Playing To Win
The Best Place to Start
It’s Where You Are
I experienced a syzygy last week. First a guy in a podcast said: “The purpose of a system is what it does.” Then only a day later, Bev Priestman, the head coach of the Canadian women’s Olympic soccer team, who was suspended because the team was caught using a drone to film competitors’ practices, apologized saying “this behavior does not represent the values that our team stands for.” I decided to write about it in this week’s Playing to Win/Practitioner Insights piece called The Best Place to Start: It’s Where You Are. All previous PTW/PI can be found here.
The Podcast Guy
After asserting that “the purpose of a system is what it does,” the podcast guy quickly disavowed being the originator of the quote (excellent — not a faux intellectual) and said, “it has been around for a while.” Intrigued, I thought I would go check on its origins. Turns out, it is a quote from Stafford Beer (1926–2002) in a speech he gave at University of Valladolid, Spain on October 26, 2001, and was published in 2002. Beer is considered the father of Management Cybernetics, the application of the concepts of cybernetics to the practice of management. Cybernetics is (my interpretation of all the definitions) an interdisciplinary study of social and biological systems that feature important feedback loops by which outputs become inputs of the system. Beer is seen as the first person to apply cybernetics explicitly to the world of management.
It turns out that one of Beer’s most famous quotes is the one cited by the podcast guy with the full quote being: “The purpose of a system is what it does. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do.” Management cybernetics folks use the acronym POSIWID for the first sentence.
Drone Cheating Scandal
When the Canadian soccer drone scandal hit and Priestman resigned, while claiming, “this behavior does not represent the values that our team stands for,” I couldn’t help but think POSIWID. No, the behavior perfectly represented the values of the Canadian women’s soccer organization. If the values of the organization were, say, honesty and good sportsmanship, it wouldn’t have a system designed to make drone spying on opponents’ practices a logical and compelling thing to do — apparently over and over.
Resonance with the Work of Chris Argyris
I resonated with the thoughts of Beer on this front, even though I was only vaguely aware of his work before this week, and it is because POSIWID is consistent with something I learned from my most beloved academic mentor, the late Chris Argyris (1923–2013), with whom I worked intensively from 1987–1998. It turns out from my digging that he was influenced by a thinker who also influenced Beer. So, I guess it is no surprise!
The thinker in question is W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) who is considered one of the pioneers of cybernetics. One of the key things Ashby is known for is the concept of single loop vs. double loop learning. Both Ashby and Argyris use the thermostat as an example of a single loop system. If it is set at 70° and the temperature goes down to 68°, the thermostat turns on the heat to get it back to 70°. If it gets up to 72°, it turns on the cooling to get it back to 70°. The thermostat never asks whether 70° is the optimal temperature. If it did, it would be attempting to shape the policies that control the system — double-loop learning — instead of simply correcting errors in the functioning of the existing system — single-loop learning. Both argue that double loop thinking is a more powerful mechanism for learning and advancement. Beer went on to apply this concept to management in general. Argyris went on to apply the concept to organizational learning.
But back to POSIWID, Argyris (and his long-time thinking partner Don Schön (1930–1997)) identified that there is often a schism between our espoused theory (e.g. from above — “this behavior does not represent the values that our team stands for”) and our theory-in-use (e.g. even though it is illegal, immoral, and unsportsmanlike, we will use drones illicitly if it helps us win). And both Argyris and Beer (each in his own way with his own terminology) predict that when evidence of the schism rears its head, it will be blamed on an error (i.e., it was a terrible mistake that someone used a drone to film competitor practices), not on the successful functioning of the system (i.e. the system dictated that we win at all costs).
