Below you can read the presentation of German Bula, Minister of Education of Colombia between
the years 1998 and 2000, of the book “Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the
Viable System Model” by Raul Espejo and Alfonso Reyes (Heidelberg, Springer 2011), in the city of
Ibague, Colombia, the 5th of July 2011.
"I do not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but would give my life (or my right arm,
according to other versions-) for simplicity beyond complexity," said the famous American judge
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
I was reminded of this phrase by the clear and easy explanation of systems offered by the book that
I have the honour today to present here in the city of Ibague. Presenting the book "Organizational
systems" is indeed an honour that I will do briefly without pretending to enrich it. Furthermore, it is
with personal pride that I present a world-class work emerging from the collaboration of two Latin
American academics, Professor Raul Espejo and Dr. Alfonso Reyes.
Today, the word system appears as attractive and with multiple meanings. It is used related to
services such as education, health, safety, transportation, protection and so forth; the list is quite
extensive with respect to services provided by the state, just to focus only on this sense of the word
system. It seems that baptizing these services as systems of governance make them closer to
effectiveness. Whether this is or not the case, it would help to those responsible for them to review
carefully this book. I say this aware that despite its aforementioned explanatory clarity and easiness,
it should be clear that a contribution of organizational cybernetics to governance cannot be
absorbed from a hammock as if reading a novel of the Latin American boom.
The central distinction between describing systems as operational descriptions as opposed to black
boxes enriches the traditional views that see systems as opaque processes, in which inputs are
transformed into outputs that eventually feedback to modify the transformation (known as feedback mechanism). In daily life we experience hundreds of black boxes; suffice to mention domestic
gadgets and the ubiquitous communication devices, and sometimes we have no option but to
observe organizations from this perspective. Indeed, the authors recognise this traditional approach
of social systems as black boxes, but at the same time they add an operational approach for their
description, and make clear the complementarity between the two approaches. When the system
involves human beings they are participant observers. If two people constituting a couple observe
their coupling from the outside, they are using the black box approach; the same approach is used
by their friends and their parents, probably with different results as they “analyse” the couple from
their particular viewpoints. On the other hand, the couple’s structure, their relations constituting
them as a couple, their communications and coordination of actions, the ways they respond to
external stimuli, observed from within, are operational descriptions underlying the approach of this
book to organizational systems.
The book introduces us to another distinction: on the one side human activity systems as mental
constructs belonging to the world of ideas and conceived as activities to achieve a purpose and on
the other human communication systems, which pertain to the domain of the contextualised
interactions that occur between people in an organization.
And here comes my first request to the authors. Let’s see: as already indicated, observers can
choose between a black box description and an operational description of an organizational system.
This option applies clearly for human communication systems. However, with regard to human
activity systems, as they are mental constructs belonging to the world of ideas, this approach would
not apply to organizational systems, since for them there are no conversational participant
observers developing relationships and coordinating actions. However, human activity systems could
be designed for existing organizational systems -in which participants and relationships exist- as long
as one understands that the exercise is limited to talk about that organizational system as an
idealized design to make it more suitable for a particular purpose. In that sense anyway human
activity systems would be located in the black box approach.
In short, I’m referring to the need to establish clearly the relations between the two modes of
observing systems - black-boxes and organizational systems- and the distinction between human
activity systems and human communication systems. The limitations of a unilateral approach have
been noted, for example, in political science. Behaviourism driven mainly at American universities in
the second half of the last century, coined the concept of political system as contrasting to the idea
of the state, which was disqualified as vague and unworthy of scientific treatment. David Easton is
known for applying systems theory to political systems, which are treated as black boxes. Meanwhile
Theodore J Lowi, another renowned social scientist, criticized the proponents of that theory for not
taking the time to "look into the little black box" in which operate inputs, outputs and feedback. The
book Organizational Systems distinguishes between the two approaches, the black box and the one
that "looks into the little black box"; just that it goes beyond. Precisely, and to the extent that it
incorporates the contributions of Von Foerster, Maturana and Varela, among others, it rescues the
role of the observer and goes beyond the mere look from outside that Lowi was requesting from
Easton. The authors remind us Maturana’s dictum that "Everything that is said is said by an observer
to another observer who can be him or herself", and immediately emphasize that “reality" is
constructed by the observer. The mentioned political scientists, who appear at opposite sides, would
have to accept that their vision did not taken into account the crucial question of systems
characterized by being structurally determined, condition that suggests that absorbing external
stimuli depends on its structure. The seemingly inert black box has a structure of its own that defines
the way it perceives what comes from the outside. Does it seem complex? It is not at all. People
know it intuitively and so when faced with raising a question or giving unwanted information, usually
choose an auspicious time and place, sensitive to the affected people’s situation. And in doing so are
assuming that the same stimuli, the question or information, will be heard differently depending on
the structure of the receptor and its circumstances.
