Is systems thinking the root of all evil?

Pete Burden Just came across your post an really like the questions you pose. I recently attended another systems thinking masterclass and was wondering from the get go: If systems thinking is a tool to think about complexity isn't than play a behaviour to fully embrace complexity? At least that's become my perspective and I feel some resonance with what you are writing. How do see that?

Martin Brooks You're having some fun with analogies and metaphors, Martin! You have produced a good description of the systemic nature of the human body. Ironically, though, this serves to illustrate why organization - in the social context - is not a system. Just a couple of observations. First, all the information needed to produce a human being is already encoded in the embryo at conception. This then unfolds in a predictable fashion to produce the human physiology that you describe. Nothing else can be formed from that embryo - at least not unless and until some mad scientist intervenes! However, this is not the case with the dynamics of human interaction that we are talking about here. It is impossible to say, with any degree of certainty, what will emerge from the interaction of people. This is the case even in a one-to-one encounter, let alone as a result of the widespread interplay of these 'local' interactions. Whatever emerges, emerges. Secondly, there is no dynamic of (social) organization equivalent to those that lead to the creation of separate 'levels' that you describe in terms of the human body - I.e. systems within systems. There is a common misconception that 'organizations' comprise a nested set of sub-systems, such as individuals and teams, all operating within an "external environment" (which is also viewed as a systemic 'whole'). This leads to the notion that 'the organization', viewed as an entity, does things that individuals can't do. This works in relation to cells, organs, and internal systems (such as the circulatory and digestive systems). The human body, as an integrated whole, does do things in ways that individual cells, specific organs, and it's internal systems can't replicate. However, this is not what's going on in relation to the dynamics of human interaction. All aspects of (social) organization are continuously (re)enacted in the currency of people's in-the-moment interactions. "The organization" does not exist as an overarching system which does things. Only people do things. People, that is, who are always acting in relationship to specific and generalized others. That is, individuals who are interdependent, not autonomous. This means that a decision to completely change the nature of the business, say, is the result of exactly the same process of communicative interaction as that which is determining what happens in the workshop, on the trading floor, in the corridors, in the pub, and wherever else. As a third and final point. Unlike in the case of the human body, nobody exists in any way outside this interactional process. There is no equivalent of the doctor in your example, who is an external, objective observer of a separate system. Everyone is an involved participant in this ongoing process.

BTW: "Process" is a word that summarises "system for transforming inputs to outputs" - and so is at the heart of Systems Thinking - there cannot be a more "processual way" of looking at things.

Hi Pete, Sorry if I came over a little harsh in my comment - that was not my intention - but I did intend a very firm rebuttal. By "Systems Thinking" I mean a set of intellectual disciplines that encompasses Hard Systems Thinking (or Traidtional Systems Engineering), Soft Systems Thinking and Critical Systems Thinking. See www.streams.expert for more detail about what is included. Common to them all is the mode of thinking that sees the world as composed of many, many systems - interlinked and overlapping with multiple inputs and outputs and interacting lines of causality flowing through shared components and structures often with a level of emergent behaviours. Non-Systems Thinking is anything that does not think like that. Religious thinking is an example. A "flow of conversation" is Systems Thinking - a particular style of Systems Thinking - that in many ways is similar to the basic tenets of Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology - but perhaps with elements drawn from Critical Systems Thinking - or maybe the underlying philosophy like Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action. My point was that not thinking in terms of systems - involving people - and interactions and causality and inputs and outputs - leads to at best an incomplete understanding of "the problem situation" - and that leads to inappropriate action which invariably makes matters worse. And that must be some evil. So not applying some form of Systems Thinking - like a flow of conversation - has a better claim to being the root of some evil than applying some Systems Thinking. Hence your original thesis that "Systems Thinking is the root of (some/all) evil." is just plain wrong.