I’m fascinated by both the application of systems thinking, and the debate around it.
In the UK public sector, there has been an influx of ‘lean’, ’systems thinking’, ‘lean systems thinking’ etc - some of it very good, some of it well-intentioned but very bad, some of it just calculated rebranding of existing methodologies.
Certain people who I trust are putting together a guide for the public sector on how to procure ‘real’ lean, but in the meantime I think it is important to distinguish which ’systems’ you are talking about.
In my mind the provisional list of systems is three:
- the process as a system: this is the basic level which most suppliers will understand - lean as process improvement (see
www.systemsthinking.co.uk)
- interpersonal systems: usually considered very separate from the rest, this is the systematic ways in which relationships between individuals impact on the overall organisation - any number of models, training and coaching approaches apply here
- the organisation itself as a system: the systematic and predictable ways in which different situational positions in the organisation impact on performance.
Of course, any good systems thinking intervention which is really about organisational development will take all of these into account. My favourite approach to the latter is Barry Oshry’s Power+Systems approach - see www.powerandsystems.com.
Senge and others perhaps cut across these three systems dimensions in powerful ways.
I recently came across a posting on the NW Lean yahoo group which illustrates some of the ways in which Toyota certainly is not focused only on the process as a system, but also has created a model which generates powerful results on the organisation-as-system level.
(The post is reproduced below, and quotes a Harvard Business Review article which is itself an excerpt of a book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470267623?ie=UTF8&tag=randombits-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0470267623. The post is also accessible at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/NWLEAN/message/10947 if you subscribe to the group - well worth it if you are interested in some wide-ranging debate on the practicalities of lean implementation. I was recommended the NWLEAN group via www.evolvingexcellence.com, an excellent repository for challenging views on what Lean is about - and increasingly, challenging views on libertarian politics).
What interests me is the ’six forces which cause contradictions inside Toyota’… three forces of expansion: impossible goals, local customization, and experimentation (creating complexity and diversity) and three forces of integration: the founders’ values, “up-and-in” people management, and open communication, which provide a framework of values, culture, understanding and therefore stability.
Compare and contrast these with Barry Oshry’s fundamental systems drivers in organisations which need to be optimally balanced: see www.powerandsystems.com, specifically
At its heart, simple stuff - organisations need to balance their systems to get a deliberate and optimal mix of change and development.
The fact is that these elements can be observed in a car company which has developed a brilliant approach to doing business, and by an experiential systems thinker who has developed a brilliant approach to taking people through their own learning about how systems operate in organisations!
