This would seem to be a simple subject. Yet it is not. I have written and published on this topic from my perspective as a complexity theorist. A New Approach to a Theory of Management: Manage the Real Complex System, Not its Model Here's the abstract:
An organization is defined by the performance of function which is different from the way the organization is put together by its designers. An example is a business. The organizational chart is a poor way of understanding what actually goes into performing a task. The problem arises because of misunderstanding about to how events are caused. There is not just one type of causality, but there are four distinct kinds leading to closed causal loops. The causal entailment allows us to identify “functional components” that do not correspond to entities in an organizational chart or its accompanying job descriptions. Functional components are defined in a specific context and are destroyed if that context is altered significantly. By comparing a relational analysis of organizational functions with the standard organizational chart and its intent for getting things done, many problems in management can be given an explanation and thereby be solved.
I published this in 2010 but the original version is much older. What I would like to do here is to give some new thoughts to carry the ideas further and apply them loosely to our current political situation. Hopefully the ideas can be helpful. One very central conflict for our present situation is that between the constitution ( the analogy to an organizational chart in a loose way) and a functioning government. Read on below and I will spell out what I am trying to get you to see.
To put these ideas into a broader context, we are talking about a fundamentally different way of of viewing the world. Lakoff has identified it in his writings (politics)and Rosen in his(science). Complexity theory is the modern (actually postmodern) way of dealing with the failings in our world view arising from Cartesian reductionist thought. I have many diaries here that go into this if you are interested. I'll try to spell it out again here.
A kind of mantra among complexity scientists and others is
The whole is more than the sum of its parts
. I say "mantra" because I have the impression it gets recited far more often than it gets understood. For the reality of that statement is a paradigm shift of great proportion. It says that when you break down a complex system to its component material parts (in social systems as we are considering here its organizational divisions, etc) you lose information. The reductionists have successfully built us the present world this way so it must work in important ways. The real question is the value of the information lost by reducing a dynamic system into parts and ignoring important aspects of what they do in the context of the whole. The word we use for these dynamic aspects is "function". Surely a system is what it is because of the parts. But it is so much more. A system really has meaning in terms of what it does, its functions.
When we apply this idea to organizations the issue of success, how much success, and failure becomes clear. You can have the best parts possible but if they are not organized to function together the system fails or, at best, limps along.
Anyone in business knows what I am talking about even if they do not recognize my way of stating it. Often an organization comes to life when a certain individual supplies needed ideas and help to their coworkers. This might progress quite far. The manager may see this as the proof that the organization was put together well. This can develop quite far if the key individual is willing to devise ways of making the system function better and better.
These situations usually do not last. Often the key individual is recognized and put into a position of greater influence and responsibility but away from the function they had made work so well. What often happens is there is no one to fill the gap and things start to deteriorate.
This is but one example of what organizational complexity is all about There is much to be done in this area. Let us now look at our government from this perspective. I would say it is not working. The explanations for this are myriad. Yet most, if not all, of them are based on the apparent structure of government and the role of individuals in that apparent structure. When things fail the tendency is to find out who is not doing their job.
Yet the very system of goverment has a component that is arbitrarily changed by law every so mant years. The reason others are chosen to replace them has little, if not nothing, to do with the needs of the system in terms of the functions we expect from it.
If you understand the last paragraph you should feel a bit insecure about expecting this system to work. The real surprise is that the system works at all!
Complexity theory tells us important things about such situations. Evolution is a great example of complexity in action. Nothing is fixed, organisms, ecosystems, etc. are in flux all the time and the successful are the adapters. Adaptation is a part of development. Rigidity and lack of adaptability is a sure recipie for extinction. Mark the point that the material substructure in organisms at many levels is rigid and fixed. DNA is DNA etc. Yet the functional aspects of these system work to the extent that certain components do find ways of functioning successfully.
We now have a faction in the national system that is dedicated to making government fail. They see it as an impediment to the success of another component that they have their hopes fixed on, namely business. Little do they know that corporations and govermnment as complex systems are both locked into a larger system and more prone to fail if working components are destroyed in either.
There is a growing number of analysts from many different fields converging on a very pessimisstic prognosis for our future. The reasons are many, but I have expressed a common thread here. Do you think our system is viable?
6:51 PM PT: This diary is a must read along with mine: http://www.dailykos.com/...