Changing systems

Those systems that don’t produce the outcomes we desire? We can change them, right?
The theory is easy. There’re inputs and outputs. We say we want more of this than that, and we set it to accept certain types of inputs, and tweak the desired output level, and voila.
The reality is complicated. Systems are not simple black-box processes we can toy with in isolation. They exist in relationship with other systems. Sometimes they’re part of massively nested sets of such complexity that it’s really hard to figure out what’s going on, let alone understand what changes will have what effects (see: the global economy).
Economists are a perfect case, actually. Lots of extremely smart people invest a lot of time into developing comprehensive models of the economic system, what goes in and what comes out and how changing x will affect y. Everything’s riding on these models – everyone wants them to be accurate as they can be. But, as those who heard This American Life last week know, even the most highly paid analysts don’t really know what the heck is going on.
For any system complex enough to survive in the real world, it’s tough to make adjustments that give the desired results, and even tougher to make adjustments that only give the desired results.
This doesn’t make us helpless, though, because every system is ultimately responsive to our human characteristics. This fact might give us some clues about where might find points of intervention.
(to be continued, but in a few days, because I need to think this next step through some more. and some examples might be nice too, instead of just talking in generalities all the time)
(I had planned to blog about something completely different all this week, but this is what’s come out. huh.)

3 thoughts on “Changing systems”

  1. I honestly disagree. The problem is not with processes (and never will be) – a process/system is PEOPLE, not guidelines, KPIs, SLAs, clients or service providers.
    Also, there is no “silver bullet” political system that can solve all of the world’s problems, even given time: Communism has been proven not to work, Marxism is dangerously flawed, capitalism fails on three fundamental levels (it doesn’t benefit everyone, it permits and encourages discrimination on basis of gender and ethnicity et al, the product actually produced is rubbish), Bakuninite anarchy is dangerously naive and laissez-faire Objectivism/libertariansim is just enshrined psychosis.
    The fault is always with the people. The one thing that can be done – which everyone is capable of doing – isn’t done, because people are simply not willing to do what is actually required. “Everybody want to go to heaven, but nobody want to die.”
    At any given point in human history, it has been possible to have the best of all possible worlds, regardless of technology or civilisation. Yes, I honestly believe that.
    Now I’m off to see if I can practice what I preach. 🙂

  2. Have you read Capra’s “The Web of Life”?
    It talks in useful detail about systems theory.

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