Table of Contents of the Reader’s Guide to Platform for Change
How to read Platform for Change
Introduction
Table of Platforms
Key Concepts
Key word index
Platform as a context for Beer’s Viable Systems Model
Why Jon Li is the author of this Reader’s Guide
Conclusion
How to Read Platform For Change
• The author’s own statement in the prelims is the most straightforward version of what this book is about.
• Read the Thesis (pp.379-91), and then grapple with the graphic of the Thesis (390-1). Now you will be able to see Stafford’s big picture, and as you fill in the pieces reconstruct it into your own way of thinking.
• Take a look at the table of platforms below, and see if there are any that seem particularly interesting. Each platform has a different tone, because it has a different audience and context. They vary so much that any two will give you completely different views on how to do systems analysis.
• If you want to skip around, then it will help to start with the narrative before a particular platform. It will help you to understand Stafford’s attitude and expectations for that piece.
Introduction
Problems. You have problems on your mind.
The world used to work. Things that used to work most of the time are going wrong more and more.
Like a paved road with pot holes, institutions are falling apart, especially our public institutions – the structures that are supposed to hold our society together. Change seems to continue, and not for the better. Money is a real problem. It is more expensive all the time. For organizations, how to maintain the status quo is enough to break the bank. Did we not use all the tricks we could in last year’s budget? Where can we get more money? How are we ever going to do even as much as we did last year? The parts of the puzzle no longer seem to fit together.
Platform for Change argues that we need to rethink all of our social institutions. It provides an intellectual context for re-creating society.
But the book asks a lot of the reader – to follow a new logic, to create a new model using as a metaphor anything that is organic, rather than anything that is mechanical, to think meta rather than higher like a hierarchy, dynamic rather than static, and evolving, learning and adapting rather than locked in concrete.
Whether you work in a large firm, or a public institution, you should find Platform’s insights apply to a wide variety of settings. It was written from the perspective of a management scientist who knows a lot about viable organizations.
Platform says: call it a system, and then look at a dynamic synthesis model that is present-future oriented.
Platform asks you to expand your thinking. Do not give up your analytical tools, but please take a look at the bigger picture. Synthesize your idea about the problem you are dealing with. Create a model of the world surrounding your problem. Make the model big enough that your problem is small. Identify what impacts on your problem. Can you change an impact so that your problem disappears?
Platform has many observations about management and organizations that will challenge your thinking. Although it is over two decades old, most of the concerns still ring true. And the call to use science to help reformulate our social institutions has its own logic.
At the heart of Platform is the idea that computers offer citizens and managers profound new power to deal with information. The biggest change since the book was first published is the astronomical increase in computer number crunching.
But are the public policy judgements any better as a consequence? The results are grim.
Platform builds a logic for using science to create new tools for managing large, complex social institutions – especially the firm, and the larger economy. The goal is to design viable systems.
The most difficult idea in Platform is about money: that it deals with cost but not benefit (see Key Concept No. 10 below).
Platform concludes with the tension of an explosive, real-life political tragedy – a report of work in progress for the Allende administration, to use modern science to manage the economy of Chile. The Chilean experience empirically confirmed the power of the tools.
The world has changed a lot since Platform was published 20 years ago. The Berlin Wall is down, and the Soviet empire has vanished. And the world has grown even more complex, complicated and confusing. But the book is even more timely and relevant today because it is about today’s choices and how they can affect the future.
Table of Platforms
Each of these statements was developed by Stafford to address a particular audience, in a particular setting. Each has a unique tone appropriate to the context. Usually they include the basic components of the message: the megathreats, overwhelming complexity, systems and metalanguage, using science to examine issues of organization and society, and using computers to manage information.
Homo Gubernator pp. 21-37
The Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Association of Great Britain and Ireland,
Central Hall, Westminster, London
Operational research as revelation pp. 55-69
President’s Inaugural Address, Operational Research Society,
London
Health and quiet breathing pp.85-93
Lunch Talk, Hospital Centre,
London
Management in cybernetic terms pp. 103-117
Prepared for UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization
The cybernetic cytoblast: management itself pp. 133-51
Chairman’s Address, International Cybernetics Congress,
Imperial College, London
Questions of metric pp. 161-74
President’s Address, joint meeting: Operational Research Society and Institute of Management Science,
Imperial College, London
The law and the profits pp. 191-212
Frank Newsam Memorial Lecture,
Police College, Bramshill
Managing modern complexity pp. 219-41
U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics,
Washington, D.C.
