman <tom@ventanasystems.com> posting date Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:34:51 -0600 _______________________________________________
-
nickols@att.net <nickols@att.
- Junior Member
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by nickols@att.net <nickols@att.net>
Hmm. I'm a little puzzled by part of Tom Fiddaman's post. I get the part about the difference between individual and organizational evolutionary requirements (I think) but I'm puzzled by the ""parasitic"" notion re organizational members.
One of the best (i.e., most useful) theories of organizations is that set forth initially by Chester Barnard and then by James March and Herbert Simon. A key element in the theory is the notion of ""contributions-inducements"" (i.e., transactions or exchanges between the organization and its ""members"" (not to be confused with employees and so ""members"" is perhaps better termed ""stakeholders"").
In any event, the organization receives ""contributions"" from its members in return for certain ""inducements"" (e.g., suppliers provide goods and services in exchange for monies; customers provide monies in return for goods and services; investors provide capital in return for a return on their investment; etc, etc.). There is of course a recurring cycle of events that defines an organization as a system and sustaining that cycle amounts to sustaining the organization. Another key piece of the theory is that the organization fashions its outputs (e.g., goods and services) from the contributions of its members (especially suppliers and those other suppliers known as employees).
So, if an organization depends on its employees to fashion the goods and services it offers to its customers (another contributions-inducements transaction), how is it that the employees are parasitic?
--
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Managing Principal
Distance Consulting
Posted by nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net) posting date Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:25:21 +0000 _______________________________________________
Hmm. I'm a little puzzled by part of Tom Fiddaman's post. I get the part about the difference between individual and organizational evolutionary requirements (I think) but I'm puzzled by the ""parasitic"" notion re organizational members.
One of the best (i.e., most useful) theories of organizations is that set forth initially by Chester Barnard and then by James March and Herbert Simon. A key element in the theory is the notion of ""contributions-inducements"" (i.e., transactions or exchanges between the organization and its ""members"" (not to be confused with employees and so ""members"" is perhaps better termed ""stakeholders"").
In any event, the organization receives ""contributions"" from its members in return for certain ""inducements"" (e.g., suppliers provide goods and services in exchange for monies; customers provide monies in return for goods and services; investors provide capital in return for a return on their investment; etc, etc.). There is of course a recurring cycle of events that defines an organization as a system and sustaining that cycle amounts to sustaining the organization. Another key piece of the theory is that the organization fashions its outputs (e.g., goods and services) from the contributions of its members (especially suppliers and those other suppliers known as employees).
So, if an organization depends on its employees to fashion the goods and services it offers to its customers (another contributions-inducements transaction), how is it that the employees are parasitic?
--
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Managing Principal
Distance Consulting
Posted by nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net) posting date Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:25:21 +0000 _______________________________________________
-
Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jac
- Senior Member
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr>
Hi Tom
I agree completely with your point of view.
I have been managing a family SME with my brother for years and had to manage about 140 employees when the business was at its best.
I can say that I have been surrounded by a swarm of fakers.
I do not use that word pejoratively but if these persons were acting this way it was mostly our fault.
Generally the function of these people were not clear enough and the verification of the way they worked and the reasons of reaching or not their objectives was not efficient.
The second reason, probably the most influential is that one must be extremely strong psychologically to tell people who are under your authority, years long what you really think about them, particularly if it is varying and you have been working with these people for years.
You can have somebody that does his work very correctly for years and who slowly becomes less good and to justify this situation will use all possible ways, in particular the fact that he was considered good in the past or relate some particularly unfavourable external circumstances.
I must recognize that I was not tough enough to react immediately to the slightest discernable change of behaviour of people under my authority and that it cost our business millions of dollars.
I must add that I know very few people who can do that.
I have a friend who has just sold his business for about 40 millions euros, which is not bad, and who had this faculty.
Needless to say that he is considered as an extremely rude, insensible and wicked man, respecting only his business's interest.
But I do not think that it is his real nature, he just found that it was necessary to act like this to avoid being fooled.
But by acting this way he has made more people satisfied than the contrary, the people non satisfied being generally the most demonstrative.
