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A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

thesystemsthinker.com

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Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#51

Post by jshen »

ryanschneider wrote: post #4

> The principal function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation. Providing the shareholders with a return on their investments is a requirement, not an objective. I love this quote. At first it sounds very critical, but thinking about it more it reveals something deeper: companies are a collection o…

I’m not sure who he is thinking of when he says, “those who manage a corporation”. If he means senior executives then he is definitely wrong. Most executives do not have a high quality of work life. They may get money, power, and status, but it often comes at a high cost.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#52

Post by dkubb »

jshen wrote: post #51
ryanschneider wrote: post #4

> The principal function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation. Providing the shareholders with a return on their investments is a requirement, not an objective. I love this quote. At first it sounds very critical, but thinking about it more it reveals something deeper: companies are a collection o…

I’m not sure who he is thinking of when he says, “those who manage a corporation”. If he means senior executives then he is definitely wrong. Most executives do not have a high quality of work life. They may get money, power, and status, but it often comes at a high cost.

Your comment is being downvoted, but IME working at a few startups where the owner went from making 2M to 10M, then 50 and 100M+ a year I rarely saw founders who had a good work/life balance. Sure, they could afford to pay people to take care of all their domestic needs, their life consisted mostly of working 24/7. Even their vacations were often working vacations.

I think your characterization is accurate.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#53

Post by tomnipotent »

mrfredward wrote: post #49

Somewhat buried, but this my favorite takeaway >Errors of omission are generally much more serious than errors of commission, but errors of commission are the only ones picked up by most accounting systems. Since mistakes are a no-no in most corporations, and the only mistakes identified and measured are ones involving doing something that should not have been done, the best strategy for managers is to do as little a…

> but errors of commission are the only ones picked up by most accounting systems

Except for actual accountants, for whom I can attest certainly do hunt down omissions. Especially when it's not your money you're spending.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#54

Post by WalterBright »

neolog wrote: post #37
WalterBright wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing to remember is people are nearly always motivated by selfish impulses, not altruism. (Even the most dedicated communists in the USSR still participated in the black market.) Any system that relies on people being selfless is doomed to failure. (Even charity work is selfishly motivated - people like the status they get from donating to charity, praise from their social circle, and feeling good from doing it.…

So a system that relies on people being altruistic can work fine as long as people feel good about being altruistic?

It can work fine if they can find enough people who feel good about being altruistic and don't want more. There are certainly people like that. Are there enough to run an economy? Not remotely. Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#56

Post by neolog »

WalterBright wrote: post #54
neolog wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a system that relies on people being altruistic can work fine as long as people feel good about being altruistic?

It can work fine if they can find enough people who feel good about being altruistic and don't want more. There are certainly people like that. Are there enough to run an economy? Not remotely. Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

> Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

I'm not convinced this is true. I can think of some small organizations full of employees who could make more money elsewhere but who are dedicated to an altruistic cause.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#57

Post by WalterBright »

neolog wrote: post #56
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can work fine if they can find enough people who feel good about being altruistic and don't want more. There are certainly people like that. Are there enough to run an economy? Not remotely. Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope.

> Are there enough to run a largish organization? Nope. I'm not convinced this is true. I can think of some small organizations full of employees who could make more money elsewhere but who are dedicated to an altruistic cause.

> small

Sounds like you agree with me.

BTW, the D Language Foundation is an example :-)

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#58

Post by visualradio »

ethanbond wrote: post #42
Nowado wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that was the intended meaning. When one says 'managerial class' it's clearly referring to those managing grills.

Where does the author say managerial class in relation to this statement? When one says “social system,” as this author actually does, do you think he arbitrarily excludes people below a certain pay grade?

> A corporation that fails to provide an adequate return for their investment to its employees and customers is just as likely to fail as one that does not reward its shareholders adequately.

Author distinguishes corporation from employees in following sentence, so managers likely refers to employers which employ the employees. Employees are those who are employed by employers, the managers are those employers.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#59

Post by visualradio »

ethanbond wrote: post #44
Nowado wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I did reread that part and I was clearly wrong. You are absolutely correct, it refers to a wider category. Now I kinda want to take person up the comment chain on their bet.

I haven’t read any Ackoff but I’ve read a decent bit that is clearly in the intellectual orbit (e.g. Weick) and you would win that bet. The entire basis of their analysis is that these arbitrary distinctions people propagate in common parlance are not real.

The basis of systems thinking is considering the relation of parts to the whole, and the relation of the whole to the parts. Classically it was simply referred to as 'geometry'. The author distinguishes 'corporation' from 'employees and customers' in following sentence. This implies that corporate managers, employees, and customers are separate parts of a larger system and that use of term manager likely referred to the employers which employ the employees and not also to the employees which metaphorically employ the equipment.

Re: A Lifetime of Systems Thinking

#60

Post by bjterry »

I have been thinking a lot about Systems Thinking recently. Will Larson writes in An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management that it's one of the most useful general tools he's discovered for approaching management problems. That inspired me to read Donella Meadows Thing in Systems, but even after reading that, I'm not sure how to apply it to engineering organizations. It's only tangential to this topic, but if anyone has a good course or book that works through examples which can be transferred to managing engineering teams or organizations, I'd be grateful. When I read most systems thinking materials I get the sense that they are mostly focused on civilization-level problems like global warming, rather than on ways that I can individually use it to understand and make changes within my more prosaic scope.

I also have a little bit of the feeling that the emperor has no clothes, since in spite of all their ideas, I can't find any major company that has successfully transformed an industry based on systems thinking, nor can I find any major social ill that has been solved through the application of systems thinking. If anyone has any concrete cases of those, I'd also be interested.

I have a blog post working on applying Donella Meadows' Leverage Points to an engineering problem (incident retrospectives), but it's unsatisfying enough that I haven't figured out how to make it publishable.

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