Michael, thank you for
>If, I love your example of the dynamite video! Also, the meaning you
>attribute to the event and the structure of change ring true for me.
To move on to your
>This question suggests to me a fundamental misuse of "systemic".
>Leaving aside the specific of "the need for buy in", how can we think
>it possible to have systemic change without taking the time that it
>takes to do what is required? Isn't time a major component of a
>system? Is there any way around "what is required" by a system if it
>is in fact required?
I am not sure I see the fundamental misuse and suspect we may have to
examine more closely the assumtions of time. My simplified view of change
in complex adaptive systems derives from my [and the cumulative]
geological past in which I think we see constancy of process producing
discontinuity of rate and also a pointer to time being a function of the
observer and the scale at which 'systemic' is being assumed to operate.
Hence gradual change [the slow creeping stuff of evolution produces
instantaneous systemic change [on a different time scale]. A 50,000 to
500,000 year punctuation of a biological eqilibrium [which may be sourced
by feedback within a complex system or by something fundamentally
external] is an instantaneous revolution on one time-scale and an eternity
on another.
Translated into corporate terms, I would rephrase your
>I suggest that when the thought as formulated "when there isn't time
>for what's required by systemic change" then we have a signal to
>reconsider what we are up to and/or what we consider to be the nature
>of systems and they way they change.
as something like
then we have a signal to consider the scale of system we are envisaging
and the way it may then change. A dynamic event at the scale of a system
can be sourced at the scale of a greater system [dynamiting offices or
dropping asteroids on dinosaurs] or by an instability in a smaller
'component' system [butterflies flapping wings anywhere from Brazil to
Borneo being the famous and endlessly mutating metaphor].
>Theories of complex adaptive systems suggest ways which provide
>leverage beyond anything that systems dynamics offers in this matter
>as far as I've been able to tell so far. Check it out.
I have to the limit of my current technology but I wonder if the 'far
beyond' is not a signal of another emergent schism in systems thinking
comparable to the SF/CLD debate [which struck me as shades of Northern
Ireland - a faint whiff of bigotry among the converted]. I tend to see the
CAS versus SD question as again more tied up in questions of spatial and
temporal scale. Dive in the detail and you find a CAS. Step back and it
may appear as a simple archetype. [No I am not criticising, yes I am
converted and I can provide examples but this message is long enough]
Actually this generates another line of inquiry. Any more contributions
out there on scales of perception and the difference it makes?
If Price
The Harrow Partnership
Pewley Fort Guildford UK
101701.3454@compuserve.com
--Dr Ilfryn Price <101701.3454@compuserve.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>