The software milieu pp.263-71
Management Today
Dynamics of decision pp. 277-97
Dinner Talk, British Institute of Management,
Savoy Hotel, London
The liberty machine pp. 307-21
Conference on Ecological Systems, American Society for Cybernetics ,
Washington, D.C.
Science and the mass media pp. 329-35
BBC Radio,
London
Renascence pp. 345-68
The surrogate world we manage pp. 397-416
President’s Address, Society for General Systems Research,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Fanfare for effective freedom: cybernetic praxis in government pp.421-52
Richard Goodman Memorial Lecture,
Brighton Polytechnic, Moulsecoomb, Brighton
Key Concepts
1. The world is in trouble. It is not just the threat of the bomb or plutonium terrorists, or pollution or over-population. It is all of those and more. The world seems to be growing ever more complex, and society’s institutions (our governments and economies) seem less and less able to cope with the problems. Increasing complexity means more variety and increasing uncertainty – especially about how the larger social environment will respond in the future. Stafford calls the larger problem ‘complexification’, a word he got from Teilhard de Chardin.
2. We need to learn to use science. We need to invoke science – defined as the organized body of knowledge about the world and its workings. Science offers the means:
(a) to measure and manipulate complexity through mathematics;
(b) to design complex systems through general systems theory;
(c) to devise viable organizations through cybernetics;
(d) to work effectively with people through behavioral science;
(e) to apply all this to practical affairs through operations research.
The problem must be looked at in a new way that is not limited by the blinders of particular scientific disciplines, but which encourages interdisciplinary capabilities from the depositories of knowledge of physical, biological and social systems. Cybernetics is the name of the science of how organizations can effectively manage information, using biological criteria for the question of viability.
3. Arguments of change, not for change. While this book was written a decade before Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, it starts with the fundamental idea that society is now in a state of continuous change. This does not mean that any particular outcome is inevitable. It does mean that current institutions were designed to adapt to a different set of problems than we are now confronting, and the risk of organizational failure, even species extinction, is great.
4. Esoteric boxes. Modern organizations are self-defined structures which have survived in part because they adapt as little as possible to outside influences. Each has its own rules, and procedures for allocating and using resources for some purpose. Each esoteric box is locked into its own particular established course of action.
5. Data vs. Information. Part of the problem is endless data. It has become pollution – swamping out whatever might be important. The issue has become: what data is actually useful, and how can it be identified? Stafford’s idea is that information is what changes us: information is a new fact that is so significant that it forces an organization to rethink its current course of action, and then divert its course based on re-evaluated options.
6. Requisite variety. Variety is a measure of complexity. Additional choices multiply current options, often exponentially, which means exploding complexity. An organization is a structural device for a large number of people to work together and reduce proliferating variety. Ross Ashby developed the Law of Requisite Variety: in order to manage complexity, an individual or an organization must meet or preferably exceed the variety it must confront in its environment, if it is to survive and accomplish its purpose.
7. Metalanguage. The current language of organizations (hierarchy, data) needs to be reconceptualized, because many issues in the current language have become undecidable. A higher level of logic allows discussion of systemic problems, unaddressable in an organization’s daily operational language. The language of general systems theory was specifically designed to allow communication about organizational adaptation, restructuring and evolution. An organization is a system with identifiable boundaries and subsystems which have defined roles, and which is attempting to survive in a dynamic, unstable environment. One of the interesting things about general systems theory is that it is inherently decentralizing because the logic and the language encourage individuals to synthesize and integrate their own experience points of view as legitimate and useful.
8. Synthesis vs. analysis. A key idea of the metalanguage concept is that the world has spent too much time in dissection, division and analysis. One way to tie together the above seven ideas is to create a metalanguage to string together esoteric boxes, and then re-create them to accommodate exploding complexity.
9. Computers. The biggest real change in two decades since Stafford first published Platform is the astronomical increases in computing power. Chip miniaturization has led to the inexpensive personal computer, local networks to tie them together, and the Internet to give people access to computer information around the world. Evolving applications, such as modeling and graphics, have made new uses possible. But what is useful? If there were a thousand pieces of data to choose from, it will not be easier to find the important data if the situation has evolved and there are now a million pieces of data.
Platform is about figuring out what is important, and so is even more even more relevant as the world grows more complex and the noise of insignificant data grows louder.
