A Systems View of Social Systems, Culture and Communities:
The Legacy of Bela H. Banathy
Doctoral Candidacy Essay for the program of
Organizational Systems
Sherryl Stalinski, M.A.
Tucson, Arizona
April, 2005
Presented to
Dennis Jaffe, Ph.D.
A faculty member of
Saybrook Graduate School & Research Center
San Francisco CA
djaffe@saybrook.edu
Candidacy Committee Approval: November, 2005
Dennis Jaffe, Ph.D.
Kathia Castro-Laszlo, Ph.D.
Allan Combs, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
The systems view understands our social systems—including our organizational
systems—as dynamic, open systems. By understanding the principles of all natural, open
systems, organizational professionals can gain understanding of the characteristics that
identify whether an open system can remain viable and sustainable over time, and more
importantly, whether it can continue to grow and evolve in rapidly changing environments.
Popular applications of systems thinking in Organizational Development practice have
traditionally emphasized the complex and adaptive nature of open systems. This is evident in
the work of popular management theorists and authors such as Russell Ackoff, Peter Senge,
Peter Drucker and others. However, social systems scholar Bela H. Banathy (1996, 2000)
proposed that our social systems don’t just need to adapt to change, they have the capacity—
indeed the responsibility—to initiate and catalyze change towards more meaningful futures.
Banathy’s work reflects the “soft systems methodologies” of Peter Checkland as well as the
wisdom of current understanding in philosophy, ethics, evolutionary theory and cultural
anthropology. Banathy’s work has been advanced by scholars such as Kathia & Alexander
Laszlo, who specifically address the requirements for Evolutionary Systems Design.
Banathy’s work serves as a bridge for the field of organizational development practice and
the current evolutionary crisis calling for global social transformation. While providing a
comparative review of systems literature and presenting an overview of systems principles
from a variety of scholars, the hope of this work is to underscore the contributions of Dr.
Banathy and the promise of positive, purposeful change that his work empowers.
Table of Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 4
The Systems View ................................................................................................................... 4
The Systems View Complex ................................................................................................... 4
What is a Systems View? ....................................................................................................... 6
Intelligent Systems, Human Systems..................................................................................... 6
Cybernetics and 2nd Order Cybernetics: Intelligent Systems ............................................... 7
The Human System: Individual and Collective. .................................................................... 8
Consciousness: The search for meaning. .......................................................................... 8
Conscious Choice: To Be or Not to Be? ........................................................................... 9
Culture............................................................................................................................. 10
The Ingredients & Dimensions of Culture ...................................................................... 13
Death, taxes & culture..................................................................................................... 14
Guiding Cultural Evolution............................................................................................. 15
Developing Evolutionary Organizations ............................................................................. 17
The Ways and Means of Healthy, Authentic Community .................................................... 19
The Authentic Community: Synergy and wholeness...................................................... 20
Give me some feedback, please! ..................................................................................... 22
Influential Centers: Steward Leadership ......................................................................... 25
Shall We Dance? ............................................................................................................. 28
Vive la difference! .......................................................................................................... 29
The Cybernetic Imperative: Learning how to learn ........................................................ 34
From Community to Culture: The Evolutionary Process ................................................... 35
The Legacy of Bela H. Banathy ........................................................................................... 35
The Guiding Beacon ....................................................................................................... 38
References .............................................................................................................................. 39
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Introduction
Traditional applications of systems thinking in organizations have emphasized focus
on complex feedback loops and “adaptive” systems. The idea of evolutionary systems, and
the design of systems that evolve over time, introduced by Bela H. Banathy, Alexander
Laszlo and Kathia Laszlo, however further add the wisdom that systems, including our
human and organizational systems, don't just adapt to changing environments, they also can
co-evolve with their environment. Organizations are starting to understand that change is not
simply an event to “manage” and “get through” but an opportunity to guide transformation
and create long-term viability. This focus on evolutionary capacity is especially relevant to
our human cultures, which Banathy (2000) describes as complex, open systems, and more
importantly, capable of evolving consciously and purposefully. The “evolutionary systems”
perspective includes the basic principles of all complex, open systems, but additionally
integrates relevant principles guiding intelligent (cybernetic) systems, and uniquely human
qualities and capacities for culture, creativity and self-reflective consciousness and conscious
choice. The result is a true marriage of Organizational Development and Systems Inquiry,
which can inform and guide the development—or even an evolution of—Organizational
Systems praxis. This essay seeks to highlight relative principles from systems research and
how those principles could be applied to our unique human systems.
The Systems View
The Systems View Complex
From the beginning, the systems sciences have been a trans-disciplinary effort. The
first to formally publish a “Theory of General Systems” was Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a
biologist. Joined by an economist, a psychologist and a mathematician, the International
Federation for Systems Research was established to unify science, and to make the various
disciplines of science meaningful to each other, and more beneficial to humanity (Banathy,
1996; Flood, 1999; Checkland, 1993). By design, the systems sciences are not a new,
separate discipline but rather a rigorous inquiry that seeks to integrate a variety of
perspectives and disciplines.
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“Systems Thinking” is a worldview based on the perspective of the systems
sciences, which seeks to understand interconnectedness, complexity and wholeness of
components of systems in specific relationship to each other. But systems thinking is not
only constructivist, as pointed out by Kathia Laszlo (1999) who notes that systems thinking
embraces the values of reductionist science by understanding the parts, and the constructivist
perspectives which seek to understand wholes, and more so, the understanding of the
complex relationships that enable ‘parts’ to become ‘wholes.’
Banathy proposed that in addition to the cultures of science and humanities, that
systems thinking can spur a third culture of ‘design.’ Ackoff (1999) suggested the merging of
science and the humanities into a discipline he calls the ‘scianities:”
Systems science and technology constitute one aspect of systems thinking, but the
humanities and arts make up the other. The fact that design plays such a large part in
the systemic treatment of problems makes it apparent that art has a major role in it as
well. Ethics and aesthetics are integral aspects of evaluating systems. […] the systems
approach involves the pursuit of truth (science) and its effective use (technology),
plenty (economics), the good (ethics and morality), and beauty and fun (aesthetics).
To compare systems methodology with that of any of the so-called ‘hard’
disciplines—for example, physics—is to misunderstand the nature of systems. The
worry is not that the systems approach is not scientific in the sense which physics or
chemistry or biology is, but that some try to make it scientific in that sense. To the
extent they succeed, they destroy it (p 537).
It is equally important to note the contributions from the diverse and complex field of
systems inquiry. The understanding of the details of complex interrelations has become the
domain of what are often termed the ‘hard systems’ theorists. From Jay Forrester’s systems
dynamics to Senge’s ‘Fifth Discipline,’ the focus is on the complexity of interactions and
interrelations within and among complex systems. Elsewhere in the spectrum, the “soft
systems” theorists focus more on the patterns of those interrelations in order to apply them
more in terms of the ‘emergent whole’ that a system is. Theorists involved in technology and
information systems utilize the ‘hard systems’ concepts to design and manage information
technologies, and educators, philosophers and those involved in the human sciences usually
opt for the soft systems methodologies to address problems in unpredictable social systems.
In the spirit of the transdisciplinary nature of the systems sciences, each “sub-perspective”
offers its own unique wisdom and understanding of our lives and our universe. To describe
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each of these perspectives separately can be likened to trying to describe a diamond
by describing each of its facets independently. It is in their collective state that the brilliance
of the new sciences shines.
What is a Systems View?
The systems view understands our social systems as dynamic, open systems. By
understanding the principles of all natural, open systems, we can gain understanding of the
characteristics that identify whether an open system can remain viable and sustainable over
time. This increased consciousness can then guide our awareness to not only new
understandings of the nature of our social systems, but possibilities for creating them into the
type of systems we want, and catalyzing change towards more meaningful futures.
Some of the key characteristics of, and principles which govern any open system’s
ability to sustain itself include:

the need to get its energy from the environments in which it exists in order to
sustain and fuel growth;

the creation of an emergent whole (the effect of synergy) through meaningful,
right relationship of components;

the necessary dynamics of appropriate action such as feedback loops;

the increase of stability and ‘wholeness’ (indivisibility) by increasing diversity
and specialization and putting them in appropriate complex arrangement or
relationship;

and the presence of centralizing forces which trigger and create growth.
Intelligent Systems, Human Systems
In addition to the principles that apply to all open systems, researchers have identified
qualities found in the most complex, evolved systems: the capacity to learn and self-regulate.
