The Viable System Model and Its Application to Complex Organizations

Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model is the best known of the many cybernetic models he constructed over a career spanning more than 50 years. He explored the necessary conditions for viability in any complex system whether an organism, an organization or a country. Although the model was first applied in his work in the steel industry, many further applications were made during his later work as a consultant. The best known of these was when he was invited by President Salvadore Allende of Chile in 1970 to model the social economy of that country. That experiment was brutally cut short in 1973 by the CIA assisted coup during which Allende was killed and Pinochet’s dictatorship installed. The model itself draws on mathematics, psychology, biology, neurophysiology, communication theory, anthropology and philosophy. It was first expressed in mathematical terms in ‘The Cybernetic Factory’; next it was described in neurophysiological terms in Brain of the firm; and finally according to logic and graphic presentation in Heart of Enterprise and Diagnosing the System for Organizations. This last version is the one that is most accessible. It enables people to address organizational issues in a way that skirts the usual categories and organization charts and gets down to the actual necessary functions, no matter who is performing them. With this model people can get a boost as they diagnose or design an organizations. One aspect is to discover what the organization’s critical variables are and to find or install the homeostats that will show that they are maintaining equilibrium. Within that context, the model will help you ascertain that the principle functions and communications channels are in place and can function effectively. A crucial aspect of the VSM is that it is recursive; that is that the same relationships can be traced from the shop floor to the corporation or from the village to the country. Two examples will be discussed: a small business and the Chilean work from the 1970s. It is hoped that this will encourage people to imagine a world that works much better than it does now and where management is not defeated by complexity. A version of this paper was delivered as the first Stafford Beer Memorial Lecture on July 8, 2007 at the World Multiconference on Systems, Cybernetics and Informatics in Orlando Florida.     

Functions and Inter-Relationships of Operating Agencies in Policy Implementation from a Viable System Perspective

Existence of supporting entities and their cohesive operations are important elements in industry development policy undertaken in emerging economies, which are characterized by heavy government interventions and involved many agencies and institutions. One of the models that emphasizes on cohesiveness as a precondition for viability is the viable system model (VSM). In this study, we adopt the VSM in combination with theories of innovation and innovation system as our conceptual framework to describe and explain the functions and relational structure that exist among agencies/institutions and that of the agencies with their environment elements within one policy level system implementation. We select a biotechnology industry development policy for our analysis, the implementation of which has been designated as a strategic vehicle to support the economic development goals of an emerging economy. The findings, which generate a model of the policy-level system implementation, explain the operating agencies’ functions and their inter-relationships. The emergent model provides policy makers and implementers recommendations for improvements, as well as offers future researchers potential for comparison between existing performance of a policy implementation against its expected performance targets. The study concludes that the biotechnology industry development is an effort by the Malaysian government to institutionalize biotechnology businesses and industry. The perspective of systems thinking, in combination with theories of institutionalization, innovation and innovation system, provide important foundations in explaining technology-based industry development. All these findings highlight that the knowledge gain in explaining and interpreting the problem in focus is worthwhile, although the use of VSM as a research tool demands considerable efforts.     

Leadership and Learning: A Critical Reexamination of Senge’s Learning Organization

From its inception the concept of the learning organization has been identified with a particular type of organization or new forms of organizational learning. But it is often forgotten that Senge’s ‘system thinking’ formulation of the learning organization was inseparable from an attempt to reformulate a new way of thinking about change agency and leadership in organizations. Here it is argued that Senge’s learning organization can be re-conceptualised as a partial fusion of ‘systems thinking’ and learning theories that leads to a concept of organizational learning as a form of ‘distributed leadership’. However, the concept is critically flawed because it cannot theorise the organizing practices by which learning to lead and leading to learn are shared or distributed in organizations. It is concluded that Senge’s under-theorized focus on distributed leadership consistently neglects issues of practice and issues of power. As such his work does not provide an exploration of the possibilities for increasing the dispersal of human agency, power, knowledge and autonomy within the workplace.     