Organisations deal with people and I doubt that it is within the reach of any rational method to understand their behaviour.
Regards.
Jean-Jacques Laublé Eurli Allocar
Strasbourg France
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr> posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:10:49 +0200 _______________________________________________
Hi Tom
I agree completely with your point of view.
I have been managing a family SME with my brother for years and had to manage about 140 employees when the business was at its best.
I can say that I have been surrounded by a swarm of fakers.
I do not use that word pejoratively but if these persons were acting this way it was mostly our fault.
Generally the function of these people were not clear enough and the verification of the way they worked and the reasons of reaching or not their objectives was not efficient.
The second reason, probably the most influential is that one must be extremely strong psychologically to tell people who are under your authority, years long what you really think about them, particularly if it is varying and you have been working with these people for years.
You can have somebody that does his work very correctly for years and who slowly becomes less good and to justify this situation will use all possible ways, in particular the fact that he was considered good in the past or relate some particularly unfavourable external circumstances.
I must recognize that I was not tough enough to react immediately to the slightest discernable change of behaviour of people under my authority and that it cost our business millions of dollars.
I must add that I know very few people who can do that.
I have a friend who has just sold his business for about 40 millions euros, which is not bad, and who had this faculty.
Needless to say that he is considered as an extremely rude, insensible and wicked man, respecting only his business's interest.
But I do not think that it is his real nature, he just found that it was necessary to act like this to avoid being fooled.
But by acting this way he has made more people satisfied than the contrary, the people non satisfied being generally the most demonstrative.
Organisations deal with people and I doubt that it is within the reach of any rational method to understand their behaviour.
Regards.
Jean-Jacques Laublé Eurli Allocar
Strasbourg France
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr> posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:10:49 +0200 _______________________________________________
-
""Jim Hines"" <Jim@ventanasys
- Junior Member
- Posts: 12
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com>
>>>> The organization has a problem: who is contributing
Tom's point is important. In many organizations, hardly anyone makes a contribution as an individual. Rather the contribution is made as part of a group.
One way around this problem is a two-pronged approach: (1) The organization recognizes the results of a defined group, and (2) people switch groups periodically. Jody House and I experimented with simulations of this sort of ""selection"". The results were almost as good as simulations in which the organization could discern individual performance (i.e. a simulation in which the ""pointing and pushing"" mechanism (i.e. selection) acted at the individual level rather than at the group level).
We also ran an experiment with people over a semester in a system dynamics course we were teaching. People got to choose whether they wanted to participate in the experiment or not. It turned out that half the class did and half the class didn't. Those who opted out of the experiment did homework assignments the way we'd always had the class do them -- in a group that lasted basically the entire semester. The students who opted in had an interesting experience: For each assignment, we distributed the students randomly to a number of groups. Jody and I rank-ordered the handed-in solutions and gave points in accordance with a group's rank, each member of a group receiving the given number of points. For the next assignment we randomly assigned the students to new groups, etc (i.e. each student was in a new group for each assignment). Each student's cumulative number of points was made public to his current group.
These points constituted a ""pointing and pushing mechanism"" (i.e. selection
pressure): The points ""pointed"" to those who had accumulated many of them and -- because points were good things -- ""pushed"" others in the group toward a desire to imitate the high-point students (imitation=recombination).
There were three results (1) the students liked switching groups a lot, (2) the people participating in the experiment did better in the course on average than people who did not, and (3) the people with the most points at the end of the term were the people who Jody and I thought probably were the best students. (Note there are some obvious caveats in interpreting these results -- but this message is already long enough that I won't elaborate unless someone asks).
Jim
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:29:43 -0500 _______________________________________________
>>>> The organization has a problem: who is contributing
Tom's point is important. In many organizations, hardly anyone makes a contribution as an individual. Rather the contribution is made as part of a group.
One way around this problem is a two-pronged approach: (1) The organization recognizes the results of a defined group, and (2) people switch groups periodically. Jody House and I experimented with simulations of this sort of ""selection"". The results were almost as good as simulations in which the organization could discern individual performance (i.e. a simulation in which the ""pointing and pushing"" mechanism (i.e. selection) acted at the individual level rather than at the group level).