Human systems demonstrate even more unique qualities: the phenomenon of self-reflective
consciousness, the capacity for conscious choice, the most advanced capacity for creativity
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and the emergence of human culture. I often refer to these uniquely human qualities
of consciousness, choice, creativity and culture as the four Cs of human systems, a simple
cognitive construct that can help organizational professionals and business leaders easily
remember the characteristics that set our social systems apart. This reminder is important for
business and organizational leaders, especially when modeling process systems based on
more widely applied dynamic systems approaches.
Cybernetics and 2nd Order Cybernetics: Intelligent Systems
Cyberneticians have closely studied successful self-regulating organisms as systems
capable of learning in order to efficiently remain stable and grow. Morgan (1998) described
that
To self-regulate, learning systems must be able to
1. Sense, monitor and scan significant aspects of their environment,
2. Relate this information to the operating norms that guide system behavior
3. Detect significant deviations from these norms, and
4. Initiate corrective action when discrepancies are detected.
If these four conditions are satisfied, a continuous process of information exchange is
created between a system and its environment, allowing the system to monitor
changes and initiate appropriate responses. In this way, the system can operate in an
intelligent, self-regulating manner (Morgan, 1998, pp. 77-78).
The most complex and evolved open systems (such as humans and their social
systems) have added to this capacity the ability to question the value of their learning itself.
Humans uniquely possess the ability of questioning the value of our values (Banathy, 1996;
Laszlo, 1996; Morgan; 1998). Additionally, we have the ability to question the operating
norms and our ways of doing and being which are based on those values. The additional
process of questioning whether operating norms are appropriate is a critical ingredient of
successful, sustainable learning resulting in continued growth and increased sustainability.
Failure to consciously engage in continual “double-loop learning” (Argyris, 2001; Senge,
1990) can not only affect our organizations’ and communities’ ability to grow and transform,
it could potentially affect our ability to even maintain their stability and viability.
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The Human System: Individual and Collective.
In its most elemental form, a human activity system can be defined as a single person
doing something with other components of their immediate systems environment, for
instance, a person riding a bike. Checkland (1993) noted that sets of human activities related
to each other are commonly observed as ‘wholes.’ Often these activities are conducted within
and even because of the physical systems humans themselves have designed, for instance a
transportation system or a health system is observed as a whole entity comprised of both its
designed infrastructure and the human activities that take place within and because of them.
But Checkland also pointed out that these systems are fundamentally different from natural
systems in one crucial way: human systems and human designed systems could be other than
what they are. Natural systems, without human intervention, could not. What seems like an
overly simplistic definition of what differentiates the human system results in the very
complexity that makes our social systems impossible to comprehend and predict using
traditional scientific methods. Sociology, as a traditional scientific methodology demands
total observer uninvolvement, and unfortunately that has proven to be an unrealistic goal.
Added to that is the fact that social systems are human constructs and human choices are at
best unpredictable, the most sociology has been able to offer are likelihoods and probabilities
for predicting future behavior of social systems (Checkland, 1993; Babbie 1977).
Consciousness: The search for meaning.
By being self-reflective and conscious humans, we create our ‘meaning’ and
understanding of the world and our place in it. Our purposeful behavior can be conscious
(even if it is not always so). As pointed out by Checkland, always we have the choice of at
least two alternative futures, and our choices are guided by our understanding of the
consequences of those alternative futures. If freedom of choice is the inevitable consequence
of self-reflective consciousness, then the creation of meaning is the resulting necessity of that
freedom. Everything about the evolution of human history has been the result of how we
have answered the perennial questions arising from our conscious awareness: who are we
and why are we here? These answers have influenced our worldviews, defined our values
and given us the meaningful framework from which we have based our behavior choices
(Banathy, 1996, 2000; Checkland, 1993; Laszlo, 1996).
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Frankl (1984) called the failure to find or create meaning in one’s life the
“existential vacuum.” Besides losing the security of ‘animal instincts’ that guide behavior,
Frankl reflected that in the twentieth century, many cultural traditions also began to lose their
impact to guide behavior.
No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do;
sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead he either wishes to
do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people wish him to do
(totalitarianism) (p. 128).
So dependent are we on meaning that Checkland argued we will tend to make new
information fit into the ‘meaning’ and reality of life we already possess rather than changing
our worldview and definition of reality because of the new information, as illustrated earlier
in the allegory of Plato’s Cave. We value those things that support our understanding of the
world and give meaning to our place in it and devalue those things that don’t. This created
meaning, which shapes our values, helps us deal with the endless choices we face each day.
These values are passed down, often implicitly, through generations and sometimes explicitly
through verbal and written language. As a result, culture emerges in our human systems that
further guide both our individual and collective choices.
Conscious Choice: To Be or Not to Be?
The individual human, our human activity systems, social systems and human
designed systems can be other than what they are. When humanity evolved the capacity of
self-reflective consciousness, they became subject to the consequence of that evolution. “The
consequence of self-consciousness is that the human being is irreducibly free; he has genuine
freedom of choice in selecting his actions” (Checkland, p 116). Even if, as Checkland
suggested, we could construct a computer capable of predicting human choice, that choice
would still not be inevitable for the person making it. Where laws of physics are inevitable
and can be observed similarly by anyone (‘scientific fact’), a human is stuck always with the
task of what he or she will do next in any given situation. This phenomenon of free choice
can even be observed in social systems that consciously choose to behave differently once
they become aware of the predictions made of them. As articulated by noted psychologist
Victor Frankl (1984), “At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal
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instincts in which an animal’s behavior is imbedded and by which it is secured.
Such security, like Paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices” (p 128). But
the inescapable requirement of choice, the consequence of consciousness wrote Frankl is also
what makes us unique, and instrinsically free.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the
huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been
few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a
man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any
given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way (p. 86).
In the discussion of choice, it may be argued that many natural and physical systems
seem to exhibit behavior that obviously serves the purpose of creating its system to become
more whole and sustainable. Checkland was careful to point out that while such natural
system behavior may be purposive, it is not purposeful. The difference being the freedom to
choose behavior for a specific future purpose. Management systems theorist Robert Flood
(1999) proposed the same differentiation: “Human agents do not merely follow social rules
and practices, they might wish to change them. Human systems are adaptive. Social rules and
practices are modifiable, not fixed.” (p 87).
Culture.
Unlike biological systems, social systems have evolved because of human culture.
Throughout history, organizational processes of increasing complexity and differentiation
brought people together into groups, then into groups of groups. “On the whole, the same
branching of evolutionary development took place [within our social systems] as in the
organic realm. But here it took place within the setting of cultures,” explained Ervin Laszlo
(1996, p 75). Banathy (2000) argued that culture is a uniquely human phenomenon, and that
the evolution of our species switched from biological to cultural evolution between 35,000
and 50,000 years ago, during the age of the Cro-Magnons. Cultural anthropologists tell us
that many factors influence cultures: use of tools, mores, customs, laws, communication and
so on. But one factor, Laszlo identified, is a determining influence, or as Bertalanffy would
call it, a “centralizing influence”: values. Values determine the kind of technology, law and
communications used within a culture.
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Cultures are, in the final analysis, value-guided systems.… Values define
cultural man’s need for rationality, meaningfulness in emotional experience, richness
of imagination and depth of faith. All cultures respond to such suprabiological values.
But in what form they do so depends on the specific kind of values people happen to
have (Laszlo, 1996, pp 75-76).
Further, Laszlo wrote that these values change over time in response to cultural
evolution.
Values are goals which behavior strives to realize. Any activity that is oriented
towards an end is a value-oriented action. To the ancient Greeks, their culture was
guided by an attainment of ‘the good life.’ In the early days of Christianity, the ‘good
life’ was shifted from this lifetime into the next. Newtonian science and the modern
era brought values under rational scrutiny, and a desire for empirical order. Modern
capitalism introduced the value of ‘good’ as more production per capita, and ‘better’
as even more production. There is nothing in the sphere of culture which would
exempt us from the realm of values—no facts floating around, ready to be grasped
without valuations and expectations (p. 80).
To leave humanistic values out of our social settings—our communities,
organizations, businesses—is to treat them as closed, mechanistic systems. We know this is
a) an impossible state for human systems and b) even if our organizations could exist as fine,
well-oiled machines, it would be a sure guarantee of their own self-destruction, as all closed
systems eventually run down.