It can be said that the book is developed on the central thread of a duality that relates two domains:
the informational and operational domains. Put it simply, the informational domain is the field of the
ideas that we coin about situations relevant to us and the operational domain is involved with the
actions and relations that transform a given reality. Of course, the operational domain is expressed
also with ideas. In the case of a brilliant university lecturer, for example, whose operational domain
is the handling of ideas, the distinction still applies even if you have to be more careful in the
subtleties.
The authors differentiate the concepts of communication and information by defining
communication as coordination of actions. The application of the above mentioned duality helps
clarifying the point. Note that information as a mere transmission of facts, notes, documents,
analyses, reports, etc., is in the informational domain. Communication can be recalled with a pun as
“common-action”, and its difference with information is evident.
Responding to the need to clarify how to measure complexity, the authors present an important
distinction: variety as the possible states of a system, and complexity as the states incorporated by a
system. Variety can be seen in the informational domain and that makes it theoretical. Complexity
appears in the operational domain, i.e. it refers to states of a system that affect the coordination of
actions, or what is the same, communications. To the extent that we make more distinctions as we
participate in the coordination of actions, we increase our complexity, which unfolds over time and
with practice, and gradually this complexity becomes transparent distinctions. The authors call
detailed complexity to the distinctions that become transparent. When I was a young student typing
was taught and only the most experienced secretaries exhibited detailed complexity in that domain,
as it was transparent to them and were able to automatically type on a typewriter. Typing schools
have almost disappeared and now we watch our sons and daughters performing several other
activities at the same time of writing on a cellular phone a tablet or a computer; it is extraordinary
the detailed complexity that they exhibited in that operational domain! And it continues to grow
through learning that increases the complexity which, I repeat, gradually is enacted to become
transparent- detailed complexity.
So far the reader might think that this book is just about interesting concepts but offers little to
handle the operational domain about which so much has been insisted. The chapters on the design
of attenuators and amplifiers to handle complexity (variety engineering), the Viable System Model
created by Stafford Beer and the VIPLAN method, provide tools specifically applicable to the tasks of
diagnosing and designing organizational systems.
I stop at this moment to make two additional specific requests: when someone is in the exercise of
naming systems usually there are doubts as to whether the viewpoint must stay grounded in the
current reality -as indicated in the methodology- or otherwise it can introduce elements that imply
an improvement of the observed system. The authors suggest that the method of naming systems is
useful not only for the purpose of seeing systems as they are but also of seeing systems as they
should or could be, but, in my view, here there is a methodological vacuum that is worth filling. In
my experience when the actors of an organization are immersed in workshops - to improve these
organizations- their positive attitude and emotion operates usually in the direction to make their
observations immediately proactive. Thus, these exercises create "corrected" organizational images,
whose proper appreciation and use can be invaluable.
Additionally, I expected to find in the book developments about the relationships between strategy,
structure and culture, which I believe are crucial for anyone who wants to contribute, as a
practitioner, in the transformation of organizational systems. I did not find much about this.
However, this issue has been addressed by Professor Espejo in previous works.
This book ends with a chapter on structural and identity archetypes, which originated in the work
led by Professor Espejo at the Colombian General Audit Office more than a decade ago, as scientific
director of a transformation project -work that is waiting to be taken up, evaluated, expanded and
deepened- in which Dr. Reyes and I had the opportunity to participate. Archetypes are tools to
quickly and accurately identify typical organizational problems, which, I'm sure, will be useful to
those who make the effort of studying them carefully. Are you familiar with the manager or director
who suddenly goes to the most local level, or travels from the capital to an isolated municipality, in
the texture of resolving a little problem there? Can you remember how, as they do so, they receive
the general applause but actually their intervention overwhelms the local level with their large
power? Have we asked what happens to the organizational structure that the next day should
function as any other day and that for a few hours was overthrown to allow the previous day show?
Well, this archetype (the "archetype of the politician" as it is called) is an example of what readers
will find in the book. These are situations which by their typicality facilitate their identification in
different circumstances, i.e. in this case in different organizations.
The examples that illustrate the book are mainly taken from projects that the authors have been
directly involved; universities, banks, public entities, the Swedish nuclear waste management
system, manufacturing companies; these are all experiences that enrich the practical side of this
work.
In Colombia we are discussing these days whether the new territorial regulations meet the demands
of autonomy for our regions. Well, I don’t think they do. I think this crucial national issue has not
been addressed using powerful academic tools such as those offered by the authors, and therefore
is a live challenge waiting attention. This final reflexion was strengthened while reviewing the
chapter devoted to showing organizations as phenomena that go beyond institutions and
hierarchies. If we want to move towards the Colombia of our dreams we must empower local
organizations, and therefore move towards a country able to balance local autonomy with national
cohesion. And here we would have to work the concept of closure, treated with care by the authors.
But for the moment I have to stop and hope that these words play a provocative role. Almost the
whole book has been left out of this inkwell. And of course, there is still an immediate practical task:
translating this book to make it available to many Spanish speakers.
German Bula Escobar
Education Minister of Colombia 1998-2000
July 5, 2011