Transcript The Laws of the Fifth Discipline

Chapter 6: Natures Templates
Senge: Chapter 6
THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE
Nature’s Templates: the
Archetypes
• Structures of which we are unaware hold
us prisoner
• The swimmer scenario
• Certain patterns of structure occur again
and again: called ARCHETYPES
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We are creating a “language”
• reinforcing feedback and balancing feedback are
like the nouns and verbs
• systems archetypes are the basic sentences
• Behavior patterns appear again in all disciplines-biology, psychology, family therapy, economics,
political science, ecology and management
• Can result in the unification of knowledge across
all fields
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Recurring behavior patterns
• Do we know how to recognize them?
• Do we know how to describe them?
• Do we know how to prescribe cures for
them?
• The ARCHETYPES describe these recurring
behavior patterns
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The ARCHETYPES
• Provide leverage points, intervention junctures at
which substantial change can be brought about
• Put the systems perspective into practice
• About a dozen systems ARCHETYPES have been
identified
• All ARCHETYPES are made up of the systems
building blocks: reinforcing processes,
balancing processes, delays
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Before attacking the ARCHETYPES
we need to understand simple
structures
• The reinforcing feedback loop
• The balancing feedback loop
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ARCHETYPE 1: LIMITS TO GROWTH
• A reinforcing process is set in motion to
produce a desired result. It creates a
spiral of success but also creates
inadvertent secondary effects (manifested
in a balancing process) that eventually
slow down the success.
• All growth will eventually run up against
constraints, impediments
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Management Principle relative
to ARCHETYPE 1
• Don’t push growth or success; remove the
factors limiting growth
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ARCHETYPE 1: LIMITS TO GROWTH
• Useful in all situations where growth
bumps up against limits
• Firms grow for a while, then plateau
• Individuals get better for a while, then their
personal growth slows.
• Falling in love is kind of like this
• The love begins to plateau as the couple get to
know each other better
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Structure
growing action
Reinforcing
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state of stock
slowing action
Balancing
Understanding the Structure
• High-tech orgs grow rapidly because of
their ability to introduce new products
• This growth plateaus as lead times become
too long
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How to achieve Leverage
• Most managers react to the slowing growth
by pushing harder on the reinforcing loop
• Unfortunately, the more vigorously you
push the familiar levels, the more strongly
the balancing process resists, and the
more futile your efforts become.
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Leverage, Continued
• Instead, concentrate on the balancing
loop--changing the limiting factor
• This is akin to Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints-remove the bottleneck, the impediment
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Prepared by James R. Burns
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Applications to Quality Circles
and JIT
• Quality circles work best when there is evenhanded emphasis on both balancing and
reinforcing loops
• JIT has had to focus on recalcitrant suppliers
• THERE WILL ALWAYS BE MORE LIMITING PROCESSES
• When once source of limitation is removed, another will
surface
• Growth eventually WILL STOP
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Create your own LIMITS TO
GROWTH story
• Identify a limits to growth pattern in your
own experience
• Diagram it
– What is growing
– What might be limitations
– Example--the COBA and University capital
campaigns
– NOW, LOOK FOR LEVERAGE
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Test your LIMITS TO GROWTH
model
• Talk to others about your perception
• Test your ideas about leverage in small
real-life experiments
• Run and re-run the simulation model
• Approach possible resistance and seek
WIN-WIN strategies with them
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ARCHETYPE 2: shifting the burden
• An underlying problem generates symptoms that
demand attention. But the underlying problem is
difficult for people to address, either because it
is obscure or costly to confront. So people “shift
the burden” of their problem to other solutions-well-intentioned, easy fixes that seem extremely
efficient.
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Shifting the burden scenario,
continued
• Unfortunately, the easier solutions only
ameliorate the symptoms; they leave the
underlying problem unaltered. The
underlying problem grows worse and the
system loses whatever abilities it had to
solve the underlying problem.
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Prepared by James R. Burns
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The Stereotype Structure
Symptomatic Solution
Addictioin Loop
Symptiom-Correcting
Process
BALANCING
REINFORCING
Problem
BALANCING
Problem-Correcting
Process
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Fundamental Solution
Side effect
Special Case: Eroding Goals
• Full employment meant 4% unemployment
in the 1960s, but 6 to 7% unemployment in
the early 1980’s
• Gramm-Rudman bill called for reaching a
balanced budget by 1991, but this was
shifted to 1993 and from 1993 to 1996 and
from 1996 to 1998
• “If all else fails, lower your goals..”
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EXAMPLE
Alcohol
Alcohol
BALANCING
BALANCING
Stress/Depression
BALANCING
Stress/Depression
Reduce workload
BALANCING
Reduce workload
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Health
Health
Another Example
Raise tuition, add course fees, etc.
Costs of Higher Ed not funded by State or Students
Enrollments
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Perceived cost to the stud
Still Another Example
Symptom-correcting
process
Heroics and Overtime
Addiction Loop
Project Delayed
Reward for heroic behavior
Improvement of processes/practices
Efectiveness of PM practices
Problem-correcting
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Process
Still other Problems
• What about retention of students
• The perceived fix is raise the admission
standards
• What about drug-related crime
• The perceived fix is to remove the drugs
from the street
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“Shifting the Burden” is an
insidious problem
• Is has a subtle reinforcing cycle
• This increases dependence on the
symptomatic solution
• But eventually, the system loses the ability
to apply the fundamental solution
• The system collapses
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Senge Says
• Today’s problems are yesterday’s solutions
• We tend to look for solutions where they
are easiest to find
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HOW TO ACHIEVE LEVERAGE
• Must strengthen the fundamental response
– Requires a long-term orientation and a shared
vision
• Must weaken the symptomatic response
– Requires a willingness to tell the truth about
these “solutions”
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Create your own “Shifting the
Burden” Story
• Is there a problem that is getting gradually worse over
the long term?
• Is the health of the system gradually worsening?
• Is there a growing feeling of helplessness?
• Have short-term fixes been applied?
• The local Mexican restaurant problem of using coupons to generate
business and then can’t get away from using the coupons because
their customer base is hooked on coupons
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To structure your problem
• Identify the problem
• Next, identify a fundamental solution
• Then, identify one or several symptomatic
solutions
• Finally, identify the possible negative “side
effects” of the symptomatic solution
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Review
• We have now seen two of the basic systems
archetypes.
– The Limits to Growth Archetype
– The Shifting the Burden Archetype
• As the archetypes are mastered, they become
combined into more elaborate systemic descriptions.
• The “sentences” become parts of paragraphs
• The simple stories become integrated into more
involved stories
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Seeing Structures, not just Trees
• Helps us focus on what is important and
what is not
• Helps us determine what variables to focus
on and which to play less attention to
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Copyright C 2002 by James R.
Burns
• All rights reserved world-wide. CLEAR
Project Steering Committee members have
a right to use these slides in their
presentations. However, they do not have
the right to remove this copyright or to
remove the “prepared by….” footnote that
appears at the bottom of each slide.
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James
R. Burns
Prepared Prepared
by JamesbyR.
Burns
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