Ervin Laszlo argued that all natural systems (ecological, biological, etc), because of
their future-seeking, evolutionary nature, revolve around certain inherent values: to utilize
their physical environments for energy, to sustain themselves by responding and adapting to
those environments. “You must keep yourself running against the odds of the physical decay
of all things, and to do so you must perform the necessary repairs, including (if you are a
very complex system) the ultimate one of replacing your entire system by reproducing it” (p
79). These are values common to all natural systems, Laszlo argued, and no system can deny
them for too long because a reversal would eventually lead to increased entropy—
disorganization—and inevitable decay.
Humans learn, create and adopt additional values. Our social systems also develop
values according to their knowledge, insights, language, technology and so on which guides
their ways of knowing, ways of being, and ways of doing. These values evolve into our
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human cultures. In groups, culture emerges as ways of knowing, being and doing
that a) reinforces the meaning and understanding of the world and one’s place within it and
b) reinforces and defines the values that support that understanding. Those values are
transmitted efficiently and effectively in groups of humans through their culture. Culture
emerges in human systems as a value-guided system (Banathy 1996, 2000; E. Laszlo, 1996)
even if those values are not explicitly defined, and most often they are not.
The TransCultural Council of the International Systems Institute points out that
culture is “an organizing, valuing, or ordering process,” (T.S. Eliot, in A. Laszlo, 1999b).
Culture is also a system that is more than just the sum of its parts. Thus, culture can be
understood as a ‘whole’ of common patterns and “that which distinguishes one social group
from another, being the set of products and activities through which humans express
themselves and become aware of themselves and the world around them” (A. Laszlo, 1999b).
When we add the understanding of culture to our perspective of our social systems
such as our organizations, “we see them as minisocieties with their own distinctive values,
rituals, ideologies and beliefs” (Morgan, 1998, p. 111). Culture is the product of individual
minds expressed as shared meaning, values and purpose within the whole of a group. It is
very often hidden and unpredictable. It can be nurtured, but not controlled. “The metaphor
helps us to rethink almost every aspect of corporate functioning,” Morgan wrote, “including
strategy, structure, design, and the nature of leadership and management. Once we
understand culture’s influence on workplace behaviors, we realize organizational change is
cultural change and that all aspects of corporate transformation can be approached with this
perspective in mind” (ibid.). Of course, the same understanding of culture’s influence can
also help us to understand the nature of all our social systems, including our families, interest
groups, religious communities and geographic communities.
Of course, all of these cultures are largely influenced by our larger societal cultures.
Morgan compared the very different organizational cultures found in Europe, the United
States, and Japan, all influenced by, and influencing life in a much broader context (ch. 7).
Morgan cited cultural anthropologist Gregory Bateson as having studied the childrearing
techniques in a variety of cultures and found that cultural values are naturally integrated into
raising young children. The very competitive culture of America, Bateson stated, creates “a
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great deal of room for self-appreciation and self-congratulation as a basis for
independence and strength. We see this in the ‘We’re Number 1’ syndrome” (p. 120). In
American organizations, competition culture keeps workers focused on ‘winning’ “with the
need to reward and punish successful and unsuccessful behavior” (p. 119). I am not
communicating here that American competition is ‘bad,’ by the way. Competition is a natural
process creating negative feedback and stability in open systems. What I would suggest,
however, is that it is an incomplete paradigm as much as the nature/ecology paradigm is
incomplete where our human systems are concerned.
The Ingredients & Dimensions of Culture
Banathy (2000) suggested exploring and understanding culture through three main
“clusters”: The Consciousness Cluster, The Intellect Cluster and the Way of Life Cluster.
Additionally he suggests looking at “cross-boundary” clusters that identify the interaction
among the 3 clusters.
Figure 1. Banathy’s Clusters of Culture
Anthropologist and scholar Edgar Schein (1992) described culture as comprising 10
“phenomena” and five dimensions, including the relationship to its environment, how a
culture perceives the nature of reality of truth, the nature of human relationships, and others.
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Schein’s ten categories of phenomenon are: behavioral regularities, group
norms, espoused values, formal philosophy, rules of the game, climate, embedded skills,
mental models, shared meanings, and integrating symbols. Further, Schein identified three
levels of culture:
Artifacts: Visible cultural structures and processes. These are easy to see, but difficult
to decipher and interpret.
Espoused Values: These are values, philosophies and beliefs that are spoken,
verbalized or otherwise communicated that tell cultural members what the strategies, goals,
philosophies and “justifications” are for the group, organization or culture. These very often
contradict the third level:
Basic Underlying Assumptions: These are the unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs,
perceptions, thoughts and feelings… the “worldview” of the culture. This invisible level is
the ultimate source of values and action and rarely can be described or understood from the
upper levels.
Both scholars, Banathy and Schein, prescribed models of culture that are clearly complex
systems, and the integration of the various dimensions and components of a culture create an
emergent property—the cultural experience—that can’t be defined by simply adding the sum
of the parts.
Death, taxes & culture.
Culture happens. No matter how much one might try to control, manipulate or
dominate people into subservience, as long as they remain together for a certain length of
time, culture will emerge; it is as inescapable as free choice. (Banathy, 1996; E. Laszlo, 1996;
Morgan, 1998). It will evolve uniquely based on the individual values and insights of each
person into an often unspoken set of shared common values and norms. What social systems
scholars, like Ervin Laszlo, Alexander & Kathia Laszlo, Bela Banathy and others have
recently suggested is that cultural evolution, unlike biological evolution, can be created,
guided and directed. No longer are humans subject to the same uncontrollable and
unpredictable nature of purely biological systems, relying solely on physical mutations in
order to evolve and adapt to environmental pressures. It is this creative ability to guide, direct
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and influence our own future that introduces a new benchmark for our social
systems: that of evolutionary design.
Increased awareness of the role of culture within our business organizations has
recently become the focus of some progressive management trainers, coaches and
consultants. Daniel Denison of the University of Michigan Business School has conducted
extensive research on the relationship between an organization’s culture and its “bottom
line.” His research “shows that culture affects an organization’s ability to change in ways that
support sustainable success.” (Juechter, Fisher & Alford, 1998). These consultants with ARC
Worldwide, an international leadership training and management consulting firm, wrote that
“culture defines, supports, and sets the boundaries of an organization’s ability to function. All
the change in the world won’t provide sustainable performance unless an organization’s
culture and people are fully prepared and aligned to support that change” At the heart of
Denison’s model of organizational culture are individual beliefs and assumptions—the values
which give it meaning. ARC chairman, Robert White, often suggested to colleagues and
clients that culture begins “in the hearts and minds of people.”
But our values and the cultures which emerge as a result of those values must be in
line with the centralizing values and limits common to all natural systems. “Finding and
respecting these limits is precisely the problem facing us today,” wrote Ervin Laszlo (p. 80).
Guiding Cultural Evolution
Human cultures evolve as ways of knowing, being and doing within a social system
guided by the values of its members. When we fail to give conscious reflection to the driving
values behind our cultural habits and rituals, we often simply do things because that’s the
way we were taught. Many traditions, rituals and customs are rarely revisited for their
appropriateness in changing times.
Cultures that do not evolve value systems, which provide a foundation for making
sustainable behavioral choices, get in trouble. Historically, such cultures have not evolved
over time—in fact, many such cultures have become extinct. If we establish that in order for
information to be useful and valuable for our human systems it must be evolutionary, then
the information will guide choices and behavior in ways which move our cultures toward
increased wholeness, health and sustainability.
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Ervin Laszlo (1996) wrote about the empirical inevitability of cultural
evolution not as a leviathan out of control, but as a natural process of increased order,
organization and complexity. Starting with the nuclear family and small remote villages as
simple social systems, time has seen an increase of the size and complexity of systems as
communication expanded, first by human travel and now by instantaneous global
communications technologies. “Social systems, like systems in nature, form ‘holoarchies.’
These are multi-level flexibly coordinated structures that act as wholes despite their
complexity. There are many levels, and yet there is integration” (p. 51).
But an evolutionary culture, born of humankind’s ingenuity, consciousness and a
symbol-based language capable of addressing both the near and distant future, is uniquely
human. Additionally, “culture is more than a tool of human survival—it is a qualitatively
higher phenomenon… [humans] alone have developed an autonomous culture” (pp. 73-74).
Evolved language afforded our species the ability to create models and symbols to
communicate current knowledge and pass that knowledge on efficiently for future
application. Culture includes such things as knowledge and understanding, ways of knowing
and doing, beliefs and dispositions, customs, rituals and habits shared by a community of
people and evolved by passing down these things through social interaction. Culture is
“learned and structured and it embraces every realm of human experience.… [Cultural] maps
are alive; created, confirmed, disconfirmed, elaborated, changed and redrawn” (Banathy,
1996, p 33).
