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Concepts and the Viable System Model

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Concepts and the Viable System Model Part I Concepts and the Viable System Model The first part of this book develops a theoretical framework to understand the Viable System Model. It is in this part that we clarify the distinction between a black box and an operational description of a system. The former is focused on the transformation of inputs into outputs; the latter is focused on the relationships that produce a whole from a set of components. This distinction has important implica- tions for the management of complexity. A black box description is often related to the idea of someone trying to control a situation from the outside; a form of unilateral control. An operational description is more connected to on-going inter- actions between components that are striving for stability in their relationships. Control in this case has a very different connotation to the unilateral control of a management viewpoint; it is all about communications, accommodation and mutual influence. Our argument here is that these two forms of description are not incompatible. Quite on the contrary, they are complementary and both are necessary to manage and measure the complexity of organizational activities. Chapter 2 goes to the roots of cybernetics and offers a discussion of control and communications. A key distinction introduced in this chapter is between intrinsic and extrinsic control. The former is the control that is in-built in the interactions of the components and therefore suggests a form of operational control. If these interactions are well designed then the situation will maintain an inherent control. The latter is control from the outside; it does not have an inherent control capacity but depends on an outside intervention. If the agent responsible for this intervention does not have capacity, or simply forgets to respond to changes, then we may expect that the situation will go out of control. This is an important distinction that has design implications; organisational systems need capacity to maintain stability in their interactions with environmental agents and this stability cannot depend on extrinsic control. This proposition has two implications for organizational systems; first, the design of regulatory mechanisms with capacity to maintain their stable operation over time and second, the viability of these systems depends on their capacity to respond to unanticipated situations. These two aspects are at the core of the last four chapters of Part I. Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby 1964) is paramount for the design of regulatory -control- mechanisms with capacity to maintain stable interactions. Chapters 3 and 4 develop the ideas of complexity and the management of 1 2 Part I Concepts and the Viable System Model complexity. In these chapters we highlight the idea of residual variety; an effective management of complexity requires regulators that enable self-regulation and self- organization in the situation being regulated and therefore do not need capacity to match all its states; they only need to match their residual variety. This idea drives our discussion of variety engineering, a key concern throughout the book. The last two chapters of this part of the book are focused on the identity and structure of organizational systems. We distinguish a black-box and an operational definition of an organization’s identity. This distinction, emerging from the defini- tion of a system in Chap. 1, will help us in Part II to work out the boundaries of an organization and to model its complexity. As for the structure, we explain com- plexity management strategies that are necessary for an organizational system to achieve cohesion and adaptability in a dynamic and changeable environment. In Chap. 6 Beer’s Viable System Model (Beer 1972, 1979, 1981, 1985) is explained following Espejo’s interpretation of this model (Espejo 1989, 2003). In this presen- tation of the model we use several examples of the work done in Colombia for the National Audit Office and others. Espejo’s interpretation of the VSM highlights five systemic functions -policy, intelligence, cohesion, coordination and implementa- tion- rather than Beer’s systems 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Cohesion, intelligence and policy constitute the adaptation mechanism whereas implementation, coordination and cohesion constitute the cohesion mechanism. This interpretation is mostly consis- tent with Beer’s original work except for the coordination function, which is understood as more than an anti-oscillatory system. Additionally, this systemic function is produced by all shared cultural aspects that support the components’ operational coordination of their actions. References Ashby R (1964) An introduction to cybernetics. Methuen & Co., Ltd., London Beer S (1972) Brain of the firm. Allen Lane The Penguin Press, London Beer S (1979) The heart of enterprise. Wiley, Chichester Beer S (1981) Brain of the firm, second edition. Wiley, Chichester Beer S (1985) Diagnosing the system for organizations. Wiley, Chichester Espejo R (1989) The VSM revisited. In: Espejo R, Harnden R (eds) The viable system model: interpretations and applications of Stafford Beer’s VSM. Wiley, Chichester, pp 77–100 Espejo R (2003) The viable system model: a briefing about organizational structure. Syncho, Ltd, Lincoln, UK (www.syncho.com).
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