Art Kleiner,
Thanks for the other references, though....altavista search for
the Fifth Discipline
Art Kleiner,
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.
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.
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 haracteristics 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
elationships 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 MISSONS
( 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)
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.
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
ormerely 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.
References
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 <by> 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,<Columbus> 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