We also ran an experiment with people over a semester in a system dynamics course we were teaching. People got to choose whether they wanted to participate in the experiment or not. It turned out that half the class did and half the class didn't. Those who opted out of the experiment did homework assignments the way we'd always had the class do them -- in a group that lasted basically the entire semester. The students who opted in had an interesting experience: For each assignment, we distributed the students randomly to a number of groups. Jody and I rank-ordered the handed-in solutions and gave points in accordance with a group's rank, each member of a group receiving the given number of points. For the next assignment we randomly assigned the students to new groups, etc (i.e. each student was in a new group for each assignment). Each student's cumulative number of points was made public to his current group.
These points constituted a ""pointing and pushing mechanism"" (i.e. selection
pressure): The points ""pointed"" to those who had accumulated many of them and -- because points were good things -- ""pushed"" others in the group toward a desire to imitate the high-point students (imitation=recombination).
There were three results (1) the students liked switching groups a lot, (2) the people participating in the experiment did better in the course on average than people who did not, and (3) the people with the most points at the end of the term were the people who Jody and I thought probably were the best students. (Note there are some obvious caveats in interpreting these results -- but this message is already long enough that I won't elaborate unless someone asks).
Jim
Posted by ""Jim Hines"" <jim@ventanasystems.com> posting date Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:29:43 -0500 _______________________________________________
-
nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net
- Junior Member
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net)
Jim Hines, picking up on something written by Tom Fiddaman, writes:
>> (Earlier, from Tom)
>>>>>> >>>> The organization has a problem: who is contributing
>>
>> Tom's point is important. In many organizations, hardly anyone makes
>> a contribution as an individual. Rather the contribution is made as
>> part of a group.
I don't buy that, Jim. Everyone makes a contribution as an individual. Some individual contributions have little value unless integrated with other individual contributions, but that doesn't negate the existence of individual contributions. Also, there are many people in organizations whose contributions are primarily individual and they are extremely valuable.
Organizations even go so far as to identify them as ""individual contributors""
(as opposed to ""team member"" or somesuch other label).
More to the point, what's the point?
REPLY From Jim Hines
Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:50:39 -0500
>>>> Everyone makes a contribution as an individual.
I think you're saying that an individual is an individual -- and, it's difficult to argue with that! So, let me rephrase my earlier comment, which is really very simple: The impact of an individual is often more difficult to discern than the impact of a group that includes the individual. For example, say a group of programmers succeeds in a software project. It may be difficult to say which programmer contributed most, which least. It's much easier to say that the group together succeeded brilliantly.
>>>> What's the point?
Organizational evolution can operate on **individuals** even in a situation where only **group** results can be discerned -- as long as certain conditions are met (including individuals moving between groups and sufficiently low rates of innovation (mutation)).
REPLY From nickols
Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:11:58 +0000
>> I think you're saying that an individual is an individual -- and,
>> it's difficult to argue with that! So, let me rephrase my earlier
>> comment, which is really very simple: The impact of an individual is
>> often more difficult to discern than the impact of a group that
>> includes the individual. For example, say a group of programmers
>> succeeds in a software project. It may be difficult to say which
>> programmer contributed most, which least. It's much easier to say that the group together succeeded brilliantly.
I can relate to that; I've done a little programming myself and I once led a team that developed a rather sophisticated computer-based system to support an innovative new financial services product. Of the three programmers who were members of the team (and there were more than just programmers), it would indeed be difficult to say which one contributed most. However, I can very confidently say that one was mainly the architect, a second was a really sophisticated ""how we gonna program this?"" whiz, and the third was a capable
young fellow who was steady as a rock. I think the point here is that (a)
you are correct in that it would be difficult to say which of those three contributed the most or which was of the most value; however, it is quite easy to point to the contributions of the three individuals involved. This true of the other team members as well. For example, a young actuary played a critical role in documenting the actuarial specifications in plain language.!
So, I'll leave it at we're both right.
