SYNERGY-NET on http://www.wiredbrain.net/ General Systems In 1967 I was introduced to general systems and the educational business at MIT/Slone and HGSE conference we organized. (also ABT Assoc. did a original model of the Title I, for the evaluation of the new federal programs in education designed by Keppel) Since then I have tried to understand and teach general systems at the Universities of Wisconsin, Cal. State Long Beach, and else where. There are a few understanding that have developed over the years, I like to get your comments. In general system there is a tendency toward balance as in an ecological systems. It is not a machine or electrical engineering problem but more like a medical or biological and environmental framework. Health is defined as balance. (See the work of Rene Dubos) Evolution has a mission- in very general terms, and the species have niches and roles. Edward O. Wilson in Sociobiology discusses these as groves or patterns that create tendencies. Demning discusses it in terms of general systems (overall functions) and specific systems -individual roles. In education it is the difference between (authentic) assessment and testing. Assessment looks a systems characteristics while testing checks the individuals. This is the difference between the forest and the trees. This is the difference between command and control and leadership. A relationship with the organic function of a general system is necessary to really understand and fix the problem. This is the central problem of teaching systems. People want to engineer a solution before they grasp the structural and functional and ideological relationships in open and dynamic systems. Therefore the use of Zen to introduce the idea of Quality, and other attention getting devices to raise the conscience of the totality of interactions. Everything relates to everything else. (Ted Sizer) The whole is more than its parts. Like living systems, organizations and institutions interact in dynamic ways with the environment. Schools exist in a natural and social conditions that include T.V., crime, public attitudes, the business climate, our trade relationships, political actions, religious beliefs, etc. etc. all these impact on schools. Within this vast complexity we can identify central themes and missions. We must maintain focus among all the noise. The quality of human interaction is the central theme. Are the relationships genuine and sincere? Are the actions of the organization based on principals tied to the organic mission of the system? Leaders relate to these themes and communally shared illusions. Since human action depends of a level of belief, faith, trust and hope it is always partly an illusion. It is a necessary illusion. Therefore leaders must be in the world but not of it, understand the illusions or myths at underline human action but also have a meaningful relationship with reality. Benefit/cost models The traditional input out put model can not handle the complex reality of business, government, education or other social choices. This traditional model is: INPUTS---|PROCESS|______OUTPUTS|+ make more|_______________FEEDBACK__________________|- make less ACTIVITIES OBJECTIVES GOALS Missions ( Management by Objective MBO) The model is that labor, materials, information, capital goes into the "system" and products, profits, waste, come out the other end. If the "market" takes the goods the message is positive = make more - if the market or competition or other factors rejects the goods the feedback is negative "make less" or make better or make different. Waste, taxes (pollution fees) provide feedback - make less waste! Experiment with the mix of inputs, more of this and less of that and process (new equipment) can change the ratio between inputs and outputs = productivity. In Education and many social systems (including Health Care) there are few and weak relationships between inputs and outcomes. Teacher education, salary, books and materials have little effect. Most of the variance is due to student and community quality (80 to 90%). Now if the "model" is goal seeking it gets information on its relative market share and moves in a strategic as well as tactical manner. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? It lacks intelligence, passions, perceptions. It is at best a robot mouse or insect. It is materialist, amoral, and has no sense of value (price of everything and the value of nothing). It lacks quality. The critical environmental information is only based on the success or lack of success of its current activities. What if (in the 1920's) the railroads had thought about other forms of transport -trucks and airplanes rather than running the railroad and selling stock? The single purpose, single mission model will not catch the major technological shifts. It lacks VISION. (from part one) PATHOS LOGOS ETHOS Z-LEVEL----------------|------------------|---------------- adult SPIRIT| MEANING| SOUL Essence|| | | Y-LEVEL----------------|------------------|---------------- youth EMPATHY | SELF (EGO) | MORALS Language | | X-LEVEL----------------|------------------|---------------- Child PASSION | NEEDS |ME-VALUES Material | FEELINGS