Up until recently, cultural evolution has been subject to hit-and-miss success and
many human cultures throughout our history have fallen victim to internal and external
influences. We are just beginning to realize our creative potential to nurture, empower and
foster desirable cultures that can enable continued evolution, growth and sustainability.
Cultures unwilling to perceive and sustain themselves as flexible, adaptable, dynamic and
interrelated open systems are destined to fall into decay and oblivion as all inflexible, rigid
cultures before them. “In evolution, the most advanced state of existence is human
consciousness. It is best manifested in those who are most developed in terms of their
relationship to others and in their ability to interact harmoniously with all else in their sphere
of life,” wrote Banathy. And a conscious awareness of our own evolution can translate into
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conscious evolution, where we are empowered to collaborate actively toward the
creation of our future. “Conscious evolution enables us to use the creative power of our
minds to guide our systems and our society toward the fulfillment of their potential” (pp 316317).
As social systems, we can begin the process of guiding our own futures proactively
when we take the time to learn about the intrinsic nature of open systems, and to begin seeing
or human systems and our organizations as dynamic, changing open systems. We can foster
healthy, sustainable cultures rather than be subject to the accidental politics of conflicting
subcultures. Even if our social systems are small and simple, we can create holarchical,
interdependent frameworks which can sustain us as we grow, rather than find ourselves
cemented in a rigid, linear, top-down driven—and ultimately unsustainable—hierarchy.
Some of our social systems, including our business organizations and political systems, have
survived for decades using a mechanistic model, but with the increased complexity of our
global society, they are becoming more and more threatened unless they change and adapt as
the open systems they are. Because culture evolves much more rapidly than generational
biological mutations, we have found ourselves faced with increasing complexity,
unfathomable environmental variables and challenges, and the risk of being unable to
manage our own rapid cultural evolution. Ervin Laszlo summarizes the task before us most
eloquently:
“In systems such as contemporary society, evolution is always a promise and
devolution is always a threat. No system comes with a guarantee of ongoing
evolution. The challenge is real. To ignore it is to play dice with all we have. To
accept it is not to play God—it is to become an instrument of whatever divine
purpose infuses the universe” (p. 139)
Developing Evolutionary Organizations
The International Systems Institute research team on Evolutionary Learning
Communities (1996) made an important distinction that while we can guide the evolution and
emergence of culture, we can’t design culture itself. Morgan (1998) concurred: “The
holographic diffusion of culture means that it pervades activity in a way that is not amenable
to direct control by any single group of individuals” (p. 146). What we can do, however, is
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design social systems with the conditions for desirable cultures to emerge. This
process of design results in the human creation of intentional community. Laszlo, Laszlo et.
al. (1996) differentiate these intentionally created communities from ‘traditional’
communities which usually emerge accidentally and arbitrarily because of the geographic
proximity of social groups (i.e., families in a village). They further differentiate intentional
communities from ‘surrogate communities’ which, although are often created intentionally,
are often created only with the purpose of providing an experience of community. Cults,
gangs, and even popular weekend ‘retreat’-type communities can be identified as surrogate
communities.
The word community is derived from the Latin “communis” which means to “make
common.” Thus, a community can be differentiated from a simple group of people because
of their “common-ness.” That common-ness can sometimes be observed as an individuating
quality or a ‘group identity,’ or it could be defined by the characteristic of a group to work
together for a specific purpose. Either way, a community is more than just a sum of people,
and is the result of the individuals in the group, their relationships to each other, and their
interactions with each other to achieve something they could not achieve individually. More
so, especially in contemporary societies connected through worldwide communication
networks, community is less and less defined by geographic proximity.
Communities can include people occupying a neighborhood, but they can also
include communities of interest and even ‘cyber communities’ whose gathering place is on
the Internet or through organizational networks and intranets. (The emergence of a
cyberculture should underscore the notion that where people gather, culture will emerge).
Organizations can also strive to understand and appreciate themselves by the term
“community.” At a 2003 conference presented by Peter Senge in Phoenix, Arizona, he told
participants that if he had to “do it over,” he would re-define the learning organization as
learning communities in order to emphasize the idea that organizations are, first and
foremost, social systems serving human beings.
It is appropriate to consider that although a ‘community’ and its ‘culture’ constitute a
true system in that there is an emergent property of the social system, not all communities,
nor cultures for that matter, are authentic, healthy and sustainable. The violence glorified by
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much of popular culture should remind us that even if some choices are conscious
and genuine, they are not always desirable or sustainable.
The Ways and Means of Healthy, Authentic Community
The International Systems Institute research team on the design of Healthy and
Authentic Community identified certain ‘markers’ or characteristics which can be observed
and experienced within the type of healthy community that can nurture the evolution of
healthy, sustainable cultures. These characteristics not only model the principles which
govern the sustainability and health of all natural, open systems, they also address the role of
culture and the values which define it.
Some of these markers include:
1. The visibility or experience of an emergent whole. Healthy communities are genuine
and real. They are ‘authentic.’
2. Healthy communities, like healthy ecosystems, demonstrate flexibility, adapting
practices that create stability by overlapping roles and tasks to ensure that objectives
are met even if not all the individuals are able to accomplish specific tasks. In order to
achieve this flexibility and stability, community members practice a high level of
stewardship for the benefit of the whole community.
3. These communities are catalyzed by highly influential “centers” which inspire
purposeful action and participation.
4. They are dynamic. They adapt, adjust and grow with their sustaining environments
using processes of positive & negative feedback. In order to accomplish this, their
members practice real and meaningful participation and strive to be in tuned with the
evolutionary flows around them.
5. Like natural systems, healthy communities evolve through a process of increased
differentiation and specialization in ever more relevant and effective relationship to
each other. Unique skills, gifts, and cultural perspectives are used as tools for
collaboration. Diversity is not merely tolerated, it is celebrated.
6. Finally, like other highly evolved natural systems, healthy, authentic communities
demonstrate the ability to learn how to learn. Through this learning, they are able to
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predict future changes in their environments as well as their own potential
impact on those environments, and respond proactively, evolving with, rather than
because of or despite pressures put on them. (Stalinski, 1999)
The Authentic Community: Synergy and wholeness.
A system can be understood as a “domain of reality delimited by interaction.”
(Kampsis, in Banathy, B.A., 1999), or a “set of elements standing in interrelation”
(Bertalanffy, p 55). A more rich definition is presented by the International Society for
Systems Sciences which defines a system as “a family of meaningful relationships acting
together (as members of a whole)” [sic] (http://www.isss.org). Whichever definition is used,
a system is understood as a combination of parts, that when engaged in specific relationship
to each other (not arbitrary relationship), create something emergent, something more than a
mere sum of parts. From simple systems like a flashlight, where batteries, a switch and a bulb
connected by wires can create light, but couldn’t do so if those parts were just heaped on a
table, to complex biological systems with the emergent property of life itself.
In applying these ideas to social systems we can easily imagine how not all sets of
parts (or people), even if they are in relationship, create a system or an emergent whole. If
you have a pile of buttons or a collection of people mulling around a park, they are not
necessarily a system. These are termed by the systems scientists as heaps. Heaps remain
relatively unchanged if more is added or some is taken away. If you divide the pile of buttons
in half, you have two piles of buttons. “If you divide a cow in half, you don’t get two smaller
cows, maybe a lot of hamburger, but not two cows. The essence of the cow as a whole, able
to graze, convert grass into milk, and moooo, is lost” (Kaufmann, 1980, p. 3). Most business
organizations are systems because they produce goods or services that could not be
accomplished without a structure of relationships, which collaboratively enable the whole to
produce goods or services. Simply putting 200 people into a factory with mechanical
equipment is not going to produce widgets.
This idea of synergy is not new, but in common understanding something being
greater than the sum of its parts has been considered a mere esoteric nicety, especially when
used to describe human relationships. Synergy is real: a whole is greater than the sum of its
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parts because a whole is created by both its parts and their relationship to one
another. Systems theory also reminds us that not any relationship will do, either… that
relevant, meaningful relationship between parts is the critical dynamic in the creation of
synergy. Bertalanffy (1968) also noted that most systems are far too complex for a realistic
understanding of the relationships that create the effect of “emergent” (ch. 3).
Most dictionaries define ‘authentic’ simply as a quality of “being real.” Tom
Huereman & Diane Olson (1997), principles of Shadow Consulting, an organizational
development consulting firm, published a series of pamphlets on this topic. They wrote: “All
movements to new realities begin with individual acts of courageous authenticity.