A Fresh Look at The Systems Approach and an Agenda for Action: Peeking Through the Lens of Churchman's Aphorisms

This paper critically examines some important topics of systemic thinking to understand how our perception of problems can be enhanced and how the chances of deception can be mitigated while dealing with real-world problems. To achieve this objective, an attempt is first made to scrutinize some of the key issues of systemic thinking by looking through the lens of Churchman's aphorisms at: (1) the illusion of completeness and closure, (2) the meaning of holism, and (3) the concept of ‘Interbeing’. A preliminary ‘agenda for action’ is then laid out suggesting ways for increasing our perception and for minimizing the chances of being deceived in dealing with systems problems in practice.     

Action Research for Sustainable Water Futures in Western Sydney: Reaching Beyond Traditional Stakeholder Engagement to Understand Community Stakeholder Language and Its Implications for Action

Action on issues of ecological significance often requires changes in personal behaviour and political consensus on technologies to support these changes. Unfortunately, many consultation processes only engage a narrow range of stakeholders, usually those professionally engaged or already active on a range of community issues. This paper illustrates how people who are ‘hard to reach’ or seen as ‘apathetic’ might be engaged using ‘action-conversations’ that explore the social climate for action and how scientific/technical messages can be framed in the language of the community.     

Is it Safe to Talk About Systems Again Yet?

The following article makes a case for the social sciences to renew their interest in systems, drawing on ideas circulating in organisational and community psychology, industry, engineering, biology and ecology, the new physics, management, evaluation, religion and spirituality, policy-making, human services professions, and service-user and community movements. It charts a different kind of systemic thinking in striking contrast to traditional mechanistic social systems theory. Sociology’s current resiling from systems theory is explained as a legacy of its loyal service in the ‘battlefield’ of the post WW2 critique of authoritarian structural-functionalist positivist systems and the hard-won interpretive turn to issues of process, diversity, conflict, change and a critical and ‘qualitative’ epistemology. A new transdisciplinary mental architecture of self-organising processes for complex living systems is offered which integrates understandings of both ‘structural systems’ and the ‘processual systemic’ in individual psychology, organisational sociology, and in action research as its epistemology.

Peirce and Beer

This paper considers the philosophical background of Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Diagnosis (VSD) as profoundly influenced by Charles Peirce. In a general sense, our work discusses the VSD theory base in the development of a model for actionable theory in organizations. This paper examines VSD theory in the Beer trilogy ‘Brain of the Firm,’ ‘The Heart of the Enterprise’ and ‘Diagnosing the System’ and we propose that a sound set of VSD action principles can be derived from this trilogy. We contend that the philosophical background underpinning these principles is important. Using Beer’s ‘Decision and Control,’ we consider that philosophical background and link Operational Research and the interdisciplinary learning within Cybernetics to modern general systems theory. We explore Beer’s viewpoint on the Peirce depiction of four main methods of fixing belief; tenacity, authority, a priori and finally the scientific to assist in that expansion. We consider how knowledge of Beer’s perspective on making sense of the world is important in the linkage of VSD theory to the managerial problem arena. We relate the Peirce methods to previously reported problem solving exercises involving the VSD ideology, which we will develop individually at a later date. This paper reflects our desire to express the interpretation of VSD theory in a language that the well-informed manager may readily translate into the third step of testing theory in practice.     

Systemic Human Relations in Dynamic Equilibrium

This paper reports on a breakthrough in thinking based on 33 years of field practice-based inquiry and previously published studies. It brings together several bodies of established and emerging thought including systems thinking, epistemology, psychology and sociology, in a way of thinking about the living fabric of complex human systems-in-process. It is offered here as a kind of transdisciplinary ‘Rosetta stone’ to those working around the world with one or more of these bodies of thought as a way of making some critical connections between them. In summary, an integrating ‘mental architecture’ is proposed whereby inquiry (research as an evaluative dynamic act of seeking) may be seen as the way by which living (notably human) systems come alive, and which is incorporated, organ-ised, ‘structured’ and relationally embodied in an individual and their psychological mind as personal process, and in social collectivities and their sociological organisation as cultural process.

