The Purpose of a System Is What It Does

The Purpose of a System Is What It Does

"Agile actually means ..."

"Lean originally means ..."

Yeah, whatever. That's not relevant when judging what people do with it now.

Management By Objectives (MBO) was not intended to be about bonuses for financial targets. Peter Drucker would turn in his grave if he knew what MBO has become over time. And yet, nearly everyone these days sees MBO as managers setting targets for other people and incentivizing them accordingly. This has become the new purpose of MBO.

Agile never intended to revolve around agile frameworks, coaches, conferences, and certifications. And yet, here we are. The agile industrial complex is what we all ended up with. That is what Agile is now.

Likewise, Lean thinking was not intended to be about just delivering things faster to customers. And yet, I can wallpaper my house with all the quotes from consultants who say that better flow equals more/earlier value and unthinkingly praise faster and more frequent customer deliveries. That is what Lean seems to be now.

I'm a big fan of the POSIWID principle in systems thinking:

The Purpose of a System Is What It Does

When a company claims it supports sustainability and a transition to renewable energy sources but at the same time keeps getting subsidies for fossil fuels, then we can rightfully say the organization's purpose is a "greenwashed" energy policy.

When a religion or political movement preaches "love and peace," but we see the actual behaviors of its people show violence and suppression, then the purpose of the system is violence and domination, not love and peace.

When a community claims its ideology intends to do A, but everyone can see that the actual behaviors of community members are B, then the system's purpose is B, not A.

Historical intentions are interesting but not relevant.

It can be interesting to discuss what the etymology of a word is. For example, the word "gay" originally meant light-hearted and carefree. But that is irrelevant to understanding what people mean when they use this word in 2023. Similarly, for the current purpose of an ideology, religion, or political system, the intentions of their founders or thought leaders are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the actual behaviors of people who use those words now.

The Purpose of a System Is What It Does, or

The Subversion of an Idea Is the New Version of the Idea

Intentions and interpretations change, and the world moves on.

Johan Schuiten ??

Débloquez votre potentiel sans compromis sur votre productivité | Founder | Entrepreneur | Coach | Mentor | Speaker

1 年

Interesting, what would be the purpose of the Agility performed in most of the companies ??

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Patrick Martin

Business Agility Coach - Agile Transformation Consultant

1 年

According to organisational psychologists Kegan & Lahey, both individuals and organisations both have ostenisble goals/aims we are committed to but act in ways contrary to achieving those goals/aims because we are subconsciously committed to deeper aims/goals that prevent us/orgs from meeting the outward/ostensible goals. A simple example: Ostensible Goal : We want our staff to be happy and not leave us Behaviours that help/hinder We have pizza evenings, we use the bell curve to keep people from getting too high an increase, we expect staff to reimburse training costs if they resign within a year The Subsconscious Goal/Motivators We dont want people using us to get a better job elsewhere. Once we identify our subconscious motivators then we can start the hard work to try to address things to increase the chances of meeting our ostensible goals. Organisations are no different. The case is made that orgs are like organisms with a immune system that repels new ideas/concepts so as to maintain the systemic equilbrium. So to the post ‘The Purpose of a System is What it Does’ strictly speaking should be ‘The underlying purpose of a system is what it does but subconsciously’

Amitabh Sinha

Enterprise Agile Coach | Agile Product Delivery Expert | Executive & Leadership Coach| Scrum Trainer & Speaker | Principal Scrum Master

1 年

Logic is like a hired taxi. You can take it to go wherever you want to go... If a system consistently fails to achieve it's original purpose then the system did not fulfill it's desired purpose. If what it is now being used for is bringing value and is life supporting then yes, it has found a new and maybe better and valuable purpose. If it is being used otherwise, I would say it is being abused....

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Thomas Watts

Support Ukraine

1 年

My favorite quote: Things are real in their consequences. Your intentions and "supposed to" don't matter in the face of the actual consequence for someone/the world. That's the reality of a thing.

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Jeff Anderson

Partnering with executives and organizations to build, motivate, and scale happy teams | Founder of Agile by Design Consulting Firm

1 年

Jurgen Appelo continues to show leadership in the what was once the “agile” movement , by challenging dogma and demanding that we all take an honest look at the collective impact of our work. Some will nit pick at the minutia of his message; but they are missing the point. The failings of agile aren’t the fault of people not doing it correctly, they are the failing of an approach that does not adequately consider how people actually behave. For the agilist out there getting defensive, please appreciate that Jurgen Appelo is not trying to tear you down, he is trying to expand your thinking and build upon the gains we have made.

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