Authenticity is the expression of our beliefs in action—the intrapersonal congruency of ideas
and behaviors” (n.d.). In psychology, the ‘authentic self’ is evaluated by its motive
(Weinberg, 1996). In qualitative research, information can be validated as ‘authentic’ in part
through a process of triangulation; identifying areas of convergence or ‘agreement’ from a
variety of disciplines and perspectives. Under the systems paradigm, the more stable a
complex system is, because of the appropriate relationship of diverse, specialized parts, the
less it is able to be divided into a sum of its parts. The more complex a system becomes, the
more individuated, ‘whole,’ authentic or ‘real’ it becomes. In a community, the more genuine
the participation and the more deeply manifested the relationships become, the more ‘whole’
and authentic it seems to be.
The synergy within a healthy community is manifested in the ‘identity’ of the ‘we’ of
its members. As meaningful relationships evolve, what is sometimes described as “grace” is
felt within the group. “We” becomes a very real entity, separate from, and more than, the
sum of the relationships between individuals. M. Scott Peck (1987), in his book, The
Different Drum, likewise suggested that the authentic community is more experiential than
empirical. He noted that those who have experienced tastes of authenticity within a
community know at an experiential level the difference between a traditional community and
an authentic community. Indeed, the feelings, emotions, values and most importantly, the
deeply manifested relationships that define the authentic community are usually too complex
to ‘report’ with the limits of verbal and written language. Peck defined ‘community’ as “a
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way of being together with both individual authenticity and interpersonal harmony
so that people become able to function with a collective energy even greater than the sum of
their individual energies” (in Banathy, 1996, p. 239). If individual authenticity can be defined
as ‘the expression of our beliefs in action—the intrapersonal congruency of ideas and
behaviors,” then the authenticity of a community can likewise be defined by such
congruency. The systems perspective suggests that the more diverse and comprehensive the
value system is, and the more congruent behaviors are in reflecting the whole of that
comprehensive and complex value system, the more ‘whole’ and indivisible—the more real
and authentic—the individual or community becomes.
Give me some feedback, please!
The relationships that bind the components of any system are not stagnant—they are
not “a relationship” which could be used simply to define their connection, rather parts
remain actively in relationship with each other and respond to changes in their internal and
external environments. The ability of a system to create small adjustments in response to the
pressures applied to it is known as negative feedback.
The ability of a system to remain in a steady state in its internal and external
environments is achieved by negative feedback, but it is not the only dynamic at work.
Occasionally, things happen within the internal or external environments of systems that
produce a phenomenon known as exponential growth. This can be observed in certain
environmental circumstances which allow for unchecked growth of a certain species (let’s
use rabbits). With ample food and few predators, the rabbit population will grow
exponentially as two rabbits produce four, four produce 16, 16 produce 64 and so on.
Fortunately, except in theoretical mathematics, exponential growth never continues
indefinitely. In the real world, the limits of the environments that provide our energy always
limit exponential growth curves caused by positive feedback (Kaufmann, p 38).
Together, system components in interaction, using processes of negative and positive
feedback, create something new—something emergent. Some questions might arise at this
point as we consider our social systems inability to adjust and adapt to the changes in our
own environments—both internal and external. We might be thinking we simply need to
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learn how to “do” the negative feedback loop quicker in order to regain our steady
state. In fact, these complex feedback loop dynamics form the foundation of Peter Senge’s
(1990) popular “Fifth Discipline” approach and much of the popular applications of systems
dynamics in programs such as Total Quality Management and Six Sigma.
However, the risk of focusing exclusively on negative feedback loop processes is that
a system might be forced to consume so much internal energy to regain that steady state
through rapid small adjustments; it might wear itself out in the process. When coping with
changes in our external environments, we can either be victims who constantly seek to react
and adjust to change around us, or we can seek to shape and guide change ourselves. The
other option we might see is to try to catalyze some sort of exponential change or growth.
What would that look like in a human system? Does positive feedback simply mean
increasing numbers? If that’s the case, why can’t we just make bigger systems? As
Kaufmann queried, why are we composed of billions of cells instead of one super-sized cell
or why doesn’t nature just make bigger atoms rather than building molecules from
combinations of atoms? (p 3).
Natural systems, Ervin Laszlo (1996) wrote, are full of determinism and freedom.
They are driven toward the future as dynamic wholes. While the whole is deterministic, the
components enjoy a very flexible freedom bound only by the ‘rules’ and ‘purpose’ of the
whole. “Functional autonomy does not mean independence,” offered Laszlo (1996), but
interdependence.
“Systemicity is imposed as a set of rules binding the parts among themselves. But
these rules do not constrain the parts to act in one way and one way only; they merely
prescribe that certain types of functions are carried out in certain sequences. The parts
have options; as long as a sufficient number of sufficiently qualified units carry out
the prescribed tasks, the requirements of systemic determination are met” (pp 85-86).
As a general rule, the more complex a system becomes, the more energy it must
spend to maintain itself and the more active it will be about initiating changes in its
environment (Kaufmann, 1980). It’s important to understand that negative feedback does not
prevent change, it simply provides a process for a system to keep change under control and
manageable. There are limits also, to the effectiveness of negative feedback to totally control
pressures from the environment. If the pressure is too great or the response time inadequate,
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the results are obvious. This often necessitates the ability of a system to predict and
respond to change before it occurs. “Self stabilizing systems take an active response to
change. They don’t sit and ignore pressures on them” (p. 13). Additionally, Laszlo (1996)
explained that “if any given thing is to maintain itself in proper running condition, it must act
as a subsystem with the total system which defines its energy supplies” (p. 32). In other
words, all systems must exist in mutual cooperation with the environments in which they are
contained.
Natural, open systems grow and evolve into increased complexity and wholeness by
using positive and negative feedback within their environments. How this happens can be
understood by the principles of finality and equifinality. Finality refers to the principle that
open systems as a whole are future-seeking and growth-oriented. “Equifinality refers to the
fact that in open systems there may be many different ways of arriving at the same end”
(Morgan, 1198, p. 43). Laszlo elaborated that natural systems are deterministic about their
future and direction—but they are only determinate as a whole—not within the relationship
of their parts. “A natural system doesn’t care which part carries out certain functions, only
that the function is carried out. There is a high degree of flexibility” (p 84).
This is quite a contrast to our traditional perspective of our social systems, and a
perspective that bears further understanding in its social context. “Flexibility allows much
freedom in open systems,” stated Laszlo (1996). “Socio-cultural systems have a variety of
roles which can be filled by a variety of individuals regardless of their individuality, but
based on their qualifications. Roles are not made for given individuals, but for kinds of
individuals classed by qualification. When the roles are filled, the particular personality of
each new tenant is reflected in his interrelations with others and it produces corresponding
shifts within the organizational structure.” It is this flexibility, Laszlo wrote, which allows
“complex systems to remain viable under changing circumstances” (pp 85-86).
An ecosystem does not care whether species populations are controlled by weather,
food supply or predator populations. Usually, natural systems employ several tasks with
overlapping purposes to ensure stability even with the failure of some parts or their tasks to
succeed at its “job.” In a human community, such overlapping tasks and awareness of a
group’s or organization’s overall purpose and mission requires a real commitment of each
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individual to act as a steward for the service of the whole. It is not enough to just
show up and verbalize our belief in the purpose of any given organization, we need to, as
members of a community, demonstrate that commitment. Commitment is demonstrated in
real participation. Stewardship is not just service, it is shared accountability and the
manifestation of responsibility. Healthy communities are comprised of individuals who feel a
sense of ownership and responsibility towards the success of their community. By accepting
an invitation to be part of a healthy community, each individual realizes the importance of
their own participation and nurtures the participation of others.
Influential Centers: Steward Leadership
The late John Denver once related a story to his audience told to him by a friend. “I’m
an agitator,” his friend said, “You can throw dirty clothes in a washing machine, add soap
and add water, but unless you agitate them, they won’t come clean.”
Von Bertalanffy (1968) introduced a key principle of systems theory that seems to be
widely ignored, even among the systems theorists. This principle states that open systems
evolve themselves around “dominant” triggers which determine the behavior of a whole.
“Ascending the evolutionary scale, increasing centralization appears; behavior is not a
resultant of partial mechanisms of equal rank, but dominated and unified by the highest
centers of the nervous system” (p. 70). Contemporary social systems scholars seem to
exclude this principle in their work, even those whose focus is through a systems perspective.