Hume'sAbstract exhumed

‘As it is now clear that Hume is the Author of theAbstract, this short work can be enthusiastically recommended to those who wish to consider Hume's own account of the chief argument of theTreatise’ (Norton, 1993a). This ‘simplification’ of Hume'sAbstract aims to make it more accessible to a wider audience, especially to readers who do not have English as their first language. Some of Hume's own invented terms have been translated, many of his longer sentences divided, and most of his expressions simplified. The sequence of his arguments is preserved. Where needed, his arguments have been set out in traditional form. Topic headings have been added and some definitions appended. To ease reference to theAbstract, as published in Hume (1740b), the page numbers have been inserted near their correct position in square brackets.     

Exploring an Explicit Use of the Concept of Sustainability in Transport Planning

The aim of this paper is to explore an explicit use of the concept of sustainability within transport planning. This paper analyses the concept of sustainability based on a practical approach for a sustainable development of Nordhavn, an area of Copenhagen, exemplifying a complex planning problem. An exploration of the application of the concept of sustainability is carried out using elements of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). This approach indicates a need to separate the use of sustainability considerations regarding the transport planning ‘process’ from the transport planning ‘results’. The two approaches are related to the planning levels presented by Ulrich (Syst Prac 1(4):415–428, 1988). It was chosen to focus on the understanding of a sustainable transport planning process. This focus is addressed by four stakeholder groups interviewed based on the ‘ought to’ mode of Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH). Finally an outline of some of the factors of a sustainable transport planning process is proposed.     

The Actions of Mahabharat (an Indian Epic): An Analysis from Action Science Perspective

This paper analyses the actions of Mahabharat from the point of view of action science. From the point of view of action science, the source of the problem of Mahabharat is the undiscussable issue of who should be the king of Hastinapur. The paper then analyses the actions of different actors of this epic. It concludes that Yudhishthir displays the Model I governing value of ‘minimize generating or expressing negative feelings’. Duryodhan displays the Model I governing value of ‘maximize winning and minimize losing’. Vidur, Bhishm and Dronacharya display the Model I governing value of ‘be rational’. Together these actors create the ‘limited learning system’ of Model O-I. The primary inhibitory loops created by this limited learning system finally lead to secondary inhibitory loop of polarisation of different actors into two groups and the emergence of win-lose group dynamics in the form of war as the only action which can settle the original undiscussable issue of who should be the king of Hastinapur.     

F#-Time, Functions and Processes: Towards Sustainable Investment Risk Benchmarks

‘I made a mistake’: Alan Greenspan (Financial Times: Alan Beattie and James Politi: Washington, 23rd October 2008). Such are the words of great men, for even in troubled times their self-effacing manner provides useful guidance. Whilst Mr Greenspan may feel this way, he is a product of his environment, one that has seen the cumulative development of financial instruments and strategies that have not been thought through as to their impact on a complex economy. Mainly this is because risk is thought to be discrete and the methods used to price it are flawed. To an engineer the control of a machine is built-in. Although the economy is not a machine, but an intensely connected complex of ever emerging businesses, the process of control needs to be structured in a similar manner. Pricing investment risk in this environment should never have been left to opaque institutions, or processes that do not recognise the co-dependencies of business and systemic functionality. To do so is to ignore the correlation of events in a highly connected world. These events are dynamic and conditional, whose outturns are unknowable. This does not mean unmanageable, but that the control process be built-in to businesses and government in a consistent manner, transparent yet using different parameters. Transparent means that data, assumptions and processes need to be monitored and published in timely manner. As far as accounting for results is concerned it should be recognised that budgeting and reporting to investors is founded on dynamic processes that are therefore changeable; usually out of date; and co-dependent upon others within a complex dynamic network that is both internal and external to the business. The works of Stafford Beer (Brain of the Firm, Heart of the Enterprise, Diagnosing the System) Fredrick Vestor (The Art of Interconnected Thinking) and others are examples of how to manage the internal dynamics of a business and point to a methodology that synthesises the approaches of investors such as Warren Buffett so that extreme outcomes such as the Credit-Crunch 2008 can be reduced in frequency but investors are free to ‘take their risks’. This research aims to compare two extreme events in the financial arena, the ‘Reinsurance Spiral of the late 1980s’ and the ‘2008 Credit-Crunch’, show their commonalities and propose methods that supply liquidity in all but gross systemic failure and allow investment risk to be more ably assessed and priced. It is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis but one focused on how ignoring the proper relationship of time, functions and processes brought about the current problem in both insurance and the capital markets and how a solution may be found. This research note offers an overview on the ongoing PhD research on the topic.

