40. Dr. Russell Ackoff: Business' Next Greater System

Last week, we covered Systems Thinking and showed you can't master a system until you move to the next greater system. We ended the article with this conclusion and challenge:

Systems thinking Dissolves every situation when it begins in Synthesis because it ends in Analysis. There is NO WAY to end in Synthesis when you begin in Analysis. The issue is systems thinkers are the worst people in the world at Synthesis, but let's test this!

What is the next greater system for "business"?

Notice, the key to mastering "business" would be to operate in the next greater system!

It turns out that NO ONE got the right answer, not even the top ten influencers on LinkedIn! Again, this is not surprising because our brains automatically work according to Analysis, which is the cause of Sexism and Racism. It is very uncomfortable to think according to Synthesis, which would prevent Sexism and Racism, so it's no surprise the experts missed this.

The part I love is to watch peoples' faces when they hear the answer to last week's question because it is OBVIOUS! You won't be able to unsee this!!!

The next greater system from business is education!

LOOK AROUND LINKEDIN. How many posts DON'T try to teach you something?

On the other hand, I spend two days each week walking around educational institutions. How many times do you think someone approaches me to help me with my business?

The PROOF that education is a greater system than business, is that NO ONE in the education system is focused on business, while EVERYONE in the business system can't avoid education.

Dr. Ackoff understood this, which was why he spent a lot of time talking about education. In fact, Dr. Ackoff believed our method of business is an effect of our method of education! He realized the only way to transform business would be to first (cough...Synthesis...cough) transform education! Since that was a Synthesis step, what follows is Dr. Ackoff's Analysis step, beginning (as all truly intelligent people do) with definitions!

Data: symbols representing characteristics

Information: processed data intended to be useful; "Description"

Knowledge: instruction; The product of which is "Skill"

Understanding: explanation; The why that explains "Desire"

Wisdom: qualitative change of previous four forms of content

(Notice, Dr. Ackoff didn't have a definition for Truth, which is another proof he was a Truth Savant.)

Dr. Ackoff said that education doesn't make a distinction between these five forms of content and consequently, "children come through the system with a great deal of information, very little knowledge, and no understanding, and virtually zero wisdom." Instead, he found that every child learns very quickly their job is to give the answers the teacher expects, which is the opposite of creativity. Look around LinkedIn, forty years ago Dr. Ackoff predicted the dearth of creativity as an effect of formal education.

While he believed business would be most helped by children learning to think creatively, he was very upset with the way colleges taught business: through Analysis! He would say the way a university teaches business is to teach the student each part of "business", which we learned last week means the course loses its defining property; it is all information and no understanding or wisdom. Dr. Ackoff said the student never learns “business”.

For example, when you go to the zoo, do you believe you are experiencing the defining property of the animal you are observing? Do you believe four years of ONLY going to the zoo would prepare you to survive in the wild?

Zoos are the height of human pride. We have taken nature apart, isolated the parts, and then convinced ourselves we are experiencing nature. How would you feel if someone did that to you? Better yet, how do people on LinkedIn feel when others judge them based on a picture or one post?

What's the danger in believing Analysis is the way to approach a system like nature?

Meet Allan Savory. He wanted to slow down desertification: the process by which grasslands are slowing the erosion and giving way to sandy soil unable to sustain life. What did his Analysis approach show?

The overproduction of livestock is to blame for the overconsumption of grasslands. There are too many animals in one place feasting on all the plant life the earth can produce and leaving nothing but bare ground!

With this knowledge, Allan Savory was forced to make a hard decision. In an African national park, where poaching and hunting was finally removed, the land began to deteriorate. You see, without the hunters there was now no check on the animals feeding on the plains. They overproduced, and over consumed, and ruined the land.

Savory did the research, suspecting there were now too many elephants. He proved there were too many, and their numbers would need to be reduced. The government sent third party researchers to check his work and agreed his was the only solution. Over the following years they shot 40,000 elephants to bring the land back under control. To keep the land sustainable so the elephants could survive and even thrive. To Savory’s grief and guilt, the land didn’t get better; it got worse.

Actually, grasslands are created by animals eating the grass in a specific area and having to stop short of consuming all the grass because the ground is covered in manure. The stamping down of the manure with the remaining grass results in much more grass!

There's a TED Talk where Allan Savory celebrates the human efforts and creativity needed to restore some of the lands. Yes, we humans celebrate our Solve after we ruin the Greater System that was thriving with Dissolve. Hooray! Back to education...

Last week, we saw people can only directly learn about 25% of information that is taught directly, which is why you are always told to repeat something at least three times if you want to retain it. How much effort does it take to master something through repetition?

The next greater system for "learning" is "teaching". When people teach something, they learn three times as much as when they focus on learning. Dr. Ackoff gave several examples including second graders who were given the task of teaching arithmetic to a computer for a semester. At the end of the semester, the students had learned four semesters of arithmetic!