Bertalanffy’s original theory is the only reference to the principle I have ever seen in several
years of systems research. Perhaps it is the English translation of his theory that causes this
exclusion. After all, most of the progressive social scholars and organizational theorists
embrace a more holarchical rather than hierarchical perspective for modeling organizational
behavior. So should we presume that Bertalanffy was a proponent of a top-down, controldriven hierarchical perspective for the design of our social systems? Not at all. First,
Bertalanffy wrote his General Systems Theory in German. The word he uses in regards to
these centralizing forces is “anstosskausalitat” which translates in English to ‘instigation
causality’—or, that which is an impetus or cause of change. Bertalanffy was also a biologist,
and was obviously very aware of the structure of natural and biological systems as one of
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being in holarchical order—integrated multiple levels—versus a hierarchical order
which is singular, linear (and thus rigid and inflexible). He placed this ‘dominant influence’
of a system at the center of the system, and regarded it as a trigger or motivator for action,
rather than a ‘dominating’ role (even though this is the word used in the English translation
of the theory) which presupposes a mechanistic or political power-based linear chain of
command. Alexander Laszlo agreed, noting in a personal correspondence:
The point is ‘dominant’ does not mean ‘dominating.’ In the way von Bertalanffy is
using it, I think we might like to think in terms of ‘predominant,’ such that the
predominant role of certain people in a social system does not mean they necessarily
have ‘dominating’ roles in that system. The former relate to issues of the significance
and prevalence of the role, while the latter relates to issues of power imbalances
(personal correspondence, April 3, 2000)
This perspective necessitates some reconsideration of our traditional notions of
leadership within our community and organizational settings. Shared responsibility and
genuine and effective group participation may seem like strong ideals for small groups who
strive for collaborative, shared leadership and ownership, but in a more traditional business
organizational setting, arrangements designed with full equality are unlikely, and according
to Bertalanffy, would probably be ineffective. As Bertalanffy noted, the more complex a
system becomes, the more it evolves around highly influential ‘centers.’ In large, complex
organizations, the task of ‘instigating’ action rests squarely on its leadership. One might ask
whether it is realistic to hope for real, committed participation and shared responsibility by
all the members of a large organization if the ‘power’ or influence still rests with its
leadership. It all depends on how one defines the nature of leadership’s power or influence.
“Our current notion of leadership,” Banathy (1996) wrote, “is associated with taking
initiative, controlling, and knowing what is best for others” (p. 235). One of the resulting
challenges of traditional leadership is that leaders believe it is their task to make their people
‘buy in’ to their vision. The problem with this understanding of leadership is that ownership
remains with the leadership, preventing stakeholders throughout an organization to feel
committed to participation in its success. Instead, leadership can be viewed as a more
“influential, prevalent or predominant” stewardship role. Riane Eisler (1987, 2000) promoted
the idea to move from “dominator” models to “partnership” models in our social structures.
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Instead of considering leadership as a role in which we have “power over”, we
could understand leadership as a role where we have “power to.” Centralized leadership
inspires, motivates and ‘instigates’ empowerment, commitment and participation at all levels
of an organization. Leadership, too, is a stewardship role, and “when we serve, we build
capability in others by supporting their ownership and empowerment, their right to
participate at every level of the system” (Banathy, 1996, p. 236). With this model of steward
leadership, even large organizations can be designed to be equitable even though they
couldn’t possibly strive for across-the-board equality.
In a healthy, authentic community intentionally designed within the environment of a
large organizational setting, it is the central role of its leadership to express the values and
purpose of the community, to nurture the emergence of vibrant, healthy cultures in which all
members of the system feel committed to, part of, and accountable for the success of the
whole. It is a much more daunting role than that of a traditional supervisor who reports to the
general staff that management created a new vision statement at their last retreat and in
essence relay, “Here it is. Adopt it for yourself.”
It is finally important to clarify that the emergence of organizational culture is not
solely guided by an organization’s or community’s leaders, although they do play a prevalent
and predominant role in the process, intentionally or not. As in all open, natural systems,
each individual ‘part’ of a system has influence on the other ‘parts.’ In communities and
organizations, people bring their individual ideologies, attitudes and beliefs and those can,
and often do, influence others within the organization. If an individual’s influence is
significant and meaningful enough, it could potentially have wide impact on the whole of an
organization’s culture. This can be seen in the case of individuals who are always
enthusiastic and cheerful and seem to brighten a room as soon as they enter—and it can be
observed in the case of an individual who starts rumors and gossip which can spread like a
rapid cancer throughout an organization causing dissention and dissatisfaction on a wide
scale. This can be related to the principle of a ‘trimtab’ as used by futurist and inventor
Buckminster Fuller. A trimtab is a small, almost seeming insignificant rudder on the back of
the largest ships, but influence by the action or changed direction of that trimtab can change
the direction of the entire vessel. Leaders who hope to catalyze healthy and evolutionary
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cultures within their organizations are wise to remain aware of not only the
importance of their own influence, but the potential and likely influence of every individual
within the community. Effective leaders, as stewards for their communities and
organizations, nurture positive participation and impact of each member of the system.
Shall We Dance?
Natural systems remain stable, grow and evolve through processes of negative and
positive feedback, adjusting to changes and pressures from their internal and external
environments in order to sustain themselves, grow and evolve. For social systems,
predominantly influenced by rapid cultural evolution, unique challenges arise. Banathy
(1994) argued that we are experiencing an “acceleration of history” and that transformations
in our world have occurred much faster than changes in many of our social systems, causing
what he termed a “perilous evolutionary imbalance, and an ever-widening evolutionary gap.”
The resulting challenges caused by rapid cultural evolution at a societal scale are very real to
the social systems which exist within these environments.
Faced with new realities, our systems have to transform—as the society has
transformed. They have to learn to co-change (co-evolve) with their constantly
changing environments. Thus, it is imperative that we understand what these
transformations and new realities are. We have to grasp their implications for
systems, and apply our understanding of these implications to the transformation of
our systems. We need to learn how to recreate our systems, how to redesign them so
that they will have a “goodness of fit” with the emerged new realities. No small task
by any means! (Banathy, 1994, p. 1).
Banathy (1992, 1994, 1996, 2000) suggested that trying to remain stable in such a
volatile environment through small piecemeal adjustments and ‘negative feedback’ processes
are unrealistic. Instead he proposed that we must design new systems which are capable of
thriving and evolving in these rapidly evolving environments. Alexander Laszlo (1999a)
asked the question, “How can we learn how to have change happen through us, not to us—to
work with change, to cope with uncertainty, in sum, to dance with evolution?” (p. 2).
One way to gain this competence, Laszlo proposed is by learning a process he calls
‘syntony.’ “Syntony is a purposeful creative aligning and tuning with the evolutionary flows
of which we are a part” (p. 3). By tuning in and becoming aware of the patterns of change,
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rather than trying to react to each pressure or challenge as it arises, both negative
and positive feedback could perceivably become second nature.
It means listening to the rhythms of change and learning how to play our own melody
in ways that harmonize with the larger piece. It involves finding and creating meaning
and evolutionary opportunity, both individually and collectively.… This type of
purposeful activity need not imply premeditated acts, planning and strategy, or
intentional design. In its highest form, syntony becomes a natural way of being and
becoming with the world and is as effortless and spontaneous, as breathing (p. 3).
Are we capable of such a dance? Laszlo believes so, citing occurrences in nature such
as the unified flight of a flock of birds or the ability of a school of fish to respond instantly
and effortlessly as if a singular entity to changes in the landscape around them. He further
noted human examples of syntony within some aboriginal cultures who remain closely in
tuned to their natural world, and with each other.
Vive la difference!
The author of the first general systems theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968)
explained the dynamic of an evolving, open system this way. Growth, he said, is possible
only by a subdivision of parts in “unitary action” into varied actions of specialized parts
(complexity) (ch. 3). It is interesting to note that in physical science, the proton and neutron
are the largest particles which exist in nature. Earlier we posed the question as to why nature
doesn’t simply create larger systems. The answer is quite simple: a collection of smaller units
in appropriate interrelation is much more stable than one large unit. Physicists have tried to
make larger particles experimentally, but they are so unstable that most of them last less than
a billionth of a second before they self-destruct. Uranium, the heaviest natural element,
creates radioactivity because it is constantly breaking itself down into smaller, more stable
elements (Kaufmann, 1980). The law of requisite variety states that the internal regulatory
mechanisms of a system must be as diverse as its environment in order to effectively manage
the innumerable challenges and pressures posed by its environment. To discard the necessity
of this diversity within a system will result in lost complexity, creating atrophy, a loss of
stability and a loss of the unique emergent whole of that system (Ashby, 1956 in Christakis,
2001; Morgan, 1998).
