International Association of Facilitators
1999 Annual Meeting
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
January 14-17 1999
Thread #1: Systems Thinking
Laurie A. Fitzgerald, PhD
The Consultancy Inc.
1616 17th St. Suite 372
Denver, CO 80202
303-628-5502
Fax 303-628-5503
lfgerald@orgmind.com
Afficionados like myself, of the "new" science are convinced "Matter is the matter!" No, not the material world per se, but the notion that only that which may be known by the five senses and/or their extensions is the "really real" reality. This tacit assumption has, over the last several centuries become part and parcel (pun intended!) of today’s operant worldview. Consequently, there’s no reason to believe that we who call ourselves facilitators of organizational change are immune to its influence.
The "problem" with systems thinking actually began early on in the 17th century, long before biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy formulated the General Systems Theory from which it is derived. As a matter of fact, its roots are not even planted in biology but in the prototypical science. Standing tall among the leading architects of classical physics was Isaac Newton who spent his life in search of the elementary particles of the universe. These building blocks of reality he thought of as hard, solid, inert, purposeless, and ultimately irreducible material objects. Furthermore, he became convinced that all there was to know about everything would be revealed upon the discovery of this fundamental smidgen of matter.
Due in large part to the extraordinary economic and technological achievements made possible by classical science, the proposition in question — that is, the material nature of reality and its chief correlate, the idea that any "thing" can be completely understood by reducing it to its elementary parts — has now become part and parcel (pun intended!) of the way we now attempt to facilitate change in the complexifying organizational system. Alas, the materialist credo of reductionism has become so deeply embedded in the Western psyche that a great many of us remain ignorant of the emergence of a "new" science — one that would liberate us from the close confines of the Newtonian mindset. My intent in this piece is to show how this new science called quite simply Chaos can help us vanquish the last remaining barrier to the triumphant facilitation of whole system change.
Tired of the classical physicist’s pronounced habit of treating everything, especially living organisms as no more than heaps of disparate parts, biologists in the 20th century set about devising a science of wholes. They succeeded at least partially as we shall see, with the formulation of General Systems Theory. The basic idea behind this first "science of wholes" was that a complex organism could not be truly understood by breaking it down into and studying its apparent parts: To do so was to overlook the crucial relationship between its components. Instead, the theory suggested, the whole must be the subject of analysis.
It did not take long for organizational theorists who like any number of disciplines, chafed under the long reign of physics as the primary science, to embrace systems theory as their own. "Systems thinking" among organizational scientists advanced rapidly from that point right up until Peter Senge anointed it the "fifth discipline" (1990). "So," you say, "what’s wrong with that? Doesn’t the adoption of a science of wholes represent a much needed improvement in the practice of facilitation?" Make no mistake: Of course it does. Nevertheless, the failure of facilitators of organizational change, even those who skillfully practice "systems thinking," to relinquish tacit assumptions underpinning Newtonian physics essentially negates any gain. Substituting for gross reductionism is a subtle and to my way of thinking, more insidious practice of collapsing a system’s interior to its material surface.
It is this "incompleteness" of systems theory rather than any glaring errors in principle or practice that consequently thwarts our efforts to facilitate the magnitude of change mandated by the increasingly turbulent marketplace. As long as the twin assumptions of materialism and reductionism remain intact, facilitator will be compelled to rely on the same tools of "objective" observation and analysis — the sensory apparati and their extensions — used for centuries by classical physicists to study the material world. Why? Because an organization’s interior is literally and completely "invisible" to the physical senses. Consequently, even those who claim to be taking the whole system into account will fail to grasp the whole whole.
For those who wonder just what is meant by the concepts of an organization’s "inside" and its "out," consider a quartet of key distinctions that can be made between the two realms. Even though the relationship between interiority and externality is of the both/and vs. either/or sort, these dual aspects of the very same reality (in much the same way as are chaos and order) can be distinguished by 1) the form in which they manifest, 2) the substance comprising them, 3) the scale used for measuring them, and 4) the manner in which they are each best accessed.
|
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Interior |
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Exterior |
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Manifest Form |
Wave |
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Particle |
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Substance: |
Mind |
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Matter |
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Measurement Scale: |
Depth |
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Breadth |
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Mode of Access: |
Dialogical (interpretation) |
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Monological (observation) |
Without a doubt, one of the most revolutionary discoveries of our century has been through explorations of the sub-atomic realm by scientists who succeeded in penetrating what was at the time regarded as the elementary particles of the universe.....hard, solid, inert and purposeless bits of matter. Often to the dismay of such brilliant albeit classically trained minds as Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr and even Albert Einstein, the basic "stuff" of the universe turned out to be "non-stuff": Inside the atom was found no "thing" at all, rather a vast region of mostly empty space through which flowed "packets" of energy they named "quanta."
Physicists were most awestruck by the energy parcel’s startling "talent" for (re)presenting itself sometimes as a wave of possibilities, and at others in particular form....but never both at once. The only explanation that made any sense was that no matter how solid it may appear, reality exists in a superposition on what science now calls the quantum wave function (QWF for short, pronounced quiff) as potential to manifest in both wave-like form and as singular actualities. Two questions may come to mind at this point — What determines whether the QWF takes one form or the other? and Why are we of Newtonian persuasion so inept at "sensing" the wave? Continue reading for the mind-boggling answers.
