Why Systems Fail & Redesigning for the Better?

I am excited. My months of struggle is almost nearing its end to give birth to something new. I am almost on the verge of completing a book on 'Why Systems Fail & Redesigning for the Better? - A Nemetic Approach'.

Well, writing a book is something like birthing a baby. I can well feel the joy, worry, agony and ecstasy of women creating life on earth. Unfortunately, being a man I would never feel it exactly as they feel but writing is something similar - a process of creative enfolding and unfolding where intense pure emotions and clear cognition come together to create new flows.  

In this post I would like to share a part of that agony filled excitement with you by presenting the Preface (still in draft till publication):

 

Preface

 

For the last thirty three years I have tried to be attentive in finding an answer to an interesting and important question that occupied my mind for so long: ‘Why systems fail?’ This is just the opposite of asking: ‘How systems work?’

Though these two questions apparently oppose each other the answer is paradoxically the same. That is for anything to work or function smoothly it must not fail. Or stated more explicitly, smooth functioning or failure of any system is the outcome of the same interactions taking place within a system. I also believe that our human mind is designed for noticing failures much faster than noticing successes. Hence my professional journey began with that question, ‘Why Systems Fail?’ and the question has remained with me till date.

 

To my mind this is an important and relevant question in these times since as of now our world as a system has grown more complex and chaotic that shows erratic behavior, which at times, is not very pleasing. We feel it every day in our lives. Uncertainty of jobs or means of livelihood is no longer questionable but a fact of life. We are completely governed by various systems that we have created. Thus failures like famine, poverty, illiteracy, spread of diseases; infant mortality and unemployment that we see around us are outcomes of the systems that we engineered. So my hope is if only we clearly understand as to why systems fail we would also be able to re-design our systems with changing times to benefit many.  

 

This gives us the hope that you and I may do something about making our systems fail less often that they do now. Never before, mankind has been so dependent on the success of man made engineering systems (social systems are also engineered systems) to function smoothly in an uninterrupted manner. If this can be done, as the numerous examples in the book would show, it saves us time, money, resources (mainly energy) and effort. Isn’t it a sane thing to do? The approach is neither evolutionary nor revolutionary. It lies “in between” the two. Hence I call it ‘evorevolution’ – an interesting in between where big systemic changes may be brought about by small onetime efforts. Achieving the interesting ‘in between’ is the focus of the book.

 

A failure of our man made systems often proves too costly. It endangers human lives. It endangers the environment. It affects national economies. It affects productivity. It wastes material and resources that affects our own sustainability as a ‘species’. It affects costs and thereby profitability of our productive organizations. If we cannot put our human feelings and intelligence to work to eradicate such ‘failures’ then what is the use?

 

It is obvious that poorly engineered systems force an economy to spend more and thereby impoverish the economy and lower the standard of living of its citizens. Thus I can say that in today’s world, the success of engineered systems has created the fundamental divide between richer and developing (read poor) nations. Then the question of improvement of economy squarely rests on the how do we eliminate or contain failures of our engineered systems and make them work to meet the best performance standards. That is the essence of the subject of System Reliability through the discipline of Nemetics on which I would love to have a dialogue through this book.  

 

In this regard I must say that I was extremely lucky to have been associated with failures within manufacturing organizations. It could not have been any better. It proved to be a perfect field of study that is totally concerned with ‘surprises’, ‘failures that prove to be costly’, ‘randomness’, ‘complexity’ and ‘chaos’.  I have been lucky to engage with thousands of failures that take place in strange combinations. I have seen innumerable machinery problems. And each of those told me stories, which I internalized. I have seen countless problems and issues with the human part of manufacturing organizations and have learned from those stories too. I have seen problems with management and problems with workers and employees and those stories have been kind enough to teach me through silence, the lessons worth learning for life. Over time, I slowly got to see the underlying essence of the problems through the patterns that evolved on their own. And then I was in for some great surprise.