10. Eudemony (u’de mo ne). This is an old English word from the Greek. It means well-being, closer to prosperity than ecstasy. Actually, the purpose of Platform is to introduce eudemony into our vocabulary, as a unit of measure which is a metalanguage to the metric of money, which is a constraint. Money is a useful tool but it is inadequate as a mechanism for evaluating relative social worth. Maybe money worked when life was not so dynamic, but the issues around us have grown so large in scale (like planetary destruction and species extinction) that monetary statements no longer translate into terms that most people can wrestle with. If you think of the concept of eudemony as a system, and Platform as its environment, then eudemony becomes the throbbing heart of Platform’s living, dynamic ideas.
Key Words Index
(Speeches/Platforms in parentheses)
Actuality, 435
Algedonic, 442
Allende, President Salvador, 423, 447, 453
archy’s life of mehitabel, 343
Ashby, Ross, 34, 111, 117, 135, 175, 194, 205, 311, 426, 452
Barber, 7, 258-9
Bentham, Jeremy, 167, 201
Bifurcation (problem), 29
Birthdays, 60
Brain parameters, 59
Capability and capacity, 435
Centralization/decentralization, 258-62, 299
Creating certainty, 293
Chardin, Pierre Teilhard de, 17, 24
Chile, (421-52)
City, 313
Computer, 230, 431-2
Community computer, 360-6
Curriculum, 296, 415
Cybernetics, 101, (103-17), (133-51)
Cyberstride, 438-43
Cytoblast, (133-51)
Data trail, 358
Data vs. information, 223, 243
Decision, (277-97)
Dinner Talk, (277-97)
Education, 415
Esoteric boxes, 136-9, 226-9, 403
Ethic with a busted gut, 349-50
Eudemony (prosperity more than ecstasy), 159, (161-74), 181-5, 201-2, 208, 243, 354, police (191-212)
Experimental ethics, 351-3
Feedback, 106-7, 294, with the wrong sign, 407
Forrester, J.W., 107, 117, 135, 452
Goodeve, Sir Charles (eudemony) 167, 201-2
Government, 301-6, 360-4, (421-52)
Grace in listening, 347
Health care, (85-93), 169
Health centre, 31, 88
Health: nursing info, costs, turnover, 92
Health records, 90
Holier-than-thou test, 11-12
Homeostasis, 108, 426
Homo Faber, 24-6, 36, 181, 184-5, 371
Homo Gubernator, (21-37), 36, 185
Homo Pontificatus, 37, 44, 45, 46
Information systems, computer, 360, 362
Keynes, John Maynard, 169, 174, 181
Kahn, Herman, 245, 335
Lag of information after event, 429-30
Latency, 437
Lawrence, John, 76-7
Liberty, 362, (307-21)
Logic of challenges to the current value structure, 253-62
Mao, 353
Marlow Seventy, 80
McCulloch, Warren S., into, 135
Media, (329-35)
Metalanguage, 7
Metasystem, 7, 112, 145, 226
Metric, (161-74)
Model, 60, 87, 88, 90, 91, 112, 235, 288, 400, 427
Money, 39, (as a constraint), 96
Noosphere, 17
Objections to computer nets (seven of them), 431-2
Operations Research (OR), 51, (55-69), 87-8, 100
with The Institute of Management Science, (161-74)
Operations Room, 293, 319, 447-51, graphic described, 294
Organization as a structural device for reducing proliferating variety, 194, 313, 425
Pareto, 166
Parra, Angel, 447
Participative management (as a problem), 285-7
Performance, 437
Planning is homologous with organization, 315, 405
Police, (191-212)
Politics, 153-8
Population, 255
Potentiality, 435
Privacy, 231
Productivity, 437
Real time control, 429
Relevant ethic, 353
Representation, 21
Requisite variety, 33-5, 111, 117, 194-7, 233, 235
Revans, R.W., 92
Revolution, 367
Rolls Royce, 79
Scale, 351
Schon, Don, 46
Schumacher, E.F., 350
Science, 49, 399
Science and the mass media, (329-35)
Skilled help, 266-70
Social commando, 365
Societary upheaval, 283-5
Society for General Systems Research, (397-416)
Software milieu, (263-71)
Stafford makes his case, 77
Stewkley Church cost-benefit, 163
Surrogates, 400
Synthesis vs. analysis, 121-5
Systems design and variety engineering, 433
Systems education, 415
Technological change, 279-83
Technology, 356
Theory vs. reality, 74, 223
Thinking about something you cannot comprehend, 433
Time philosophy, 314
TV – two-way communication, 237
TV – German experiment, 409-11
Ultrastability, 108
Undecidability, 8, 115, 119
UNESCO, 101-2, (103-17)
U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics, 213-12, (219-41)
Variety regulation, 33-5, 109-12, 194-7, 205
Vickers, Sir Geoffrey, 350
Von Foerster, Heinz, 331
Life in Washington, D.C., 247-9
Waste (measure of), 359
Wiener, Norbert, 28, 105, 425, 452
WOT THE HELL, 341
Platform as a theoretical context for Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) Construct
At this stage in Stafford’s distinguished career (1994), his hallmark is his Viable System Model (VSM), his crowning achievement his work in Chile for Allende, and his new idea Team Syntegrity.