A common pair of spectacles, metaphorically speaking, illustrates the distinction in substance between the exterior of an enterprise and its within. When gazed upon through the right lens, the system appears in a particular form.....the stuff of matter. Its material
(INSERT FIGURE HERE)
exterior is readily perceivable through a judicious application of one’s sensory powers of observation. However, a peek through the left lens reveals the organization in its altogether metaphysical wave state where the core substance is mental.....not material. As the Wave/Particle Paradox implies, the big picture of the enterprise can only be "seen" as the whole it is by those who are able to peer through both lenses. Therein lies the problem: Our life-long indoctrination in the Newtonian mindset with its persistent bias for matter over mind has rendered us blind to the whole whole. Essentially, our view of the world is delimited by the fact that one of the lenses has been blacked out: All that can be "seen" when our right-eyed analytical gaze falls upon the enterprise is its hard, solid, inert and emphatically material surface.
Just because the essential substance of the organizational mind....the orgmind as I like to call it....is impalpable, doesn’t mean it cannot be "measured." Of course, the notion of measurement must be taken in its very broadest and thus, Chaos-informed sense. Unlike the surface of the enterprise expressible as a quantity, the scale of the orgmind is determined in terms of its depth or alternately, its height depending on how you look at it. The meaning turns out to be the same.
Imagine if you will an extension ladder like those used by house painters, only this one climbs so high into the sky that it disappears into a cloud bank. Now think about what it would be like to ascend this stairway: Notice as you mount each successive rung how the panorama grows ever-more encompassing. In the lexicon of Chaos, your ascension up the mind’s stairway takes you to ever deeper....higher if you prefer....orders of consciousness from which you may behold a clearer and more comprehensive grasp of reality.
(Insert figure here)
On the other hand, the system’s exterior can be assessed primarily in terms of size: The larger/bigger/broader it is, the greater it "scores" for size. As depicted in the graphic, the climber can race from one side to the other on the same level in an attempt to take in the whole view, but she’ll be incorrect in claiming she has the "big picture" of reality. In fact, her perspective may be broader but it won’t be more encompassing, clearer or deeper: That would require her to venture into the interior thus leaping the next higher order of consciousness.
One more point before we discuss how to get inside the system: While each "step" up the ladder allows for greater depth (consciousness) and a more encompassing worldview, one must necessarily both integrate lower structures of thought, and (here’s the tough one especially for those who aren’t yet seeing the world through the Chaos specs) negate the view from the lower rung as the big picture of reality. Although the ladder is infinite, for all intents and purposes, it will seem to the climber at each step that they have finally "arrived" at ultimate viewing place. Until this reality is grasped, the climber will attempt to alleviate the pain of uncertainty by clinging to the current level attained wherever it is.
There is nothing more frustrating for practitioners of systems thinking who remain fixated in the material’s reductionism of the conventional worldview, than this realization: No matter how hard they’ve tried, just when they thought they’d succeeded in uncovering the orgmind, "it" turns out to be just another version of external reality. Why? Because the deep structure of a system cannot be accessed empirically although it may have correlates in the external surface that are perceptible to the observer. For example, I can speak my thoughts into a tape recorder or you may be able to register markings on an EEG machine indicating I’m having them, but you would surely be mistaken if you believed you had actually captured my interiority with such technology. Certainly there is a relationship between what I’m experiencing "in here" and what presents itself "out there":
Even so, the two realms cannot be considered equivalent. Nevertheless, this precise error is made repeatedly when the facilitator supposes that an expressed opinion is one and the same with the internal experience of the respondent.
My point? You can look "inside" a system all you want using the latest and greatest of assessment technology, but all you’ll ever see is more of its exterior (greater surface span) and not its elusive, ethereal, and irreducible within. Contrary to conventional thought, the orgmind is not locatable in physical space or time, nor can it be "seen" by the human senses or by their extensions no matter how powerful they may be.
Without a doubt, exteriors are perceived monologically, that is via a one-way conversation between the observer and the system. One can only gain access to the interior of the enterprise dialogically — by participating fully in the flow of meaning that is the nature of the orgmind. As a consequence of this process, the distinction of the "observer" especially an "objective" one, instantly disappears as the thoughts of the individual and the thoughts of the organization become one.
I have attempted in these few pages to illustrate how the "problem" with systems theory is a matter of its partialness, and not any devastating flaw or fallacy I can detect. As a matter of fact, I’m an avid practitioner of systems thinking myself. However, the view of the whole whole I enjoy, not to mention the inordinate results I am able to generate have less to do with my proficiency in thinking systems than they do with my decision made several years ago, to don the lenses of the "new" science — to see the world of enterprise the "Chaos" way. Oh, that reminds me: For those of you who have been inspired by my musings to go out in search of a strategy for applying the real science of wholes in your own practice, forget it! Chaos is not something one "does" but a way....a very powerful way of thinking, seeing and acting in the world.