 

One day, it suddenly dawned on me that the lessons I learned from the dark and dim world of manufacturing organizations could be easily applied to any system whether local or global’ whether small businesses or big businesses; whether economies or nations; in short to every conceivable system even to social systems like healthcare, education, transportation etc. That makes life grand. It gives us tremendous hope for creating a better future.   

 

That does not mean that I have learned all the lessons life has to offer me. Far from it! I am still on that exciting journey learning everyday something new and exciting. But all I want to do is to share a simple enough framework with its methods, called Nemetics, that helps just about anyone find answers to how and why systems fail and what we might do about such failures to improve systems as time and need change.  

 

I must say that the framework of Nemetics, so to say, was quite accidentally invented and co-evolved through several conversations and dialogues on Twitter with my Twitter pals, coming from various fields. We soon discovered that this framework could be effortlessly applied to any field or context of human activity involved in a process or a system. The context changes but the metaphor remains the same.

 

So, with great enthusiasm and excitement I want to share with you the stories with the hope that the framework and the methods of Nemetics, i.e. to notice reality through failures & movements, engage with the interrelationships that play out, mull over the rules that create them, create and exchange value with new or re-engineered designs might help others to improve productivity, performance and profitability of the systems they are presently engaged with.

 

And there are two big advantages of using the Nemetics framework and its methods, which are:

 

1. A group of multiple problems can be addressed by “one time effort”. There is little need to address problems one by one. That saves money, resources, time and the pain of suffering failures.

 

2. Such ‘one time efforts’ to solve groups of multiple problems & paradoxes simultaneously also help individuals and organizations to reap on-going benefits for years to come before new needs accost us to disturb our peace of mind.

 

Acknowledgements:

 

One must know a rather strange fact regarding the development of Nemetics. The discussion on Nemetics started out more as fun conversation on Twitter amongst Twitter friends. Since then it has come a long way to its present state of development through constant practice and theory. Therefore I acknowledge with thanks Michael Josefowicz (@toughloveforx) with whom the initial conversation on Nemetics started. He introduced to me his language of Nemetics waiting for real life applications. And I in turn slowly introduced to him my methods of solving ‘complex’ and ‘wicked problems’ waiting for a language to express the essence. There could not have been a better relationship that resonated at once fulfilling each others mutual needs.

 

Subsequently, such conversations on Twitter turned into a sort of an exciting game that we played along with other Twitter pals  Dan R.D (@ddrrnt)  Sean Grainger (@graingered) D. C. Padhi (@humanatom) and having Paula Thornton (@rotkapchen), Neus Lorenzo (@newsneus) @counterpane, @assesswell, Paul (reomahi), Steven Putter (@stevenputter), Mpule K. Kwelagobe (@mpulekwelagobe) as interested, engaged & curious observers and participants to our frequent but intense and passionate plays. And soon many others joined. I am grateful to them too.   

I am also greatly indebted to organizations like Tata Metaliks Kobutu Pipes Limited, Tata Metaliks Limited, UltraTech, Vikram Cement, Grasim Cement, Tega Industries Limited, and Hindustan Unilever for providing opportunities and the playgrounds where the action research of Nemetics (from 1990 till date) played out to resolve their complex issues and ‘wicked problems’ in manufacturing systems, design, incentive and learning systems.

 

Till date, the discipline and practice of Nemetics are being developed through active participation of many through numerous conversations, applications to live problems, training and education programs all of which form the significant part of the ongoing Action Oriented Research in the development of Nemetics. Such practical self organizing way of development of the discipline is what we call ‘praxis’ that informs our theory, which then goes on to develop the practice in an iterative manner.

 

However, I am immensely grateful to Prof Tim Henry, of the University of Manchester, whose gentle voice coaxed me along on the roads of Reliability, Design Improvements, Complexity and Chaos and to stay with that exciting journey, whenever tiredness overcame me. With his light I saw how all these seemingly diverse subjects are really entangled into one. He is my Guru.

