Rethinking Complexity

Shocking the System

I tuned into CNN this morning the way I typically do before breakfast when a quotation on the screen immediately grabbed my attention: "shock to the system."

The quote belonged to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman who was discussing how he believes that a third-party, presidential candidate could deliver the systemic jolt—the "shock to the system"—America needs to make the country a global leader once again.

Friedman's quote struck me more than his theory did. Having only caught the tail end of his interview, I decided to research his "shock to the system" theory further after breakfast, like any good [former] journalist would do.

I found that Friedman's been kicking the idea of national shock therapy around for some time. He's pushing it harder now that he's in the midst of promoting a new book—That Used to Be Us with co-author Michael Mandelbaum—which formally birthed the "shock to the system" quote.

A review of the book published today by the British newspaper The Independent noted that "few could fundamentally disagree with the authors' diagnosis. The U.S. has a political system generating only small responses to big problems. American schoolchildren have fallen behind and the country risks falling behind in innovation. Meanwhile, it is perilously dependent on deficit funding from China and oil from the Middle East."

But, according to the review, Friedman and Mandelbaum's prescriptions to fix the U.S. system "range from the already consensus to the hopelessly naive."

Chrysalis Interrupted: The Leadership and Dwindling Popularity of Barack Obama

Criticizing the leadership capabilities of presidential hopeful Barack Obama was considered a blasphemous act of heresy during the summer of 2008.

Back then, you were asking for trouble and social ostracism if you dared cast doubt over Obama's vague notions of hope, change, and the future of the U.S. across various sectors.

Today, it's OK to slam him. In fact, it's all the rage lately.

The same media pundits who lauded Obama the presidential candidate in 2008 have stripped away his invincibility cloak and are mercilessly taking jabs at Obama the U.S. President this week as he prepares to give a jobs speech before Congress on Thursday night.

Many of these same media folk who crowned Obama president-in-chief long before the 2008 election ballots were cast are now wondering whether Obama's then-nemesis Hillary Clinton—a candidate many of these pundits viciously tore to shreds in 2008—would have been a better presidential pick.

In addition to the media beating, more than half of Americans disapprove of Obama’s job performance, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll. Of those polled, 77 percent said the U.S. is on the wrong track.

A Legacy of War Endures

The reality of war has had a profound influence on my life.

This influence is hard to see. In fact, it's invisible. I would have kept it hidden if I hadn't read Clay Sellers' August 26 post, "Beyond the Clouds of War: A Faint, Silver Lining." His writing inspired me to explore the complexity that a legacy of war has had on my life.

I was born after my dad got back from fighting in the Pacific. He and his men took island after island, wresting the Pacific islands from Japanese soldiers determined to die fighting before yielding one inch of land. Pieces of metal bullets and shrapnel remained lodged inside my father's body for the rest of his life.

He never talked about what he experienced unless he had one bourbon too many. Under this influence, stories of death and destruction filled the room—and my heart—with terror. He was in two wars that followed WWII: Korea and Vietnam. He was an early advisor in Vietnam and he didn't think the U.S. would be able to win that war. After watching the defeat of the French and the tenacity and courage of the Vietnamese, my father's advice to his chain of command was, “Don't go to war in Vietnam. We can never win a ground war in Asia.”

The higher-ups, however, didn't exactly like what he said.

"Government" isn't a technology - and can't be developed like one

It’s been a bad week for government and technology.

 It was revealed this week that the medical records of over 300,000 Californians sat on unsecured servers … leaving everything from insurance claims to social security numbers available to anyone who wanted to Google it.

On the other side of the spectrum, Florida Governor Rick Scott admitted that months key emails from his transition team were deleted  … in violation of open records laws.  

These are some pretty big “oopses,” although arguable no bigger than many of the technology glitches most of us encounter day-in and day-out.  In fact, a credible case can be made that government crashes a lot less than computers. 

Still, would it help if government were run more like a technology company?

In a column called “What geeks can teach government,” William Eggers says yes.  The global director of public research at Deloitte, says that there would be significant advantages to a government that was willing to learn from software R&D.  He argues that government could be:

Libya and the Leverage Points of Change

We're on the cusp of watching real change sweep through Libya this week as rebel fighters seize the capital city of Tripoli in their ongoing effort to overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

With a new political body ready to replace Gadhafi's 42-year regime, the rebels' plight toward freedom these past six months has been fueled by leverage points leading to change.

In her 2008 book, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, Donella H. Meadows defined a leverage point as a "point of power" within a system. A leverage point's essentially the silver bullet that can successfully change the system and achieve a desired goal or outcome.

Implementing them isn't as easy as it sounds.

"...Although people deeply  involved in a system often know intuitively where to find leverage points," Meadows wrote, "more often than not they push the change in the wrong direction."

Engaging Conversations Across the Political Divide

Recently one of my previous students sent me an email inviting me to write to my senators asking them to get on board with spending cuts. The email made the argument that just as individuals cannot continue to spend more than they bring in, neither can governments. She noted that she would “fire” all members of the U.S. Congress for their inability to adequately address the issue and pointed to the recent agreement to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling as totally inadequate.