THOUGHTS VALUES BEAUTIFUL TRUE GOOD HEART MIND SOUL Economic theory is Level 1, only concerned about NEEDS and ME-Values, maybe self-development and public appearance. (personality). It's a child or teenager. Traditional economic models need to "Grow up!" The question is how do we build into our models moral purpose, understanding of costumers needs now and in the future, the feeling of clients, the motivations of employees, the concerns of suppliers, regulators, communities, and the responsibility for the stewardship of planet earth. The first step is go beyond input-outputs = productivity models. Demning (Out of the Crisis) suggest a statistical model of process variables. In 1950 W. Edwards Deming, an industrial engineer, introduced to Japan a method of statistical quality control. Over the last several decades Deming's approach has become well-known as quality control circles. An analysis of Deming shows there is a basic misunderstanding of evaluation in manufacturing. INPUTS ---- PROCESS------OUTPUTS Quality of Inputs Quality of outputs System Variables Process (individual) Variables Quality is measured by direct contact of producers and consumers (internal and external). Each unit seeks to preform within its own understanding of mission and role. What are we doing? If it is providing a part for another process how is that part used and are the people who use it satisfied. Maybe there is a better way. Motorola put it this way in a want ad for production workers: "Workers need to be able to measure the parameters of the manufacturing process and report significant variance in quantity and quality . They should be able to design and conduct experiments to test the effects of changes in process, inputs or organizational methods to see if they improve quality. They should understand the companies international competitive position." Theory Z differs because of the issue of power. Z organizations are collegiate, not a just suggestion box type Quality Control Cycle. When many American companies initiated QC-Circles much of it was based on employee suggestions rather than on a true shift in power. Is teacher empowerment, a real shift in power or merely more manipulation? Teachers know whether they are being manipulated or whether they really have power. Once real test of empowerment is the elimination of quantified goals. But critics say "how can we evaluate without standardized tests?" There are other ways of evaluating-- atmosphere, quality, determining in qualified ways what is really going on in a given situation. The difference in MBO and Z Theory is that- MBO tried to distribute some power but in very prescribed and limited ways. Management negotiated goals and means for measuring achievement This is the idea behind much of the current educational reform movement. A deal is struck with the workers and agreement made not to over-supervise and not to interfere in the means of achievement in the day-to-day operation. But if Deming is right, these numerical goals lead to goal displacement, meaning satisfying management goals rather than customers. The person responsible for meeting objectives does not have control over the critical variables. (Teachers do not have control of textbooks, who gets into their classes, class scheduling and time blocks, etc.) so it becomes a irrational game of beano. There has to be a collaborative model -- a small enough school so teachers can get together and decide what to do and consult with managers or use outside consultants. This is a real shift in power. You do not need five levels of power and bureaucracy. Bureaucrats and highly paid administrators are not only not part of the solution but are part of the problems. They stand in the way. The point of a small school is this bureaucracy is not in the way of teaching kids. Deming starts with the idea of the production worker and production engineer where management is somewhat of an alien and often negative force. Both Ouchi and Deming come to the same conclusion -- that it is the clearly focused work group collaborating with others that creates the difference, the productivity and the quality. Example -- Motorola just reported a 37% increase in profits in a downward economy. Motorola's job descriptions of production worker includes emphasis on ability to define a problem and find a solution. Look at the training program at Motorola that has to take graduates of American schools and retrain them to THINK. Motorola's system will not work with workers who do not or cannot think. A high percentage of American high school graduates cannot go into these work groups. They do not know how to think. Fix the system, not the blame. Ouchi is top down reasoning and Deming is bottom up but they came to the same conclusion. Makarenko came to this conclusion; this conclusion is seen in the wiring room at Hawthorne; Dewey clearly came to this conclusion -- group effort , connection between thinking and doing. This goes back to the moral basis of human development and potential -- creative individuals working collectively to do the best job and constantly improve. Goodlad was concerned about good schools that could be better (they were not trying to