tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1254315679163990153.post1887653566255125536..comments2023-09-09T09:36:50.321+01:00Comments on Systems Thinking for Demanding Change: Where is the intelligence?Richard Veryardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1254315679163990153.post-6434929558393497102010-03-18T13:36:46.416+00:002010-03-18T13:36:46.416+00:00thanks Chris
continuing the VPEC-T theme, let'...thanks Chris<br /><br />continuing the VPEC-T theme, let's look at V for value and P for policy<br /><br />I venture to suggest that everyone on the boat shares the belief that human life comes even higher than winning the race. But the cost of an expensive sail may not matter equally to all the crew members. Different values. So when a sail starts to tear at a critical point in the race, we can't necessarily trust that everyone will automatically follow the same policy.<br /><br />In this context, we can think of policy as a device for making intelligent decisions without having to work everything out from first principles in real-time - like a habitual response. The role of intelligence before the race includes designing, agreeing and instilling a set of instant responses to certain events; the role of intelligence during the race includes dealing with aspects of the situation that cannot be preprogrammed and recognizing situations that demand something different to the trained response.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1254315679163990153.post-72549055602102041722010-03-18T12:14:37.695+00:002010-03-18T12:14:37.695+00:00Continuing these themes - and into a sport that ev...Continuing these themes - and into a sport that even fewer people have experience with - racing sailing boats and the behaviours of crews. It is interesting to look at the evolution of a crew over time.<br /><br />First we can put together a crew where the members don't yet trust each other. Here the most experienced members will probably attempt to do too much. Leaving the least experienced members under utilized and possibly frustrated.<br /><br />Then as the crew bonds - interpersonal context and trust build and the crew starts to work well in unison - especially during the happy flow or standard maneuvers. So at this stage the knowledge is institutionalized. A tactician will make a decision to "tack" the crew knows what to do and there is no central orchestration. There may be an observer, however seeing if there are ways that the choreography can be improved. At this stage, if all hell breaks loose (equipment breaks, someone falls over the side, or something like that), the collective knowledge breaks down and again experience comes into play.<br /><br />In the next stage, the crew has built enough trust, enough confidence in each other, so you know that"someone has your back" if for some reason you are out of position. So if you can't do your task because you have made a decision to leave your post to attend to an emergency (saving someone's life, preventing a tear in an expensive sail, or whatever), you know that your job will be taken care of. <br /><br />So yes there are signals that are exchanged, but the "knowledge" is in shared confidence, shared beliefs, shared values, and Trust.<br /><br />Sounds a bit like VPEC-T thinking!<br /><br />So if we look at the notion of intelligence in systems, it might be helpful to look at that intelligence through the lenses of VPEC-T. Or maybe look at each lens and ask what properties viewed through that lens make a difference.<br /><br />The only one I will touch on is T - Trust. At some level, the components of an "intelligent" system must have some level of trust. Of course if we think about a complex adaptive system - like a swarm of bees, we need to ask ourselves what trust really means. Is it a blind following of the rules? Compare that kind of system with that of my racing crew above. In the racing situation, it is a confidence (trust) that each crew member will do what is needed.<br /><br />perhaps this is a little strained, because anthropomorphism of systems is somewhat flawed - but I do like to look at how things work in the physical world and look for analogues in the systems world.Chris Birdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13436436994311245922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1254315679163990153.post-71970290775861394102010-03-18T08:40:18.130+00:002010-03-18T08:40:18.130+00:00But presumably the quarterback is conscious of whe...But presumably the quarterback is conscious of whether the team-as-a-whole is executing the play effectively. And are not the other members of the team also conscious of this to some extent?<br /><br />I'm not familiar with American football, but in most sports there are signals that pass between team-mates during play. Some of these signals are conscious - raised arms, shouts - while others may be more unconscious or instinctive. <br /><br />So I think there are two separate distinctions here, both of which are important.<br /><br />- planned/controlled versus situated/emergent<br />- perceived versus unconscious<br /><br />The division between conscious and unconscious is very interesting. Sometimes we can improve the performance of the team by increasing the amount of conscious communication and coordination. When my sons played soccer, the coaches always encouraged them to communicate more. On the other hand, a team that has trained closely together may be able to synchronize moves instinctively - unconscious communication may sometimes be faster, as well as harder for the opposition to pick up.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1254315679163990153.post-22182164660686501472010-03-17T18:37:37.919+00:002010-03-17T18:37:37.919+00:00But I prefer to see intelligence as a holistic pro...<em>But I prefer to see intelligence as a holistic property of the whole system, emerging from the interaction between all the parts of the system, rather than something that can be specifically located in certain components or subsystems.</em><br /><br />I agree.<br /><br />Just as an individual person's "intelligence" is made up of both conscious and unconscious parts, I think that an organization's intelligence consists, at least in part, of these two aspects as well. <br /><br />To use a team sports example, consider (American) football: the quarterback is the conscious "decision maker" for the offense. Once the decision is made and the play put into action, the actions of the team are "unconscious" in the sense that the quarterback has no direct or indirect control. (Obviously, each individual on the team is conscious of their own action.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com