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Natural systems evolve through a process of increased differentiation and
increased organization. As noted earlier, as a system evolves, individual parts become
increasingly diverse and specialized in order to perform specific tasks that serve the purpose
of the system. As they become increasingly specialized, they also become arranged in
meaningful and useful relationships with other components of a system. As this happens, a
system becomes more organized and indivisible—it evolves and becomes more whole. We
seem to be gaining more awareness and understanding of the necessity of biodiversity to
sustain an ecosystem, but we really seem to be stuck trying to apply this valuable principle
within our social settings.
Hopefully, real understanding of “oneness” or “wholeness” of a group will evolve by
understanding these principles. Yes, a community or culture can act in oneness as a whole—
but that wholeness and oneness is best served by a diverse membership.
Like predominant perceptions of leadership as discussed above, perceptions about
diversity present some challenges for our contemporary social settings and warrants some
reflective consideration.
Because culture is unique to humans, we have also acquired the ability to discern the
value of different things—including the value of our values themselves. We alone judge
whether or not our values are of value. In early nomadic tribes, a group of people would
discover that by working, they were more likely to survive. Cooperation became valued.
During the European renaissance, aesthetic purposes gained value evidenced by the
emergence of the integration of art into the culture. Under the influence of notorious leaders
like Genghis Khan, some cultures developed a value for control and power, and that value
had even higher value than life itself. Different geographic areas evolved different cultures
based on values that were most important to them. They acted on those values in different
ways, as well. Similar cultures often disagreed on how to act on the same value, evolving
separate political and governmental systems.
Even if a group, community or organization is comprised of members belonging to
only one societal culture, diversity is still evident by a) the unique experiences and ideas of
each individual and b) how much that individual has been influenced by outside cultural
beliefs. Different cultures readily integrate, and with modern transportation and
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communication, information, ideas and knowledge pass through cultural
boundaries all the time. If knowledge or ideas pass to one particular member of a culture, it
may influence that individual’s belief system and affect how they choose to behave in
various situations. If one individual survives an accident or illness, but is left with physical
disabilities, their unique experience will also influence and mold their personal value system.
Their interaction and relationships with others in their social systems will have at least some
impact on them. So we can understand that as diverse as the world’s cultures are, they are
comprised of equally diverse individuals. One can imagine the potential clash of ideologies
and beliefs in a social system comprised of people from a variety of backgrounds,
experiences and cultures. Actually, we don’t have to imagine the conflict—most of us
experience it regularly as our contemporary society becomes more mobile and local groups,
communities and organizations are increasingly made up of people from diverse ethnic,
religious, political and socio-economic cultures.
Fortunately, these differences afford our contemporary social systems an
unprecedented variety of knowledge, skills and ideas that, when integrated, are capable of
achieving much more than any single individual can. It becomes easy to learn to value
diversity when a unique perspective is able to bring real and significant benefit to a particular
issue or problem. Unfortunately, we must first be open to receive those perspectives, yet by
and large, our personal and cultural experiences have not taught most of us to value these
differences. In fact, most of us have learned to fear them. As individuals, we seem to hold
some natural preference to be with people we perceive as being “like us.” After all, people
“like us” hold similar values, reinforcing for us our sense of meaning and purpose. Those
who are different may challenge that meaning, and since the need for meaning is so
fundamental, the preference is perfectly reasonable. In some cases, however, those
preferences escalate to prejudice, which is an attitude with a closed mind.
It seems ironic to me that prejudice occurs seemingly as an undesirable outcome of
our ability to observe and tune into the same patterns that could lead to syntony. For instance,
we may observe patterns of behavior or characteristics demonstrated by certain groups of
people and based on those observed patterns, respond or react to individual members of those
groups based on those observed patterns, or even erroneously perceived patterns based on
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information we have accepted from others. The Anti-Defamation League of the
B’nai B’rith noted that such experiences suggest “that prejudgments may stand even when
available evidence is against them“ (from a grade school social studies handout adapted from
Gordon Allport, ABC’s of Scapegoating. New York: Anti-Defamation League of B’nai
B’rith.). Prejudice alone may not cause specific harm, except perhaps to limit a person’s or
group’s willingness to be open to potential benefits of considering and integrating diverse
perspectives. However, as so many of us know, prejudice sometimes leads to harmful
discrimination and even violent oppression. Perhaps once we become aware of the nature of
our differences and the potential value our diversity offers, we can finally also realize that
striving for tolerance alone is an inadequate solution to the conflicts that arise from our
differences. Unity, ‘one-ness,’ and wholeness within our social systems can’t be equated with
“sameness” under a systems paradigm. And as reflected by Peck (1987), “Even if one world
meant a melting pot where everything becomes a bland mush, instead of a salad of varied
textures and flavors, I’m not sure the outcome would be palatable” (p. 20).
For those who still may be thinking to themselves, “So which is it, Stalinski? If
diversity is such a good thing, then why are you so hot to help us create shared meaning and
work to find areas of common ground?” It’s quite simple and bears repeating: “Commonness” does not equate with “sameness.” It may not even mean “equal.” But finding and
creating shared meaning and finding common ground from which to build enables us all to
learn and grow. Our differences are not ‘competitive.’ Even ‘equality’ suggests a hierarchical
mindset that associates ‘equality’ with ‘sameness.’ Vogl & Jaros (1998) proposed that this is
a misunderstanding and misuse of Aristotles “law of the excluded middle,” which they
suggested has inappropriately evolved into a principle of “exclusivity of opposites.”
According to this principle, complex systems must be classified into opposing groups
on the basis of only one (and generally not even the most important) of their
characteristics. There are simply no possibilities for anything to exist between those
two groups. Thus they have to be classified in opposing groups – men/women,
blacks/whites, clever/stupid, disabled/able bodied, etc. The differences are then taken
out of context and exaggerated.… It is basically incorrect to regard complex systems
which display some opposite characteristics as being opposites. People tend to take
such information at face value, acting in completely inappropriate ways. (Vogl &
Jaros, 1998, p.5.)
33
Instead, Kathia Laszlo (2000) proposed that an understanding of systems
thinking easily reconciles what only appear to be contradictions:
[S]ystems thinking transcends both reductionism and holism. Systems thinking
implies the understanding of the complementarity and unity of “apparent opposites”
and of the interactions that join them, instead of focusing on the competitive
characteristics that exist between them. Therefore, apparent opposites — such as men
and women, East and West, self and other, mind and body, reason and emotion,
science and spirituality, society and ecosystem — are interdependent complements
that can coexist in harmonious balance and diversified unity under the systems
paradigm (2000, unpublished).
Vogl & Jaros agreed, “The creative collaboration between two complex systems or
processes have common and opposing characteristics. We should begin teaching this
important principle early in life to avoid difficulties and even disasters which stem from
inappropriate applications of Aristotle’s Law of Excluded Middle” (p. 5). Just as Laszlo
rightly pointed out that systems thinking transcends notions of reductionism and holism,
unity in diversity transcends concepts of commonalties and differences.
Finally, it seems important to reiterate the systems perspective on the inclusion of
diversity. Natural systems do not “keep” and “include” everything that happens to become a
part of its internal environment. When our biological systems acquire a useful evolutionary
quality, like an eye, they might include and integrate it. But if that same biological system
acquires a virus, it won’t try to ‘keep’ it and ‘integrate it.’ Inclusion and integration happen
when there is a “goodness of fit” between a new system element (in the case of community
this would be a new person or perspective) and the purpose of the system itself. I’ve seen
communities destroyed because they insist on being totally inclusive, to the extreme of
allowing harmful influences of individuals who are not serving the ultimate purpose of the
community. Likewise, in the case of a community trying to include and integrate values
brought by the diverse perspectives of many ethnic cultures, instead of evaluating each of
these values for its relevance to the purpose of the community, they are included (or rejected)
arbitrarily.
The choice of a community or organization not to adopt certain cultural values or
perspectives does not mean that an individual member has to give up that value, only that it
may not apply in the context of a specific community. We all belong to a multitude of
34
interconnected social systems, and participation in one does not mean we have to
“give up” another. Many American families continue to celebrate their former ethnic heritage
and cultural traditions but still take great pride in being a part of American society. It is
possible to hold multiple perspectives at the same time, reflected in the diverse cultures of
which we are a part. Again, ‘goodness of fit’ will determine whether this diversity causes
conflict, either on an individual internal level or within the cultures themselves. Learning to
evaluate ‘goodness of fit’ and test for congruency seems critical to create harmony among
individual and collective interconnected cultural values.