Feminist Systems Theory: Learning by Praxis

Feminist Systems Theory (FST) is an emerging theory grounded in cultural ecofeminism and critical systems theory. FST’s contribution is in a set of principles that contain implications for community development and social research. FST brings to the fore the importance of valuing and considering the voices of people at the margins of social research and community development projects and is an effort towards a new ontology and language of person and nature to adequately address environmental marginalization. The ‘systems’ theory contribution to FST enriches our repertoires of methods and tools with an emphasis on systems thinking characterised by the use of boundary analysis. FST is ideally situated to enhance systemic intervention practice, an application of action research and participatory research practices. This paper will examine ‘process philosophy’ necessary to understand the nature of boundary analysis and the implications for FST and praxis with relevant examples drawn from case studies of current applications of FST in action research settings; (1) economic analysis and transition pathways; (2) policy analysis of the Close the Gap strategy for Indigenous equality and equity in Australia; (3) a community food distribution system; and, (4) a community health and diabetes prevention program.     

Are You Receiving Me? A Viable System Model (VSM) Analysis of Purchasing Coordination in a Firm Engaged in Offshoring of Manufacturing Activities

This paper presents an account of the coordination of purchasing activities in a firm that offshored their manufacturing operations that later turned problematic. Empirical data is drawn from a single in-depth case study within a large multinational company which was involved in production offshoring in 2009. The paper draws on the viable systems model (VSM) as the main theoretical lens. First, our findings suggest that purchasing coordination is a loose construct; one in which the role and types of information aggregation in the purchasing process is loosely defined compared to the aggregation of volumes and the effectiveness of sourcing teams. This finding partly explains why many cross-functional sourcing problems occur. Second, that organizational and functional contextual differences can no longer be sidelined in discussions of purchasing coordination because they define how the system’s functions interface and therefore are one of the most essential considerations for better purchasing coordination and ultimately organizational viability.

     

Evaluating Climate Change Discourse in New Zealand

Issues of social responsibility, ethics and interdependence, as well as the pragmatic imperative to better understand complexity, require that diverse viewpoints be invited and given credence by policy makers seeking imaginative ‘solutions’ to climate change. This paper explores the statutory introduction of biofuels into New Zealand by way of the discourses that preceded this decision. This inquiry used Critically Systemic Thinking and ‘Mode 2’ Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to engage with multiple stakeholders to the Biofuels policy to discover how the discourse was conducted. It concludes that the process of policymaking was framed in technical rationalist terms thereby favouring certain ‘worldviews’ over others. Accordingly, a model of ‘ideal’ discourse and decision making for governing the conduct of future public discourse is presented. This inquiry assists in re-establishing SSM as a rigorous and reflexive approach to analysing a complex issue and for enhancing collective learning into its content and process.     

Environmental Scanning and Scenario Planning: A 12 month Perspective on Applying the Viable Systems Model to Developing Public Sector Foresight

An environmental scan project is outlined and discussed using the viable systems model (VSM). A participant/observer perspective applied futures thinking, systems practice, scenario orientated narratives and risk assessment frameworks to an annual corporate planning process involving engagement and communication with senior public sector executives. Focus was given to improving foresight techniques through the innovative use of existing resources and skills. Results included additional work on scenario development, designing a decentralised “Development Directorate” network and evaluating complexity science sense-making techniques to enhance foresight capacity. Submitted with assistance from Dr. Angela Espinosa, Hull University Business School, UK. The views expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not represent those of any organisation mentioned or implied.     