improve-- Goodlad and others are frustrated because they are trying to improve within the existing system). We have many examples of very good schools, but we have this bureaucratic superstructure that is a supertanker. One issue is a moral issue -- you cannot fake it. The school system is not doing their best -- they are not sincere. That is the frustration of teachers. They know the system is not sincere -- it is political, full of place servers, some working the angles, the reward system is wrong -- you get rewarded for not teaching. Are private schools more sincere that public schools? Do we now trust Mr. Wittle communications? We have experience when business takeover schools systems. The Small School Plan -- The use of educational scholarships where the money goes to the student not the school might allow the growth of alternative schools. Among experiments we need more small schools. Small in beautiful and where you can be honest. The school is a moral institution. Small homelike places can work closely with parents. Like the 7 th Day Adventist schools, they can work better because they are moral. Successful schools are moral and driven. This can be true of public schools. Public schools can have moral values and educational values. This means doing something about students who are not learning -- not just passing them along. So how do you do benefit/cost analysis? We need to get into the process and ask the participants how they are doing. We need to include values of a more progressive and long term range. Can quality be defined, or is it more accurate to view quality as a recognizable characteristic? Quality isn't something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start. To arrive at this Quality requires a somewhat different procedure from . . . . "Step 1, Step 2, Step 3" instructions . . . (Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycles maintenance 1974, p. 262). "Quality can be defined only in terms of the agent. Who is the judge of quality?" (Deming, 1986, p. 168). Deming sees determination of quality as involving three agents, including workers and managers as well as customers. Van Gigch, John P. TITLE: Applied general systems theory EDITION: 2d ed. PUBLISHED: New York : Harper & Row, 1978. foreword by C. West Churchman. Edition: 2d ed. Riggs, James L. Introduction to operations research and management science : a general systems approach / James L. Riggs, Michael S. Inoue. :McGraw-Hill, <1975> McGraw-Hill series in industrial engineering and management science Weinberg, Gerald M. An introduction to general systems thinking / Gerald M. Weinberg. New York : Wiley, <1975> Wiley series on systems engineering and analysis Notes:"A Wiley-Interscience publication. "Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Sutherland, John W general systems philosophy for the social and behavioral sciences John W. Sutherland., Braziller <1973> The International library of systems theory and philosophy Includes bibliographical references. Baker, Frank, Organizational systems; general systems approaches to complex organizations Homewood, Ill., R. D. Irwin, 1973 Series note: Irwin series in management and the behavioral sciences Kuenne, Robert E. The Polaris missile strike; a general economic systems analysis, Ohio State University Press <1966> McDaiel, Herman, Applications of decision tables; a reader. Princeton, Brandon/Systems Press <1970> D. T. Schmidt and T. F. Kavanagh.--Manufacturing applications of decision tables, by D.A. Schmidt and T. F. Kavanagh.--Engineering data processing using decision tables, by B. Grad.--The value of decision tables in manufacturing, by T. F. Kavanagh and M. Allen.--Decision tables in the 1964 Census of Agriculture; views seminar, U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sept. 30, 1964.--Decision tables at the Bureau of the Census, by R. A. Hornseth.--Planning networks and resource allocation, by HAS Woodgate.--Decision tables for regulations, from U.S. Air Force Pamphlet 5-1-1, Sept. 1965.--Simulation with decision Capitalism (American Style) and the City on the Hill Or why few were serious about Quality? The reason organized labor made much higher wages than other workers was do to constraints on the free market. From electricians who limited apprentice, and unions that got laws passed requiring Union workers and memberships inclose clubs. (In Chicago the Plasters slowed down the use of wall boards for a generation). Auto and Steel workers collaborated with the price fixing of the big corporations (U.S.Steel, General Motors, General Electric could manage prices )because high profits meant high wages. A really free market pushes prices down and causes all kinds of trouble. (Look at the Airline industry when it had real competition - free entry of new low cost Airlines - no one made any real money and wages were pushed down ). The government was used to protect these combines rather than break them up. The teachers unions reflects this negative aspect of America labor today. They are against progress and change and work with the Administration to protect the interest of workers rather then the consumer or public. In Tucker "The man and his dream" you