While I don’t disagree with the need to address the deficit, what compelled me to “respond to all” regarding this inquiry was the simplicity of thinking that was present.  We have so many people in the US who think that there are simple solutions to complex problems. This is not a surprise, since our education system does next to nothing to teach systems thinking. 

While I am sure there are still many places where spending can be cut, I find it appalling that many of the most affluent people in the U.S. continue to believe that the deficit can be curtailed without increasing revenues. I responded to this email noting my own embarrassment living in an affluent community and, as a result, caught up in having a mortgage that is far more than I can comfortably afford, which limits my ability to contribute to the good of the whole. When I walk around my neighborhood, I can’t help but notice that the people around me are not suffering from the economic downturn. Many of them have recently bought expensive, new vehicles priced above $50,000. Yet, my guess is that many of the same people would say they don’t want to pay more taxes.

"Thriving in Perpetuity"

A sustainable organization is capable of "thriving in perpetuity."

Those were the words of environmental activisit Adam Werbach—words I first came across earlier this week while reading Alexander and Kathia Laszlo's post, The Practices of Systemic Sustainability.

Werbach's use of the word perpetuity stuck with me these past few days. A sustainable organization that's capable of "thriving in perpetuity" can, by definition, exist in state that continues endlessly, receiving a stream of benefits that never end.

Werbach's word choice is most commonly seen in business and finance—that's where I recognize it from. In that realm, a perpetuity is a steady stream of cash payments that never ends. It implies an assurance that the return you receive on an investment will never cease.

This kind of perpetuity involves financial gain; material profit. It's the amount a person receives for the money they pay on, say, a government bond. The motive behind this kind of perpetuity isn't charitable—it's greedy and self-serving.

Keynesian theory—the theory that drives our economy—says that's OK. We need to act that way to keep the economy thriving.

The Decider: Exploring Effective Group Action

Looking at the gridlock in Congress and the failing leadership of our president, I have been reflecting on the relationship between decisions and results.

It's hard to think about the wisdom of the hive when we see Congress’ ineffectiveness. Their group process also has aspects of dysfunctional groupthink, indiscriminate blaming, and the avoidance of responsibility.  It's a case study of what not to do and a model that we're saddled with. It leads me to recall my experience of other groups where people talk endlessly, but find it hard to actually get something done. Saying something in a group seems to be therapeutic, and people have a sense that if they say something moral or right, then they have acted, and they relax.  That is what Congress seems to be doing this week.

A good starting point for deeper understanding of a better way begins with the culture of the group, especially vis-a-vis what constitutes success. In Congress, legislators are beholden to a home community—not each other. In their world, the criteria for success is getting elected and re-elected so being in this group requires doubt and suspicion—having both eyes constantly looking back over the shoulder. There used to be more privacy in Congress, so the reps had the power to define what they were doing. Now what they say and do is subject to review and commentary on a daily basis. It's easy to be a critic or pundit—pundits have less responsibility and zero accountability. But it is clear in this current situation that personal agendas are more important than finding a shared solution.

Will the real systemic leaders please stand up?

Last night on CNN, Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina used the "s" word to describe the kind of change he wants to see in Washington, D.C., to end the recurring debt-default issue once and for all.

The "s" word he used was systemic.

"Systemic change," Mr. Gowdy said, is the change he'd like to approve. But no one's offered it yet, according to the congressman.

Hearing a Capitol Hill politician utter the word "systemic" surprised me. With all due respect to Mr. Gowdy, Washington logic doesn't seem to favor systems thinking. This country has, after all, been on a collision course with fiscal disaster for quite some time, relying on short-term fixes that fail to resolve underlying, systemic problems in the long run.

I felt compelled this morning to answer Mr. Gowdy's plea for systemic change by offering an apolitical, bipartisan response from a systems perspective. I turned to authors Annabel Beerel and Donella H. Meadows for help.

A system, according to Meadows' 2008 book Thinking in Systems: A Primer, "is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something." A system, Meadows wrote, consists of elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.

When a problem arises, many organizations nowadays typically hone in on the element that seems to be causing the problem and try to fix the element on its own as a separate entity. Isolating the troubled element, however, ignores all of its interconnections within the system. So changing one element in the system will—in some way—affect all of the other elements in the system too. When that happens, the function or purpose of the system will also change.

Is unemployment a sign of "uncertainty" - or the need for a new set of assumptions?

As America’s countdown towards default continues, we keep hearing that it’s “uncertainty” about the economy that is keeping companies with big bank on hand from hiring new employees. 

That seems reasonable on its face.  After all, the news reports say we’re headed towards financial Armageddon … and honestly they have for some time.  Sure, the “countdown towards default” is an especially noticeable cliff we’re running towards, but America has never really addressed the economic fault lines that nearly cracked apart in 2008, and the European Union is teetering from one crisis to another …

“Uncertainty” seems about right.

But as Andrew Leonard of Salon.com points out, the idea that companies aren’t hiring because of uncertainty about the economic future doesn’t actually account for all the facts.  Business hiring is weak … but business spending on equipment and facilities and buildings is “robust.”

So companies are willing to spend, and spend big, during this time of uncertainty:  they’re just not willing to spend on people.

If there’s a better epigram for the 21st century economy so far, I can’t think of what it is.