Where can I read more about this ""organization evolution"" thing and how it ""operates"" on individuals?
[ Referencing earlier posts:
For more, once again, see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/ and click on the ""publications"" link.
]
Replies by Jim Hines incorporated inline.
Posted by nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net) posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:18:29 +0000 _______________________________________________
Jim Hines, picking up on something written by Tom Fiddaman, writes:
>> (Earlier, from Tom)
>>>>>> >>>> The organization has a problem: who is contributing
>>
>> Tom's point is important. In many organizations, hardly anyone makes
>> a contribution as an individual. Rather the contribution is made as
>> part of a group.
I don't buy that, Jim. Everyone makes a contribution as an individual. Some individual contributions have little value unless integrated with other individual contributions, but that doesn't negate the existence of individual contributions. Also, there are many people in organizations whose contributions are primarily individual and they are extremely valuable.
Organizations even go so far as to identify them as ""individual contributors""
(as opposed to ""team member"" or somesuch other label).
More to the point, what's the point?
REPLY From Jim Hines
Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:50:39 -0500
>>>> Everyone makes a contribution as an individual.
I think you're saying that an individual is an individual -- and, it's difficult to argue with that! So, let me rephrase my earlier comment, which is really very simple: The impact of an individual is often more difficult to discern than the impact of a group that includes the individual. For example, say a group of programmers succeeds in a software project. It may be difficult to say which programmer contributed most, which least. It's much easier to say that the group together succeeded brilliantly.
>>>> What's the point?
Organizational evolution can operate on **individuals** even in a situation where only **group** results can be discerned -- as long as certain conditions are met (including individuals moving between groups and sufficiently low rates of innovation (mutation)).
REPLY From nickols
Sat, 15 Sep 2007 10:11:58 +0000
>> I think you're saying that an individual is an individual -- and,
>> it's difficult to argue with that! So, let me rephrase my earlier
>> comment, which is really very simple: The impact of an individual is
>> often more difficult to discern than the impact of a group that
>> includes the individual. For example, say a group of programmers
>> succeeds in a software project. It may be difficult to say which
>> programmer contributed most, which least. It's much easier to say that the group together succeeded brilliantly.
I can relate to that; I've done a little programming myself and I once led a team that developed a rather sophisticated computer-based system to support an innovative new financial services product. Of the three programmers who were members of the team (and there were more than just programmers), it would indeed be difficult to say which one contributed most. However, I can very confidently say that one was mainly the architect, a second was a really sophisticated ""how we gonna program this?"" whiz, and the third was a capable
young fellow who was steady as a rock. I think the point here is that (a)
you are correct in that it would be difficult to say which of those three contributed the most or which was of the most value; however, it is quite easy to point to the contributions of the three individuals involved. This true of the other team members as well. For example, a young actuary played a critical role in documenting the actuarial specifications in plain language.!
So, I'll leave it at we're both right.
Where can I read more about this ""organization evolution"" thing and how it ""operates"" on individuals?
[ Referencing earlier posts:
For more, once again, see http://web.mit.edu/org-ev/www/ and click on the ""publications"" link.
]
Replies by Jim Hines incorporated inline.
Posted by nickols@att.net (nickols@att.net) posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:18:29 +0000 _______________________________________________
-
""Zagonel-Santos, Aldo A"" <a
- Junior Member
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Zagonel-Santos, Aldo A"" <aazagon@sandia.gov>
Some of the discussion in this thread seems to imply that we greatly value the principles of institutional economics when dealing with people as agents within organizations. Jean-Jacques's recent posting underscores the principal- agent perspective. Specifically, he indicates the need for the principal to set up proper information and financial feedback mechanisms, and to establish a procedure for sending the correct signals to the agents when things are working both properly (incentives) or improperly (punishments).
However, closer to home is Peter Senge's ""The 5th Discipline,"" which describes rules for organization along completely different lines. I remember reading this book in the early 90s while in my late 20s and falling in love with it.