Developing the methodology of TSI: From the oblique use of methods to creative design

During the last 13 years, a dialogue has been conducted in the Critical Systems literature on the subject of choice betwen methods. However, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, researchers went in two separate directions. One direction involved an exploration of the “creative design of methods.” This is when the problem situation is understood in terms of a series of systemically interrelated research questions, each of which might need to be addressed using a different method, or part of a method. A synthesis is generated that allows each individual research question to be addressed as part of a whole system of questions. The other research direction involved the development of “Total Systems Intervention” (TSI), a meta-methodology that, amongst other things, encourages the creative exploration of the problem situation prior to the choice of methods. One of the latest innovations in TSI is a theory of the “oblique” use of methods. This is the use of methods for purposes other than those they were originally designed for. However, it is argued here that all the case studies that have been subject to an “oblique” interpretation can be better explained if they are seen as examples of the creative design of methods. We can therefore bring together the two strands of research that have hitherto been pursued separately in the Critical Systems literature. it is suggested that TSI can be enhanced by an understanding of the creative design of methods because the latter allows us to explain the purposive, flexible, and responsive way in which TSI is most successfully used in practice.     

Creating ‘Rhizomatic Systems’ for Understanding Complexity in Organizations

The article describes and demonstrates the use of a new research proposal for understanding the complexity in organizations in terms of a Deleuzian sense of an event. It creates the rhizome metaphor that allows the emergence of different ways of systems thinking, a legitimate challenge to the Modernist’s orthodoxy. For Deleuze and Guattari, micropolitics are the essence of what we call ‘rhizomatic systems.’ It is this concept of the organization, as a rhizome or rhizomatic systems that we want to focus from ‘problem solving’ in a real-world situation to the process of problematization, that is, the making or appreciating a series of events in the problematizing fields. The paper draws on the research experience in which participatory action research was carried out in a Korean distribution company. The participatory learning process happened to create a series of events in which ‘time-related research’ was conducted in order to facilitate the process of problematization within the organization.

Design Rules for Intranets According to the Viable System Model

The Viable System Model, VSM, by Stafford Beer is a model used for diagnosing and designing organizational structure and communication to facilitate necessary and sufficient conditions for viability. The model has been used for diagnosing different kinds of organizations at different levels where its use highlights existing or missing communication patterns and information flows in different communication channels and relates findings to a viable system. In a previous article, VSM and Intranet have been discussed and examples of advantages of combining the two concepts when designing organizations, has been given. In this article, VSM is combined with Intranet and possible functions in an intranet that support information exchange between different systems are identified and described. The suggested functions identified in this article are finally related to Intranet use modes, and the concepts of Empowerment vs. control.     

Measuring the Performance of a Research Strategic Plan System Using the Soft Systems Methodology’s Three ‘Es’ and the Viable System Model’s Indices of Achievement

We explore problems involving the measurement of the performance of a system. We outline two systemic approaches that have come from different epistemological positions: one from the interpretivist paradigm (soft systems methodology) and the other from the cybernetic paradigm (viable systems model). These two systemic methodologies that have tackled problems involving performance measurement are considered and discussed: (a) Checkland’s systems ideas of ‘managing and controlling’ a system throughout a set of three measures of performance: efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness; and (b) Beer’s concepts of Actuality, Capability, Potentiality of the firm and his claims that the performance of a system needs to be quantifiable and resumed on ‘pure’ numbers which should reflect the survivability of the firm. A parallel is drawn between the two approaches concluding that although the paradigms underpinning them are in some way different, the practicalities of these approaches to control, measure and improve the performance of a system are very similar. A case involving the measurement of a proposed research strategic plan for a Manchester Metropolitan University Business School’s department is used to illustrate the systemic approaches.