 

I am indebted to my Dad, who spent countless hours at my study table from my young school days teaching me how to look at social systems, their birth, development, death and re-formation. It was and still is a pleasure listening to him explaining social movements and development. It not only shaped my young mind but also gave me the much needed understanding that we as a ‘human species’ simply do too much and unnecessarily waste too much. There are easier ways. This book is dedicated to him.

 

But without the immense patience and tolerance exhibited by my wife, Madhumita, for putting up with my crazy emergent ways of passionately engaging with this exciting work, this exciting book that reveals the magic of big changes through Nemetics would not have seen the day. I am grateful to her.

 

A sense of gratitude fills me for the immense support and constant encouragement provided by Core Common Press in taking the initiative to publish the book and exchanging the value it contains with many.  

In a way, like all complex systems, each and every one of them left their entangled and hard to segregate, imprints on the development of this important subject, which only enriched the discipline through spontaneous co-evolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple to Chaotic Systems - Future Leadership & Role of #Nemetics

For the sake of simplicity we have classified different type of systems, which are the following: -

Simple System -> Wrist Watch: It has many parts but not very diverse, very interdependent and connected but it is very predictable with great accuracy of a few seconds over a year. Nothing funny happens on and off.

Complicated Systems -> Computer: Has many parts that are diverse. They are also interconnected and interdependent. Highly predictable with great accuracy. But since the computer is also connected to the environment (for e.g. the net) it can suddenly get affected, corrupted, spammed and some unpredictable things might happen. But it is mostly under control.

Complex Systems --> Chess game. There are diverse pieces. These are interconnected and also interdependent. There are few rules - say about 10 and those rules generate a great variety of responses which can't be predicted. This appearance of new situations is called 'emergence'. The situations completely change with every turn. And we are forced to take action (a sort of adaptation) to continue the game till it ends.

Complex Adaptive Systems -> Our human body. Diverse pieces. Interconnected and Interdependent. Few rules produce infinite variety of responses (emergence). And we can adapt by balancing, action and also inaction.

Chaotic Systems -> Our heart. More than a pump it is a vortex that sucks in blood imparts it with some additional energy and drains it out into the system. In this case very small changes trigger massive changes to the system.

Though it is very interesting to classify systems in this manner for academic reasons (helps to formulate theories) it is really very difficult for such definite classes of systems to independently exist in reality. This is because all systems ranging from the simplest ones to the most chaotic exist in interconnected and interdependent ways. In that case one is not more important or less important than another. Everyone plays the game together.

Hence if we take the right view, such classification is only good for our initial understanding of different systems. Theories spun out of such 'abstracted individual systems entities' are simply meaningless to say the least.

Once different types of systems are interconnected, two basic things happen.

First, they are no longer isolated (equilibrium and predictable conditions) by becoming a part of a larger system that is in a non-equilibrium and therefore highly unpredictable state.

Second, the combined effect of such a networked relationship between different systems is 'non-linearity'. This essentially means the effect can't be predicted with a high degree of certainty. In such a situation most of our static theories would fail.

When we combine the two conditions what we get is something called 'bifurcation'. In simpler terms it is the source of creativity. Something new emerges from the mix.

a) Knowledge would no longer be static. It would become 'dynamic', i.e. more fluid and changing where meaning would arise from interconnecting different parts and not lie in the interpretation of any singular part. In such a situation specific attributes of any parts would become insignificant to the behavior of the whole. All parts would enfold within it the whole as much the whole would contain the unfolding of the interactions of the diverse parts and systems. Once we perceive this view the design of our present education system might change. 

b) Such turbulent mixing of various systems generating 'dynamic knowledge' would help us to live more humane lives away from the prey predator model of the animal world, which we are practicing right to this moment only amplified and sustained through so called national or organizational interests created only in the minds to boost national or organizational supremacy of one nation or organization over the other. 

c) It would help the 7 billion odd people on the earth to reduce the income disparity which the majority suffers from and is being crushed by its cruelty.

d) It would enable free play of imagination and creativity to live more humanely with the hope of living in a liberated state of Non-Fear, where Fear presently shrouds the lives of most.