The lines of organization and rules of conduct described by Senge seemed like a dream come true to me. This was the kind of organization and the type of relationship that I always wanted to have with my boss, my employees and my peers. After having worked in a couple of very dysfunctional organizations, I was ready to go to work for an organization adopting the design described by Senge --following the major cornerstones of personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.
Unfortunately, now --somewhat 10 years later-- the vision set forth by Senge in his book seems rather naive to me. It continues to be appealing, but my sense is that, in the world we live in there's little room for ""learning organizations."" With few exceptions, they tend to fail or pale by comparison with the numbers and success of businesses organized along the principal-agent perspective. I wonder if this perception is correct. If not, it would be helpful to see in this discussion success stories that are based upon principles of organization that assume the best about people and how they work together, efficiently and effectively, to achieve the most benefit for the collective organization.
Aldo Zagonel
Albuquerque, NM - USA
Posted by ""Zagonel-Santos, Aldo A"" <aazagon@sandia.gov> posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:44:23 -0600 _______________________________________________
Some of the discussion in this thread seems to imply that we greatly value the principles of institutional economics when dealing with people as agents within organizations. Jean-Jacques's recent posting underscores the principal- agent perspective. Specifically, he indicates the need for the principal to set up proper information and financial feedback mechanisms, and to establish a procedure for sending the correct signals to the agents when things are working both properly (incentives) or improperly (punishments).
However, closer to home is Peter Senge's ""The 5th Discipline,"" which describes rules for organization along completely different lines. I remember reading this book in the early 90s while in my late 20s and falling in love with it.
The lines of organization and rules of conduct described by Senge seemed like a dream come true to me. This was the kind of organization and the type of relationship that I always wanted to have with my boss, my employees and my peers. After having worked in a couple of very dysfunctional organizations, I was ready to go to work for an organization adopting the design described by Senge --following the major cornerstones of personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking.
Unfortunately, now --somewhat 10 years later-- the vision set forth by Senge in his book seems rather naive to me. It continues to be appealing, but my sense is that, in the world we live in there's little room for ""learning organizations."" With few exceptions, they tend to fail or pale by comparison with the numbers and success of businesses organized along the principal-agent perspective. I wonder if this perception is correct. If not, it would be helpful to see in this discussion success stories that are based upon principles of organization that assume the best about people and how they work together, efficiently and effectively, to achieve the most benefit for the collective organization.
Aldo Zagonel
Albuquerque, NM - USA
Posted by ""Zagonel-Santos, Aldo A"" <aazagon@sandia.gov> posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:44:23 -0600 _______________________________________________
-
""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@
- Junior Member
- Posts: 11
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu>
Tom and Jean-Jacques discuss parastism and I'll toss in a few comments.
I recall from Artificial Life simulation literature that parasitism is a very successful strategy in essentially all virtual worlds, and occurs quite
rapidly.
In organizations it occurs at the top as well as at the bottom, and corruption is an extreme case that often defies resolution. This then is a core problem of all organisms and we might look across the spectrum to see what solutions life has come up with.
In general employees contribute more than they cost or we should
simply fire them all and we'd make more money. Firing a random
10% of employees seems to be a popular but ill-advised strategy
for a CEO to look good to stockholders. In reality, it is quite
hard to see across several levels, particularly into deep specialized silos, and grasp at a glance what someone does for a living and how.
That said, while it is important to detect rapidly if an employee has problems, there are far more responses than simply firing them.
Finding out what's wrong and fixing it may help. Maybe they are
depressed because someone one or two levels above them is a parasite, and the real problem is distant from the visible symptoms.
So, I'd suggest that expecting a CEO to have superhuman eyes is impractical, and consider going more with McGreggor's classic ""Theory Y"" approach, where ""people"" are part of ""small teams"" and the team can be the detector and the reshaping force, preferably trying to fix what's wrong when something goes wrong.
If the problem is ""at home"" and not due to the workplace, maybe that's where one management option is to be tough and fire such people, compounding their problems. Employee assistance programs might come first, as replacing experience is expensive.
Overall, however, as with a ""culture of safety"", social norms may be the most powerful way to avoid problems in the first place, with a strong, polarizing culture of visibility and transparency, and a strong force to get rid of people rapidly who prefer the darkness and isolation, whether they've screwed up yet or not, as they will.