see big business and government conspire to shut out the new innovative enterprise. There was no mention of the UAW which I am sure helped. (Owners don't have that many vote - they do have money) The Democratic party and the National Education Association (along with the AFT) are the problem not the solution. The City on the Hill speech, Ronald Reagan gave many times when he worked for GE's PR department in the early 60's. He then gave the full text for Goldwater at the 1963 convention. It was the core of his 1980 campaign. (The speech) The City on the Hill comes from Governor Bradford's history of the Mayflower Compact and the pilgrims of the Bay Colony. The history shows that "Puritan" were a better, more virtuous people. They had left the bad ways of the old world to found a society the would be pure in the new world. The colony would be as a "City on the Hill" an example to mankind of right living. The "City of God" of St. Augustine was bring Christians into the context of Greek philosophy. The good, true and beautiful was within the trinity. (gnostic) In the new world Christian belief was to bring the holy into existence, here and now, within a community of "saints". The Indians were "savages", traditional religion was ideology to false gods, and Christian pride knew no limits. The message is fundamentalist (Calvinist) Christian and capitalist in principles. Reagan also kept quoting from an false summary of Lincoln's pro business principles. His favorite was that trying to help others (the poor) just made them worse off, another that someone being rich didn't make other poorer but that individualism created wealth, Government just took it away to support bureaucrats. The speech says the country was build by these pioneers and their values. Hard work, rectitude, independence, self management, private property, private wealth et al are the real America. Now the Liberal elite (University people, media type, and rabble rousers, bureaucrats and their establishment supporters) where out to destroy our way of life by undermining the principles which made us great. They are levelers bring everyone down to a common dull level. (The central theme of the John Birch society is that groups like- The Council on Foreign Relations, the Eastern establishment are anti-American) The neo-conservative led by Irving Kristol, William Buckley, George Will and sometimes by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a fellow traveler) showed the flaws in tradition new-deal policies. These policies often made things worse for the people they were meant to help. The highway program, public housing, welfare, are prisons for the poor and infringes on their independence. The programs only added to the power of bureaucrats and congressmen and created a lot of middle class jobs for Democrats. The "social workers" supported the Democratic machines and the one party lock on Government. The "new-deal" programs bought vote from minorities with public funds. The war on poverty was nothing more than a system of ward healing by democratic operatives in poor communities. All of this is not too far from true. William Bennett's new book "The De-Valuing America" is part political rightness but also a clear and correct statement of what is going on - In Chicago Public Schools - for example. Read the book before you pick on it. Liberals got their moral in a tangle. Democratic conventions with dozens of special interest groups (women, gays, socialist, environmentalist, etc) feed the picture of a bunch of "wild" people who were not the "silent majority" of heartland America. This is the Cultural War (a poor phase because it was used by Hitler to attach Catholics among others Kultura Krig) Are liberals amoral? Do socialist have no sense of values? Of course not. Are Republicans and the Religious Right better people? Of course not. It's politics but there is a real issue - The planet is suffering from a moral crisis. The old authority structures no longer work. (Tony Wallace - The Death and rebirth of the Seneca) There are ghost cults. There are doomsday tribes. There are false prophets. This is what happens when cultures change due to outside pressure. (Rome and today) We have a new world order - a tall order - and a lack of Vision. Sixty type radicals only help the other side. Free livers and free lovers are meat to the butcher. Christian liberals like those that have gain control of the British Labor party need to have their morals clear and clean. The left has no hope unless it reassures the insecure and insincere middle that they are puritans - another tall order. Norman Thomas (do you have to ask who he was? The Socialist leader for many years - got 3 million votes in 1932), like President W. Wilson was a good moral man, I had the honor to know - James Balwin - of the American Civil Liberties Union - there is no finer American - where are they now ? They also need a program of Jewish Christian Western competitive capitalism (When I say Christian I mean liberal Christian values, WCC types) - that is more than Greed - Worker cooperation, social responsibility, global ethics, and all the rest. (Al Gore may do, or another Southern Baptist like Carter)