Herein is the crux of future leadership since 'leadership' as we know of it today is a stale and sick replay of understanding of parts based on the infamous 'prey-predator' model of the animal world - a world where the possibility of conscious evolved living is simply non-existent.

#Nemetics is concerned about study and evolution of such Leadership through education and action research.

 

Rapidinnovation -- A Room with a View

Observing Real Life Systems

To me, observing real life systems is something like this:

“A real life System comprises of a meaningful set of objects, diverse in form, state and function but inter-related through multiple network of interdependencies through mutual feedbacks enclosed by variable space, operating far from its equilibrium conditions not only exchanging energy and matter with its environment but also generating internal entropy to undergo discrete transformation triggered by the Arrow of Time forcing it to behave in a dissipative but self organizing manner to either self destruct itself in a wide variety of ways or create new possibilities in performance and/or behaviour owing to presence of ‘attractors’ and ‘bi-furcations’; thereby making it impossible to predict the future behaviour of the system in the long term or trace the previous states of the system with any high degree of accuracy other than express it in terms of probabilities since only the present state of the system might be observable to a certain extent and only a probabilistic understanding may be formulated as to how it has arrived at its present state and what would keep it going, thus triggering creative human responses to manage, maintain and enhance the system conditions, function and purpose and create superior systems of the future for the benefit of the society at large.”

Such a represenation of an observation looks quite involved. Perhaps it might be stated in a much simpler way. Most real life systems behave in a complex manner creating multitude of problems of performance and failures. But how do we get rid of complexity and uncertainty as exhibited by systems? We may do so by deeply observing the complex behaviour of the system to improve our perception to gain insights about the essence of the system; find out the underlying ‘imperfection’ that causes the apparent complexity and uncertainty and then find ways to improve the existing system or create new system and maintain them in the simplest possible manner. We do this by applying the principles of chaos, reliability and design. Surprisingly, the same process might be used to troubleshoot and solve problems we face on a daily basis. If done, we are no longer dominated or dictated by the ‘special whims’ of the system. 

The crux of the matter is how we observe reality and understand it so as to make meaningful choices as responses to life and living. 

CL - Experiential Learning

Experiential Learning through observation by linking actions to their consequences is simple and probably a natural way to learn anything. We do it all the time.

Conceptually, the idea is simple to understand. A child puts his finger into a candle flame and immediately singes his finger and feels the heat. He learns never to put his finger into an open flame. He learns this because his action and the feedback (unintended consequence of the action -- burning sensation) are very close by - almost instantaneous. However, with age he would also learn how to handle fire for useful purposes too.

If that is so, why people in industries and organizations have hard time learning? The reason appears to be obvious. Actions and feedback of consequences of the actions are separated by time and space challenging cognitive ability of a human being. Since the consequence of a person's actions might appear after a long time and may appear at a different place it then becomes unlikely for a person to connect 'actions' to their 'consequences' to make meaning and learn from his/her actions in a holistic manner.

Can't this simple yet effective method of Observation Based Experiential Learning experiences be designed & applied in industries and organizations?

Surely! The design would involve simulation of the job environment or engage people on an actual job where a skilled facilitator then links the consequences (either unintended or helpful) to the array of actions a learner is free to choose or employ. By linking the two (action and the consequences) learning takes place.

I would call this 'talent development'. Undoubtedly, such talent development within an organization not only helps the person but also helps organizations improve the 3 fundamental Ps -- Productivity, Performance and Profitability.

The video provides a demonstration of a successful Observation Based Experimental Learning experiment we designed for shop floor workers, which we found rather challenging.  The feedback of the consequences was given in their mother tongue (Bengali).

Needless to say that the learners were happy with the experience and so were their top bosses who initiated the program.

However, there seems to be three tricky issues in the design and implementation of such observation based experiential learning.

These are

1. The designer and the facilitator must be comfortable and attentive to handle the uncertainty that comes up in this process of self discovery.