We also covered the following in the article "Can You Tell Me a Story?":

However, when you learn information in a story, you only have to hear it one time. In fact, I'm sure each of you knows some arcane fact because it was a part of a story you heard years ago.

I have had people tell me they already knew this because a college professor taught them the best way to learn information is through stories, to which I reply, "Did that professor spend the rest of the semester ONLY lecturing through stories?" (I'm sure you can guess the kind of confused looks I got from these people as they realized the professor didn't teach through stories and actually made the course harder for the students. What is the purpose of education?)

The WORST way to teach anything is DIRECTLY! Look around LinkedIn. Why would you do business with anyone who uses the worst method of education? They are proving they are the worst at mastering business!

What is the purpose of education?

We covered two aspects of HOW people think in the articles "Are You a Half-Brained Person?" and "What is an Introvert?": picture and processing perspectives, respectively. Think about this on two spectrums: from Big Picture to Small Picture and from External Processor to Internal Processor. Which method of thinking does best in school?

People who think barely Small Picture do best because we want accuracy, but we don't want to hear that 2 + 2 = 4.000000000

People who think barely Internal Processing do best because we don't want people to interrupt and we don't want to wait a long time for the answer.

Think about a Shakespearean play. One character espouses a deep philosophical premise in iambic pentameter without being interrupted and the moment they are done, the other person immediately espouses a deep philosophical premise in iambic pentameter without being interrupted. These aren't people. These are robots, computers. People believe the ideal person is a robot! People believe the ideal way to teach is directly, like how a computer gets information. School is built for robots! How many students think like a computer?

If school is built for barely Small Picture, barely Internal Processing humans, then the school that can boast the biggest learning scores are the ones who can move the most students from their unique way of thinking into a robot mentality, regardless what effect it has on the student's emotional stability and Dr. Ackoff is proven right again.

In 2018, the Ofsted chief inspector stated they would be changing how schools in the United Kingdom are inspected. Their focus on performance testing had led to teachers becoming data managers and graduates being poor citizens. What is going to happen when the data proves the past twenty years of school violence in the United States is tied to more effective Analysis methods causing students to operate against their Uniqueness to the detriment of their mental health?

What is the goal of education?

Every student ought to graduate knowing how they uniquely learn.

As it stands today, education isn't made for anyone; yet the world is made for everyone. There is a Purpose in this large system, known as the world, that would bring the feeling of fulfillment to an individual's Uniqueness.

Learning and teaching are within the system known as “education”. However, in order to master education, we would need to move to the next greater system.

It's test time again!

Dr. Ackoff said that education needed to focus on a specific area in the future if it wanted to transform education and that it turned out to be the next greater system for education!

What is education's next greater system?

We will find out next week.

Next Chapter: How Did We Get Here, Dr. Ackoff?

Table of Contents

Are you one of the 1% of people who WANTS the Truth? These articles are forming a book on Generativity. If you are interested in going on this journey of Generativity, the first chapter is here:?Do You Really Want To Improve Mental Health?

The following is intended for people who either say they base their life on the Bible or know people who say they base their life on the Bible...

There are 641 red-letter verses in the Gospels. There are 641 verses where Jesus is quoted.

The only thing everyone agreed on concerning Jesus was that He was a Rabbi...even His enemies referred to Him as a Rabbi, which means Teacher.

What percentage of these scriptures involve Jesus teaching directly?

What percentage of these scriptures involve Jesus teaching indirectly?

What percent of the time did Jesus quote scripture?

What percent of the time do "Christian" leaders and believers teach directly?

What percent of the time do "Christian" leaders and believers quote scripture?

Answers...

Jesus only quoted scripture 5% of the time. He did it 3% of the time to show someone they had a contradiction. He did it 2% of the time to consciously teach them.

Overall, Jesus taught directly 10% of the time, which means 90% of what He taught He did indirectly, through actions or stories. Why didn't He teach directly more? What kind of results did He get when He taught directly?

In Matthew 19, a man asks Jesus to teach him directly:

Now behold, one came and said to Him,?“Good?Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”

So He said to him,?“Why do you call Me good??No one?is?good but One,?that is,?God. But if you want to enter into life,?keep the commandments.”

He said to Him, “Which ones?”

Jesus said,?“‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’?‘Honor your father and?your?mother,’ and,?‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’?”

The young man said to Him, “All these things I have?kept?from my youth. What do I still lack?”

Jesus said to him,?“If you want to be perfect,?go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Well...that didn't work!

What about Jesus directly teaching His leading disciple in Matthew 26?

Then Jesus said to them,?“All of you will?be?made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:

‘I will strike the Shepherd,

And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

But after I have been raised,?I will go before you to Galilee.”

Peter answered and said to Him, “Even if all are?made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.”

Jesus said to him,?“Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”

Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!”

Peter's first response to Jesus teaching him directly, was to tell Jesus He was wrong! Peter's second response not only sounded like the first, but later Peter proved he was wrong.

Even when Jesus directly taught, people didn't retain the information. If a person was a true follower of Jesus and taking direction from God, would they teach directly or indirectly?