For those interested in Stafford’s VSM, Platform is a puzzle, because it is almost as though VSM does not exist. VSM’s recursive structure with multiple feedback inks is barely alluded to as such, except as a theoretical necessity. Serious students of Stafford’s ideas will find that Platform offers his conceptual metalanguage which surrounds his VSM ideas, structures and proscriptions. (Jon Li has read Brain of the Firm and the Heart of Enterprise and is still confused by some of VSM.)
One way to understand Platform is that the speeches or platforms represent opportunities for Stafford to put on a public face and preach to an audience intelligent enough to be expected to follow a whole speech of cascading new ideas – crescendoing new ideas. After a while, common themes come out. More likely, they are explained in a significantly different way that helps the reader begin to fathom the multidimensionality of the problems that confront us as people living on this planet. Stafford’s version of Chardin’s idea is that complexification forces us to create metalanguage to describe these difficult problems as a step towards constructive institutional transformation. But Stafford leaves no doubt that he is talking about revolutionary change of our social structure. What he really cares about is doing judo on large institutions and their myths, manipulating their management concept at least 90% and asking everyone in the organization to help decide what is important enough to do from now on.
People working with VSM will be a lot more effective after they have worked their way through Platform because it will give them the opportunity to clarify their own informational and organizational biases, independent of the object of study.
Why Jon Li is the author of this Reader’s Guide
Jon Li is a political economist who has been writing about applied general systems theory since 1975, and the ideas in Platform for Change since 1976. Jon has worked in county mental health administration, for the California legislature as a consultant on health and welfare policy, and in video production. Jon is involved in setting up the Davis Community Network, a residential citywide computer network linked to the Internet. Jon recently convinced the Davis City Council to run a 3 year planning process to revise the City General Plan; with over 200 citizen volunteers on 14 committees; with issues ranging from housing, transportation, land use and open space (which are state mandated elements), to economics, health and social services, and computers (areas which are not state-required elements of the city’s General Plan). [This was written in 1993, when the city process was first initiated by the Davis City Council. Sue Greenwald and the "Growth Management/Neighborhood Preservation Committee" prolonged the process, and a defense-of-the-status-quo city general plan was not approved until 2002, in a painful process.] Jon’s theory goal of applying general systems theory is to convince the California legislature to set up similar citywide generalist committees in every city in California, and then hold a decentralized state constitutional convention. Jon is usually seen around Davis on his bicycle.
Platform for Change is Jon’s favorite book. Why is that? Because he can read so much between the lines that he can get lost in a paragraph and forget the topic. Jon Li has read Platform for Change nine times and finds it thought provoking each re-read. He knows the book well enough to keep the different speeches/platforms in perspective, along with the thesis, the metalanguage, and the explanation – all in one picture in his brain. If you look at the system dynamic in the prelims, Stafford’s book is a favorite system to analyze. Jon Li considers it the bible for bureaucrats.
Conclusion
In a discussion about social change, parameters include immediate and short-term goals and further goals, identifying means to achieve ends, and tactics to accomplish a strategy.
A higher level of analysis is to characterize evolutionary vs. revolutionary change. Two hundred years of U.S. legislative compromise suggests that often the final agreement creates new problems with the same old basic structure. At some point in time, old institutions become obsolete, impossible to maintain, and finally die. The concept paradigm shift has become popularized to signify a radical departure from previous structures and standards to a whole new way of doing things. The new world is unrecognizable from the eyes of the old world.
Platform for Change is an argument for applied general systems theory as a superior method of scientific problem solving. In addition to the traditional scientific tools of analysis and dissection, general systems theory offers a theoretical overview which helps an individual to integrate and synthesize fragments into a dynamic whole.
