Magnus Ramage Karen Shipp Systems Thinkers Second Edition Systems Thinkers Magnus Ramage • Karen Shipp Systems Thinkers Second Edition Magnus Ramage Karen Shipp School of Computing & Communications Formerly at The Open University The Open University Milton Keynes, UK Milton Keynes, UK First published in 2009 This second edition published in 2020 by Springer London in association with The Open University Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA United Kingdom www.open.ac.uk ISBN 978-1-4471-7474-5 ISBN 978-1-4471-7475-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7475-2 © The Open University 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd. 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Cover image by Free-Photos from Pixabay This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer-Verlag London Ltd. part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom Contents Part I E arly Cybernetics 1 Gregory Bateson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Reading from G. Bateson’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2 Norbert Wiener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Reading from Wiener’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3 Warren McCulloch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Reading from McCulloch’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4 Margaret Mead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Reading from Mead’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 5 W. Ross Ashby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Reading from Ashby’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Part II G eneral Systems Theory 6 Ludwig von Bertalanffy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Reading from Bertalanffy’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 7 Kenneth Boulding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Reading from Boulding’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 8 Geoffrey Vickers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Reading from Vickers’ work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 9 Howard Odum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Reading from Odum’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 v vi Contents Part III System Dynamics 10 Jay Forrester . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Reading from Forrester’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 11 Donella Meadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Reading from Meadows’ work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 12 Peter Senge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Reading from Senge’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Part IV S oft and Critical Systems 13 C. West Churchman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Reading from Churchman’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 14 Russell Ackoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Reading from Ackoff’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 15 Peter Checkland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Reading from Checkland’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 16 Werner Ulrich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Reading from Ulrich’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 17 Michael Jackson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Reading from Jackson’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Part V L ater Cybernetics 18 Heinz von Foerster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Reading from von Foerster’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 19 Stafford Beer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Reading from Beer’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 20 Humberto Maturana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Reading from Maturana’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 21 Niklas Luhmann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Reading from Luhmann’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 22 Paul Watzlawick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Reading from Watzlawick’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228 Part VI Complexity Theory 23 Ilya Prigogine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 Reading from Prigogine’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240 24 Stuart Kauffman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Reading from Kauffman’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Contents vii 25 James Lovelock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Reading from Lovelock’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Part VII Learning Systems 26 Kurt Lewin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 Reading from Lewin’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272 27 Eric Trist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277 Reading from Trist’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282 28 Chris Argyris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 Reading from Argyris’ work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 29 Donald Schön . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Reading from Schön’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301 30 Mary Catherine Bateson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307 Reading from M.C. Bateson’s work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311 Afterword to the First Edition: The Story Behind This Book . . . . . . . . . . 315 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 List of Figures Fig. 0.1 The authors and groupings in this book .......................................... xvii Fig. 8.1 Diagram of Vickers’ appreciative systems model ........................... 76 Fig. 9.1 Diagram of an environmental system with use of symbols of the energy circuit language ......................................................... 91 Fig. 15.1 SSM’s cycle of learning for action .................................................. 158 Fig. 16.1 The ‘eternal triangle’ of boundary judgments, facts, and values ........................................................................................ 168 Fig. 20.1 Dynamics and boundary in relation ................................................ 209 Fig. 28.1 Single- and double-loop learning. ................................................... 289 ix About the Authors Magnus Ramageis a senior lecturer in information systems at The Open University, where he has worked since 2000, teaching systems thinking and sociotechnical IT systems. As well as researching the history of systems thinking, he conducts research on critical approaches to the concept of information and on the organisa- tional and social impact of collaborative technologies. He holds a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Lancaster. Karen Shippis an educator and facilitator who created interactive and transforma- tive learning experiences at The Open University from 1987 to 2011, the last ten of these as a lecturer in the Systems Group. xi Introduction to the First Edition This is a book about the people who shaped an idea – that to make sense of the complexity of the world, we need to look at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than splitting it down into its parts and looking at each in isolation. In this book we call that idea systems thinking, although others have called it by other names (such as systems theory or systems sciences). Within this idea we include a number of areas which have independent origins but have tended over time to become interlinked while retaining their distinctiveness – general systems theory, cybernetics, complexity theory and system dynamics among others. Our focus in the book is on people and how their personalities, lives and links with each other shaped these ideas. Other books have been written on the ideas as such, describing and classifying them in various ways, presenting a history of the ideas or arguing for the importance of one perspective or another. By focusing on the creators of the ideas, and by taking a broad look at a range of areas, we aim to shed a different light on systems thinking. The people we write about are all fascinating, although in quite different ways. Some are widely known as the originators of one or another systems approach; some are very well known within the systems community but less so outside it; while others are well known figures who are less widely acknowledged as systems thinkers. Some are associated with a particular academic discipline, such as man- agement, sociology or environmental studies, while others ranged widely across disciplines. Each of the 30 authors in this book is discussed in a separate chapter, comprising two parts: first, a discussion of their life and work, and second, an extract from their writing. The extract, necessarily short (just a few pages) is intended to be a ‘taster’ to show the author’s style of writing, their concerns and interests, and to encourage you to read more of their work. In many cases, we have edited it to bring out the author’s main argument, while preserving their unique voice. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide to their key ideas – it is unlikely that by reading the extract in this book, you will be able to apply the author’s ideas, but we hope it will give you a sense of why the ideas are so significant, and which of the authors you might want to find out more about. xiii