2. The designer and the facilitator must have strong grounding in 'Design Thinking' and 'Systems Thinking'.

3. The facilitator must be well aware of the consequences of each action especially the unintended ones. That is a facilitator must be well versed with the possible 'failure modes' of a system under study and must also know how to provide the proper feedback in a manner understood by learners.

 

CL stands for Creative Leadership

 

 

Creative Leader of the Week -- Anupam Mishra

Anupam Mishra in his very characteristic eloquent style talks about the ancient ingenuity of water harvesting in India to provide bacteria free potable water to the masses without the help of modern chemicals and modern water treatment facilities.

Of interest to note are the following:

a) The techniques that were used.

b) The application of collective engineering

c) The sense of collective ownership of resources in India which runs in the culture even today

d) Community and culture lead projects based on wisdom and understanding systems and great design thinking ideas that squarely defeat modern engineering ideas.

e) Examples of collective participation and collective contribution to welfare of society.

Moral:

The understanding of social problems is limited by the social consciousness of a culture and design solutions must be based on the culture of the land to suit the way of life not to change the way of living.

Hope you would enjoy this talk.

Management Upside Down - Sparkling Insights!

Rahul, a young Executive Director of a fast growing multi-national company startled by his nightmare broke into a cold sweat as he woke up.

What would happen to his vibrant flourishing business if the top management team who were ready to fly to Dubai for the annual sales conference in two days time died of a violent air crash? His global business would then come crashing like a pack of cards and there would be none to look after the vast wealth that has been created as he narrated his nightmare to me. 

"Why would that be?" I asked. 

"Isn't that obvious? All knowledge of running this company lies with these few chosen ones. Once they were gone wealth vanishes in no time" he replied emphatically. 

"But don't you think that sooner or later all of them would leave the scene anyway? What do you do then?" I quipped in response.

"Frankly I don't know. That has really kept me thinking. There are no Jack Welch or A M Naik who is determined to make his way up from the ranks. Don't know how to make even one?", Rahul voice trailed off pensively.

This story made me sit up and start thinking. Isn't this the same story for all companies all over the world? Aren't people fighting to find an answer to these deep questions on knowledge, leadership and organizations? What can be a possible solution to this business problem that has spread like an epidemic and refuses to let go of its iron grip on our lives?

Such difficult questions possibly can't be answered through a brilliant stroke of imagination. Many have tried without much success. To find an answer we would have to look at something deeper - the evolution of management from the early uncertain days of the industrial revolution to the present day where all time honored rules of management are headed for a grand collapse (Nature's Model). The clue lies there. 

This is how management always worked with minor and insignificant modifications here and there. 

It always started with a grand plan to make a profit. Don't suspect that I am against 'profit' or like to label it as a dirty word. Far from it! Profits are needed. It is blood of an organization. Anyway, to chalk out the grand plan a few old men (only now it is fashionable to include a few women too) sat together in a room called the board room to come up with a 'how to' list of making money from an idea. We called that strategy.

Once that was framed the next question that plagued these old souls was how the hell do we organize ourselves and operate? They then came up with exotic game plans, choc-a-block with funny rules and regulations, making the entire organization 'rigid' (if not frigid) 'air-tight' and 'water-proof' -- nothing can touch them, no secret can ever dream to escape, no employee can ever think of anything else but work, work and work...etc. They called it a 'system'.

With the system in place these grand old people heaved a sigh of relief. Half the job is done. Now we need some 'dedicated', 'loyal', 'trusted' servants (whoops! employees) to work their grand design called the system to their heart's content to churn out money. The model was no different to the 'factory model'. Pop in something and out pops something else from the other side of the machine.

Same was in business. So they carefully selected the 'servants' to work for them and just like selecting good machines they looked hard for the desired attributes for doing the back breaking jobs -- is he/she strong, healthy, good looking, has the right attitude??? (still couldn't figure out how they measure that), background, education blah blah blah... . They would take all pains just the way they would to pick the best variety of apples from the marketplace. It had to be rigorous since the 'chosen ones' like gladiators, would have to sweat it out for them in the next 2 to 3 decades.

