Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity

Author: Michael C. Jackson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119118387
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 728

Book Description
From the winner of the INCOSE Pioneer Award 2022 The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues. Leaders of international bodies such as the UN, OECD, UNESCO and WHO — and of major business, public sector, charitable, and professional organizations — have all declared that systems thinking is an essential leadership skill for managing the complexity of the economic, social and environmental issues that confront decision makers. Systems thinking must be implemented more generally, and on a wider scale, to address these issues. An evaluation of different systems methodologies suggests that they concentrate on different aspects of complexity. To be in the best position to deal with complexity, decision makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and learn how to employ them in combination. This is called critical systems thinking. Making use of over 25 case studies, the book offers an account of the development of systems thinking and of major efforts to apply the approach in real-world interventions. Further, it encourages the widespread use of critical systems practice as a means of ensuring responsible leadership in a complex world. The INCOSE Pioneer Award is presented to someone who, by their achievements in the engineering of systems, has contributed uniquely to major products or outcomes enhancing society or meeting its needs. The criteria may apply to a single outstanding outcome or a lifetime of significant achievements in effecting successful systems. Comments on a previous version of the book: Russ Ackoff: ‘the book is the best overview of the field I have seen’ JP van Gigch: ‘Jackson does a masterful job. The book is lucid ...well written and eminently readable’ Professional Manager (Journal of the Chartered Management Institute): ‘Provides an excellent guide and introduction to systems thinking for students of management’

Designing Freedom

Author: Stafford Beer
Publisher: House of Anansi
ISBN: 0887848559
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Book Description
Distinguished cyberneticist Stafford Beer states the case for a new science of systems theory and cybernetics. His essays examine such issues as The Real Threat to All We Hold Most Dear, The Discarded Tools of Modern Man, A Liberty Machine in Prototype, Science in the Service of Man, The Future That Can Be Demanded Now, The Free Man in a Cybernetic World. Designing Freedom ponders the possibilities of liberty in a cybernetic world.

The Golden Thread

Author: Fuad Udemans
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1491879327
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
This book is an account of a ten-year experiment, whereby the scientist became an entrepreneur so as to experience his own theoretical model applied in a live social system (society). Profit motives and the clinical nature of science became muddied with norms, rules, and laws of social systems and how different people applied and responded to these rules. The insights to be gained from this journey are often surprising. The book highlights many counter-intuitive outcomes. It also reveals how certain individuals interpret societys rules and norms despite their design to ensure fair and equitable social systems. Indeed, the manipulation of social laws and standards by those with strong fields of power is self-evident, and it is explored in a unique manner. Understanding how the field of power can be manipulated suggests that no matter how bleak ones current position may be, it is very possible and relatively easy to escape conditions of poverty, oppression, and subjugation, vital issues that citizens in all countries face today.

Platform for Change

Author: Stafford Beer
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9780471948407
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 468

Book Description
"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world's most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." —Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania. USA This is a highly original book both in content and format. It presents thirteen 'arguments for change', these are linked by a personal commentary, and by a deeper, 'metalinguistic', commentary. Platform for Change is completely self-contained, does not deal at all with the nature of viable systems, but is directed towards the hope that our planet may yet remain viable--and the human race survive.

Critical Systems Thinking

Author: Michael C. Jackson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1394203594
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
CRITICAL SYSTEMSTHINKING Understand the full range of systems approaches and how to use them with this innovative overview. Leaders and managers face increasing complexity and uncertainty because technical, organizational, socio-cultural, political, and environmental issues have become intensely interconnected. Systems thinking is recognized as the essential competence for managing complexity. As the demand for systems thinking grows, however, the fragmentation of the field into different methodologies has become a potential liability. Critical systems thinking (CST) shows how this diversity can be a strength rather than a weakness by revealing how different systems methodologies address various aspects of complexity and how they can be used in combination to resolve the messiest of wicked problems. Critical Systems Thinking offers, in a single volume, an account of the value of systems thinking and CST in the modern world, an explanation of the pragmatic philosophy and expansion in mindset necessary to embrace CST, and detailed instructions on how to undertake critical systems practice (CSP) using the variety of systems approaches to navigate multi-dimensional complexity. Readers will find: An accessible introduction to systems thinking and CST. A description and critique of the best-known systems methodologies. A guide to the mindset changes, the steps required, and the toolkit necessary to undertake successful CSP. Case studies and examples of CSP. A discussion of the nature of systemic leadership. Critical Systems Thinking is ideal for leaders and managers in government, business, the public sector, the professions, and beyond who want to understand the potential of systems thinking and use it in their work. It is essential for systems researchers and practitioners who want a deeper understanding of the field.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547527543
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 580

Book Description
National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Beyond Dispute

Author: Stafford Beer
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Book Description
Over the last forty years, Stafford Beer has published a steady stream of books and papers in which he has applied cybernetic science to organizational problems. In all of these he has explained underlying principles and developed new theories and recorded a great variety of practical applications. He has now invented and demonstrated Team Syntegrity. Syntegrity is a powerful invention in the organization of normative, directional, and strategic planning, and other creative decision processes. The underlying model is a regular icosahedron (20 sides). This has 30 edges, each of which represents a person. An internal network of interactions is created by a set of protocols. A group organized like this is an ultimate statement of participatory democracy, since each role is indistinguishable from any other. There is no hierarchy, no top, no bottom, no sideways. Beer illustrates how continued dynamic interaction between persons causes ideas and resolutions to hum around the sphere, which reverberates into a kind of group consciousness. Mathematical analysis of the structure shows how the process is determined by the even spread of synergy. The aim of the book is to provide managers and their advisors with a new planning method that captures the native genius of the organization in a non-political and non-hierarchical way. The book includes an enquiry into Beer?s concept of recursive consciousness, based on this model, that is relevant to both neurocybernetics and the social systems sciences.

The Heart of Enterprise

Author: Stafford Beer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783939314165
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description

The Manager's Guide to Systems Practice

Author: Frank Stowell
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118345622
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
This book is an ideal resource on the subject of systems practice for busy managers whose time is scarce. It provides a rapid introduction to straightforward, yet powerful ideas that enable users to address real world problems. Systems theory and practice is predominantly a framework for thinking about the World, in which holistic views are maintained. In this respect it contrasts with some familiar techniques of management science, in which problem situations are broken down into their constituent parts with resultant loss of coherence.

Quality

Author: John Beckford
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317287770
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
Quality: A Critical Introduction, fourth edition, continues to provide a complete knowledge platform for all those wishing to study the development of the theory and practice of quality management. Exploring the basics of management theory and the work of the quality gurus, who have formed the foundation of current practice, this new edition builds upon the previous editions’ unique critical perspective of quality. A number of key management practices are considered including the new ISO9001:2015 standards, EFQM, systems thinking, systems practice, business process reengineering, six-sigma, organisational learning, intelligent organisation, skills based quality management and service quality management. An extended, in-depth case studies completes the text, exploring organisational performance transformation through the use of key methodologies, such as: soft systems; viable systems modelling; process analysis, job design and statistical methods. Replete with examples, vignettes and diagrams this comprehensive textbook is ideal for those new to the field of quality management and for students on undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Operations Management where quality management is taught.