A glance back at the shiftN Systems Library, edition 2019–’20

What we learned from reading four classic systems books

Photo: Emma Vandenbroeck

Two years ago we initiated a Systems Library program in our shiftN Academy. The idea is simple: to reacquaint ourselves with classic works from the systems literature.

We want to go beyond Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems, however valuable that contribution may be.

Systems thinking and practice in some form or other are probably as old as humanity, but systems science came of age only after the Second World War. It has been a fascinating intellectual adventure that resulted in a powerful set of ideas. These ideas are shaping a contemporary practice of tackling global challenges.

Sadly, much of what prominent systems thinkers wrote in the latter half of the twentieth century has found only a very limited audience. Arguably, some of these books put significant demands on readers (and readers’ wallets!) too.

At shiftN we want to actively explore this intellectual legacy and make it accessible through focused introductions. We read the books for the participants to the program, we discuss the ideas, contextualise the author’s contribution to the systems tradition and we make the link with related systemic lineages.

In the 2019–2020 edition of the Library we focused on the following four books:

• Donald Schon: Beyond the Stable State (1974)
• Herbert Simon: The Sciences of the Artificial (1969)
• Timothy Allen & Valerie Ahl: Hierarchy Theory (1996)
• Stafford Beer: Designing Freedom (1974)

Titles link to short book summaries in our expanding Systems Library on Medium.

We selected these books because of their relative accessibility. Three out of four hail from the late 1960s and early 1970s, a milestone interval in the history of systems thinking. Beer, Simon and Schon are rightly considered luminaries in the field (with Allen as a dark horse). They reflect different thematic and epistemological lineages within the systems domain, but we expected the concepts of ‘design’ and ‘management cybernetics’ to offer a unifying thread through the series.

For each book a distinctive poster is designed (by Meer Wit; available on request)

What have we observed as a result of working through this selection of four systems books?

• We overestimated the accessibility of these works. Most participants who wanted to prepare themselves by reading the books on their own found it really hard going. There are several factors playing into this.
• First, the books are generally badly written. This may have to do with the fact that three out of four books were based on a series of lectures for a wider audience. Beer left it at that, but Schon and Simon expanded and reworked the base material, which did not always improve the clarity of the message.
• The books also show their age in their tone of voice. We often found it hard to take to the rather categorical, ‘masculine’ language used by the authors. It takes some patience to get behind this veneer of overbearing expertise and discover a more ‘female’, questioning and receptive intellectual stance. But it’s there.
• There is no unified language to talk about systems principles. There isn’t even a unified epistemology. In discussing these books we touched upon a wide range of philosophical ideas, from very different ‘schools’. Despite the ‘systematic’ resonance of the ‘systems’ domain, it is anything but. So one has to be prepared to lose one’s way in the thicket.
• The connection between design thinking and systems thinking remains elusive. The designers around the table had difficulties recognising the way the design activity was conceptualised by these authors.
• Reading these books doesn’t turn a reader in a systems practitioner overnight. Translating these ideas into practice is a significant challenge (we try to contribute to this with other programmes in our shiftN Academy).
• Having said all that, by reading these books one has the sense of partaking of a genuine intellectual adventure. Moreover, one that is extremely relevant for the taxing times we are living through today. Many participants were astonished to find out how closely the challenges of the early 1970s mirrored ours today. We have to acknowledge that pragmatically and intellectually we have made precious little progress over the past five decades. Will we be able to retake the initiative in the next half century?

What ideas tie this series together?

• We are finite beings. Our 25 watt brain computer is limited in its ability to capture complexity. This constitutes ‘bounded rationality’. This has far-reaching implications, technically and ethically (Beer, Schon, Allen, Simon).
• In light of bounded rationality we have to make hard choices about where and how to intervene to manage complexity. This is what ‘design’ is about (Simon, Beer).
• Ashby’s Law makes it clear that we have basically two options: to invest in system complexity reduction, or to boost regulatory capacity (Beer).
• Hierarchy theory (Simon, Allen) offers fascinating insights about the relationship between system architecture and regulatory capacity.
• Every choice, every boundary judgment reflects a trade off, creates winners and losers. It is important to be mindful, transparent and inclusive about these choices (Beer, Allen).
• Cybernetic insights can guide us in this exploration of ‘fuzzy solution spaces’ (Schon, Simon, Beer). Three key functions have to be operationalised: the ability to allocate resources for heuristic search, the ability to conduct a heuristic search for alternatives, the ability to evaluate solutions (Simon).
• From this follows: in learning how to learn to learn we have to convince ourselves that it is ok to engage in real experiments, to pay for discovering afterwards that we have been plainly wrong (Beer, Schon, Simon). Again, we need to be mindful of the ‘affordable loss’ and who stands to win and who stands to lose.

In the fall we’ll add a new shelf to the Systems Library with a selection of four new books.

We are endeavouring to expand the potential audience by both an online and an in situ series of (2,5 hour) evening sessions.

In discussion with colleague-practitioners and participants to the past edition we are seeking four works that mesh core systems ideas with an emphatic ‘anthropocenic’ flavour. In other words, we are seeking systems ideas that specifically illuminate the challenge of long-term viability of mankind on planet Earth. Important, however, remains the connection with a specific, classic systems lineage. The selection hasn’t yet been finalised. Names of authors that are circulating: Ray Ison, Patrick Geddes, Buckminster Fuller, Michel Serres, Kenneth Boulding, Bruno Latour, Félix Guattari, John Dewey … Stay tuned! And feel free to sign up if you want to join us on the journey. Registration opens 1 June 2020.