In public health literature, the value of social connectedness is enormous in terms of health outcomes from essentially every type of disease or disorder or accident. Connected people have a type of ""active strength"" architecture and avoid getting into messes in the first place with a little help from their friends.
Of course, all that argues that a highly competitive and secret context, typical of what MBA's seem to prefer, is a dangerous breeding ground for parasites and corruption.
One last thought. The human body's immune system has to go around
and look for things that are ""not me"" and fix them, decisively. Sometimes, bad things manage to hide deep inside a bone or next to a metal implant,
where they are hard for the ""police"" to locate and get to. Perhaps akin
to corrupt officials who are too high for most people to get to. Then what?
That may be the role of disconnection-triggered cell suicide (apoptosis) - if a cell becomes disconnected from the body, it simply shuts down. If people become disconnected from society, they tend to shut down, drop out, or
commit suicide as well. Maybe that's an effect, like some drug-effect, that
could be amplified with a culture that puts a very strong emphasis on unity, so that dropping out and trying to take advantage of everyone else becomes massively depressing and the system restores itself without
anyone outside having to detect the problem.
Again, a culture like the USA that prizes ""individual freedom"" very highly may have anaphylactic shock at the very suggestion of a strong normative culture of togetherness and openness.
Still, it seems that the ""virtues"" of individual freedom and lack of concern for the fate of others so long as ""I have mine"" may be cultural breeding grounds for such parasitism and related failure modes.
Cultural norms can be very suppressive too, of course -- but so far I haven't heard a better way of trying to address the problem than having extremely good eyes and emulating Jack Welch and firing people the moment they mess up -- and that sacrifices experience and punishes risk-taking, leading to other forms of slow death.
Still, it seems some sort of emergent system effect (aka ""culture"") would have to be the way to cope with good cells/people gone bad, and the failure-modes of that addressed as part of the solution's hard work.
Our bodies may be our best example of one way that works.
Wade Schuette
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:06:01 -0400 _______________________________________________
Tom and Jean-Jacques discuss parastism and I'll toss in a few comments.
I recall from Artificial Life simulation literature that parasitism is a very successful strategy in essentially all virtual worlds, and occurs quite
rapidly.
In organizations it occurs at the top as well as at the bottom, and corruption is an extreme case that often defies resolution. This then is a core problem of all organisms and we might look across the spectrum to see what solutions life has come up with.
In general employees contribute more than they cost or we should
simply fire them all and we'd make more money. Firing a random
10% of employees seems to be a popular but ill-advised strategy
for a CEO to look good to stockholders. In reality, it is quite
hard to see across several levels, particularly into deep specialized silos, and grasp at a glance what someone does for a living and how.
That said, while it is important to detect rapidly if an employee has problems, there are far more responses than simply firing them.
Finding out what's wrong and fixing it may help. Maybe they are
depressed because someone one or two levels above them is a parasite, and the real problem is distant from the visible symptoms.
So, I'd suggest that expecting a CEO to have superhuman eyes is impractical, and consider going more with McGreggor's classic ""Theory Y"" approach, where ""people"" are part of ""small teams"" and the team can be the detector and the reshaping force, preferably trying to fix what's wrong when something goes wrong.
If the problem is ""at home"" and not due to the workplace, maybe that's where one management option is to be tough and fire such people, compounding their problems. Employee assistance programs might come first, as replacing experience is expensive.
Overall, however, as with a ""culture of safety"", social norms may be the most powerful way to avoid problems in the first place, with a strong, polarizing culture of visibility and transparency, and a strong force to get rid of people rapidly who prefer the darkness and isolation, whether they've screwed up yet or not, as they will.
In public health literature, the value of social connectedness is enormous in terms of health outcomes from essentially every type of disease or disorder or accident. Connected people have a type of ""active strength"" architecture and avoid getting into messes in the first place with a little help from their friends.
Of course, all that argues that a highly competitive and secret context, typical of what MBA's seem to prefer, is a dangerous breeding ground for parasites and corruption.