The Cybernetic Imperative: Learning how to learn
In some ways, I believe we intuitively ‘know’ what our social systems need to remain
viable and sustainable, and what they need to grow and evolve. I don’t think it is mere
coincidence that recent trends calling for transformation in our education system and for our
organizations to become ‘learning organizations’ have become so prevalent. I think we know
that we need new ways of thinking to deal with and solve the many complex issues and
challenges facing our social systems. Again, what the new sciences offer are support and
good reason to take these trends seriously as outlined in part one above.
We value our education for a reason. Unfortunately, the industrial era, predominated
by a mechanistic paradigm, affected our perception and value of learning to how it could suit
the efficient productivity of our systems. Speed, efficiency and a value for production
quantity suggested that we learn simply how to. Now, we need to re-evaluate our learning to
integrate new understandings of the principles which govern the sustainability of open
systems—we need to learn to value (again) learning itself, rather than just the products,
outcomes and results of learning (Banathy, 1992; Stalinski, 2000b).
In the context of seeking to create communities that provide the conditions for
healthy, sustainable and evolutionary cultures to emerge, learning becomes a fundamental,
core value. Alexander & Kathia Laszlo and I proposed aspirations for the evolution of our
healthy, authentic communities into Evolutionary Learning Communities.
Healthy, Authentic Community (HAC) inquiry poses the challenge of how to
translate the powerful ideas of authentic community into our every day lives in ways
that are fundamental and true. Evolutionary Learning Community (ELC) inquiry
35
seeks to evolve HACs, through design, so that communities may become
the stewards of our evolution and may serve as the vehicles through which we
participate in the creation of desirable and sustainable futures (Laszlo, Laszlo &
Stalinski, 1999).
From Community to Culture: The Evolutionary Process
From a systems perspective, we also understand that this is not a goal-oriented
process, where the result of some definitive state is the objective. Instead, our social systems,
like other natural, open systems, evolve into increased complexity, increased organization of
increasingly differentiated ‘parts’ into increased indivisibility and emergent wholeness. It is a
never-ending process and it is the journey—not the destination—that defines success
(Stalinski, 2000a).
Sweeping transformation of our societal systems is not only possible, it is imperative
if our systems hope to remain viable in an ever changing world. Since our societal
environments are comprised of a systems complex of all of our social systems, and since
those social systems are the immediate environments in which we live, work and play, it is
there that we have the most impact as groups and as individuals. The catalyzing central core
of each of these social systems is the value systems which guide and define them—these are
the ‘trimtabs’ which can, and often do, change the direction of the massive, entire “vessel” of
our societies. Our creativity, ingenuity, intelligence and consciousness afford us the
capability of steering that trimtab. We are no longer held to the mercy of biological
evolution. The tools, technology, communication and even spiritual understanding of our rich
cultural heritages empower us to meet the challenge given by futurist and inventor
Buckminster Fuller, to “make the world work in the shortest possible time, through
spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense, or the disadvantage of anyone” (in
Baldwin, 1995)
The Legacy of Bela H. Banathy
Healthy, authentic communities, Evolutionary Learning Communities, peaceful and
sustainable cultures and changing the world through societal transformation are lofty
ambitions, especially for small businesses or even our large corporations. Most of these
36
social systems likely don’t go into the process of evaluating the need for change or
redesign with such global impact in mind. We just want our social systems to work. Maybe
we’ve identified areas which need improvement, or maybe we’re seeking ways in which we
can transform ourselves, but changing the world is probably not on our agenda. Whatever our
objectives as social systems, we need a starting point, a first step as it were, to gaining the
evolutionary competence we’ll need to make our systems viable and sustainable.
Communicating the need and developing a strategy is always a good place to start.
Banathy (1996) suggested that groups considering change usually have a few options:
Keep things the way they are, fix individual problems or change certain parts of our systems,
or design entirely new systems. Sometimes it becomes apparent that change alone won’t be
enough; that using processes of negative feedback through adjustment and adaptation still
would leave us out of sync with the environment (p. 49). Sometimes, however, we can
become so focused on a particular problem that we fail to identify it as only one symptom in
a whole ‘mess’ of problems. Worse, without identifying the context of a problem, we often
create new (usually bigger) problems (Ackoff, in Banathy, 1996; Kaufmann, 1980). We
spray insecticides on our plants to get rid of the bugs and inadvertently poison our vegetables
and make ourselves sick. Instead, we could create gardens with enough biodiversity to
control insect populations in safe, healthy ways. Sometimes, the problems are so numerous
and interconnected, they become a whole system of problems, creating their own ‘emergent
whole’ defined by management systems theorist Russell Ackoff as “a mess” (Banathy, 1996).
So, if our particular place is a mess, how can we clean it up? Ackoff specializes in
helping organizations unravel their messes by mapping the complex dynamic of feedback
loops. But it seems to me it must be a tedious, painful process and still focuses our energy on
what is instead of what could be. It hardly seems future-creating or evolutionary--or even the
least bit fun! On the other hand, by envisioning our ideal future and creating the environment
and processes to bring it in to reality, would seem to also accomplish the same ‘clean up’
only in a much more productive, creative way that could potentially move us forward, closer
to our ideal, than merely getting us back where we started from. If I’m given a huge wad of
tangled string, I’ve learned it’s easiest to untangle it by starting at the outsides or the ends
where the string is straight (which is where I want to be eventually anyway). As I work my
37
way in, many, if not most of the knots seem to unwind and fall away with hardly
any effort. If I try to straighten the string by starting at the mass of knots in the middle, it’s
almost impossible to untangle.
Given the fast pace of change in our societal environments, Banathy (1996) suggested
in many cases it is fruitless to spend time unraveling our systemic messes, since the whole
system might be outdated, even once it could be ‘fixed.’ He often told his students, “Getting
rid of what you don’t want doesn’t get you what you do want.”
“It’s impossible to restructure a horse and buggy into a spacecraft no matter how
much energy and resources are put into the effort,” he wrote. Focusing on fixing problems
“limits perception to adjusting or modifying the old design in which our systems are still
rooted. A design rooted in an outdated image is useless. We must break the old frame of
thinking and reframe it. We should transcend the boundaries of our existing systems, explore
change and renewal from the larger vistas of our transforming society,” and then envision,
create and implement new designs of our systems (p. 45).
Banathy (1996, 2000) emphasized that starting where we want to end up is a much
more effective process than setting goals based on our current circumstances. By envisioning
our ideal future, he suggested, we are able to transcend our current situation unencumbered
by perceived limits of that system.
The process of envisioning an idealized image of our future, designing our future
system and then implementing that design is carried out in the realm of the ‘design
community.’ Design, Banathy proposed, is a process by which something new is created;
something novel and emergent. Design is a process that integrates creativity and practical
strategy and technical skill. It is a “future-seeking, disciplined inquiry” that creatively
integrates the comprehensive landscape of the system’s environment. Further, he noted that
the ethics of design in a healthy, authentic community call for shared responsibility,
ownership and participation in the creation of the design by all stakeholders of a community.
In other words, when we relegate the design of our future to others, to ‘outside experts,’ we
become ineffective to take control of and guide our own futures. As a matter of fact,
Banathy passionately held the belief that it is downright unethical to design a system for
38
someone else. This sentiment is echoed by the entire community of the
International Systems Institute, founded by Banathy which adopts the principle in its all its
efforts.
The Guiding Beacon
Our human capacity for ingenuity and creativity compels us to explore and discover
in ways that manifest our highest aspirations. Bela Banathy often reminded those of us in the
systems community that under-conceptualization is the most potentially damaging pothole on
the road to their realization.
There is a great temptation to rationalize or compromise by saying: ‘Be a realist.’
‘There are too many constraints.’ ‘We have to show results quickly.’ ‘You are
chasing dreams.’ ‘It would never work.’ ‘We have no time for it.’ ‘It will cost too
much.’ […] At times of dynamic, revolutionary and continuous societal changes and
transformations, anything less than the design of an ideal system and a continuous
pursuit of the ideal leaves us behind. Anything less is a waste of time. The ideal
system could be revolutionary, but the journey toward it can be evolutionary. Nothing
less than the ideal is worth the effort. (Banathy, 1996, p. 288)
39
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