But soon they found out that attributes of people change over time. They were not "behaving" like the machines they thought they got with so much rigor and patience. They started asking for things that weren't promised when they got in. That was something to worry about. What made them most worried was when they started thinking and suggesting and voicing their opinions on how to go about their jobs and perhaps how to do them better.

That wasn't good news to their old hardened ears. They have to stop them thinking. They are to be aligned to the goal of the organization. They are to be kept in line and on their toes. And they are to be occasionally whipped when they break rules or ranks to show who is the master and the lord that provides them their humble bread.

In comes the Human Resource Department, a sobriquet for the old fashioned Time Office and Personnel Department, whose only job was to keep employee behavior in check. Keep them in line. Indoctrinate them. Inject them with the lovely tunes of loyalty, feel good factor with a good day's job. Give them some butter if they do too well..... Spend time to correct the behavior of people not to say that a good amount of time, energy and resources went into managing work that consumed a large extent of people's productive time.

And what might happen when strategy, systems and behavior of people are all lined up? It would create work that produced goods and services of some value to thousands of customers. So a classic division was formed -- a small group of producers and an ever increasing group of consumers. More the consumers merrier the game became. All that  management had to do was to ensnare more and more consumers in their net and keep looking for more. The word was 'marketing'. 

This way of operating could be done for a pretty long time. All that was needed to keep this well structured machinery running was a pot of gold. Deeper the pockets better was the show which people thought would be perpetual in nature. At last management was able to create a perpetual machine that defied all known natural laws.

Did they? No. By 2008 everything that was so sacrosanct and held in high esteem started to disintegrate with the coming of the great recession. Big and seemingly invincible companies folded up. Unemployment kept rising. No new jobs could be created. Businesses faltered. And those that existed counted their days to doom.

The old way of functioning was definitely clumsy, complex, rigid and unmanageable that not only provided very little value to customers but also wasted a lot of energy in managing and keeping the system in order.

What traditional businesses failed to notice were the slow changes happening all around them in other spheres of human activities (Post Offices to #SM). Things were changing. And so did the nature of work. The fundamental change was consumers became producers and were blurring the line between producers and consumers. It happened to Post Offices, Schools, Publishing business, Consulting, Telephones, and was quickly spreading to all human activities in ways people would  have never imagined even a few years back.

The consumers created their own value independently and interacted and shared it with their network to create more value and consume it themselves at a price much less than the prevailing market price. The days of grand old institutions, middle men, dealers, publishers, advertisers were all but over.

In comes a new thinking and a new way to create and manage businesses and a lot of value  -- the answer to Rahul's nightmare.

The earlier model, basically static in nature and greatly determined by financial capital, was Strategy -- Systems -- Behavior -- Work -- Value.

In this model, Strategy informed the nature of work and the value that was created for the customer.

The new model is just the reverse of what we knew for so long. What happens when we reverse it? It becomes Value -- Work -- Behavior -- Systems -- Strategy. 

In this new model, 'Value' and 'Work' inform Strategy not the other way around. Therefore, it is more dependent on people including customers to participate, share and contribute their learning and knowledge in the economic process than being exclusively dependent on the strength of financial capital.

So, what might be the challenges for organizations to embrace the new way of working?

Some of these are:

1. How do we involve and engage customers and employees to participate in the 'value' creation process to create 'multiple values' instead of only focusing on the goal of generating profits (single value)?

2. How do we make 'work' observable and tractable from which everything else emerges?

3. How do we create a platform of emergent learning that spontaneously creates 'leaders' who co-produce wealth not spawn 'servants', 'managers' and 'bosses' who run the systems like mere cogs in the wheel?

Now that we have found the answer to Rahul's nightmare answers to these challenges would help him create simple yet intelligently superior and greatly adaptable organization that creates multiple values for the collective.

For Rahul his ghastly nightmares would be over. But he would now have more things to challenge his mind, which would surely be fun since he may now keep thinking while doing the new thing, learning and improvising as he goes along in his new journey.

He is well on his way creating history.

Wish him well!

But do ask me how history is being created.

 

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