One last thought. The human body's immune system has to go around
and look for things that are ""not me"" and fix them, decisively. Sometimes, bad things manage to hide deep inside a bone or next to a metal implant,
where they are hard for the ""police"" to locate and get to. Perhaps akin
to corrupt officials who are too high for most people to get to. Then what?
That may be the role of disconnection-triggered cell suicide (apoptosis) - if a cell becomes disconnected from the body, it simply shuts down. If people become disconnected from society, they tend to shut down, drop out, or
commit suicide as well. Maybe that's an effect, like some drug-effect, that
could be amplified with a culture that puts a very strong emphasis on unity, so that dropping out and trying to take advantage of everyone else becomes massively depressing and the system restores itself without
anyone outside having to detect the problem.
Again, a culture like the USA that prizes ""individual freedom"" very highly may have anaphylactic shock at the very suggestion of a strong normative culture of togetherness and openness.
Still, it seems that the ""virtues"" of individual freedom and lack of concern for the fate of others so long as ""I have mine"" may be cultural breeding grounds for such parasitism and related failure modes.
Cultural norms can be very suppressive too, of course -- but so far I haven't heard a better way of trying to address the problem than having extremely good eyes and emulating Jack Welch and firing people the moment they mess up -- and that sacrifices experience and punishes risk-taking, leading to other forms of slow death.
Still, it seems some sort of emergent system effect (aka ""culture"") would have to be the way to cope with good cells/people gone bad, and the failure-modes of that addressed as part of the solution's hard work.
Our bodies may be our best example of one way that works.
Wade Schuette
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Posted by ""Schuette, Wade"" <wschuett@jhsph.edu> posting date Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:06:01 -0400 _______________________________________________
-
Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jac
- Senior Member
- Posts: 61
- Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am
QUERY Why don't organizations function better?
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr>
Hi Aldo
I have made the same sorts of experience.
One was particularly negative.
For about 10 years I had organized in my business the redistribution of its profit between three actors: the employees, the share-holders and the business itself: one third for each.
This process necessitated complex calculations every month, which included in particular the exact valuation of the depreciation of the vehicles (car
rental) based on the Argus (a public method of valuation of the vehicles in France).
The method was based on the principle of equity between the capital and the workforce.
Did it work?
No. Because nobody seriously believed that an owner of a company could be as kind as to do that without some secret intention or eventually falsifying the results.
Even when I asked the chartered accountant who certified the general accounting to certify my calculations, it was still not believed.
I was very naïve too.
I think that there is not automatic solution for the structure of an organisation; it depends on the legal and economic environment, the size of the business, its activity and one can imagine different structures that work equally well.
I prefer personally to replace a hierarchical structure by a client-supplier relation where the added value of the actors is easier to evaluate.
But it is not always feasible.
Regards.
Jean-Jacques Laublé Allocar Eurli
Strasbourg France.
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr> posting date Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:44:04 +0200 _______________________________________________
Hi Aldo
I have made the same sorts of experience.
One was particularly negative.
For about 10 years I had organized in my business the redistribution of its profit between three actors: the employees, the share-holders and the business itself: one third for each.
This process necessitated complex calculations every month, which included in particular the exact valuation of the depreciation of the vehicles (car
rental) based on the Argus (a public method of valuation of the vehicles in France).
The method was based on the principle of equity between the capital and the workforce.
Did it work?
No. Because nobody seriously believed that an owner of a company could be as kind as to do that without some secret intention or eventually falsifying the results.
Even when I asked the chartered accountant who certified the general accounting to certify my calculations, it was still not believed.
I was very naïve too.
I think that there is not automatic solution for the structure of an organisation; it depends on the legal and economic environment, the size of the business, its activity and one can imagine different structures that work equally well.
I prefer personally to replace a hierarchical structure by a client-supplier relation where the added value of the actors is easier to evaluate.
But it is not always feasible.
Regards.
Jean-Jacques Laublé Allocar Eurli
Strasbourg France.
Posted by Jean-Jacques Laublé <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr> posting date Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:44:04 +0200 _______________________________________________