Influence on My Strategy Work
Argyris’ theories had a profound impact on my work on strategy — which also turn out to be resonant with Beer. Because of my work with Argyris, I focus much more on what is happening, not on pronouncements about what should be happening. That is why I assert — and have written in this series — strategy is what you do not what you say. By that standard, the vast majority of strategic plans have nothing to do with the strategy of the company in question. The strategic plan is the espoused theory, not the theory-in-use of the company. For example, I can’t tell you how many companies I have witnessed claiming in their strategic plan that they are ‘the innovation leader’ in their industry but spend little time, money or effort on innovation. Or they claim to be ‘the cost leader’ in an industry full of players with similar or lower costs.
And the system involved, as Beer would argue, produces exactly what it was designed to produce. Management teams know that they must take a strategic plan to their board for approval, so they create one that will be acceptable to the board. That is, it is long enough, has a sufficient number of impressive charts, and contains a SWOT analysis. Once it is duly approved, the strategic plan gets put on the shelf and ignored by the management team that thought it was a waste of effort in the first place. When the board notices that performance is not tracking that described in the strategic plan, the board thinks (per Beer’s prediction) that result is an error in the system, when, in fact, POSIWID.
That is also why I never start with a company’s existing strategic plan and work on how to improve it. That would be like being in Phoenix and wanting to drive to Chicago but believing you are actually starting in Atlanta. That is going to be a long, frustrating and convoluted journey! Instead, I start with the gaps between the current real outcomes that a company is producing and its desired outcomes. Metaphorically, they need to know they are in Phoenix to plot a course to Chicago. Their strategic plan may imply they are in Atlanta, but that is just a useless distraction.
It is also why my approach to strategy contains many feedback loops. I have occasionally been told that I have a cybernetic approach to strategy by people schooled in cybernetics. And I think that is a valid observation in that in my core model of strategy — the Strategy Choice Cascade — has feedback loops between each of the five boxes. Outputs most certainly become inputs in strategy. Shift your first take on How-to-Win if your capabilities can’t pass the Can’t/Won’t test. Ask What Would Have to be True (WWHTBT) for your tentative strategy choice to be a good idea — and revisit it if you can’t convince yourself that the things about customers, competitors, etc. are or can be made true.
In my Strategic Choice Structuring Process, I argue for defining the problem to solve at the outset but revisiting it if you learn something while working on the problem that changes your view of the true problem. I recommend adding new possibilities at any point in the process if insights along the way suggest the. It is all guided by flexible purposing in the spirit of John Dewey and Eliot Eisner.
Practitioner Insights
I have always said that before I try to change anything, I need to understand why things are the way they are and not some other way. First, I recommend that stance to you and, effectively, so do both Stafford Beer and Chris Argyris. Beer says that why things are the way they are is the natural result of the system being deployed — so you better understand that system! Argyris predicts that you will be told what is supposed to be happening, but don’t be fooled by that, it is an espoused theory not the underlying theory-in-use. This is why I roll my eyeballs when IT folks (as they always do) say ‘this shouldn’t be happening.’ No, your piece of technology produced the outcome it was designed to do — and that will continue. Windows was designed to create frequent freezes. That is not an occurrence that ‘shouldn’t be happening’ — it is POSIWID in action.
Second, when an outcome happens that is distinctly worse than you expected, the best assumption to make is that it will happen again. You may be fortunate and turn out, in retrospect, to have been the victim of a random negative fluctuation. But by far the safest assumption to make is that unless you make a fundamental change to the system, the bad thing will happen again. Given the ‘we didn’t do anything wrong, it was someone else’s fault’ stance of the Secret Service, Americans would be wise to assume that another assassin will get in another potshot at a US Presidential candidate before November 5. Yeesh!
Third, when a system you designed doesn’t work the way you intended, don’t assume that the causal drivers on which you planned didn’t work the way you thought. Think first about effects that you didn’t imagine at all. This is consistent with the advice of MIT systems dynamics professor John Sterman in response to people attempting to let themselves off the hook by arguing that the problematic aspect of the system they designed was an unanticipated ‘side effect,’ not a more important ‘main effect.’ He asserted (somewhat cheekily), “there are no side-effects — just effects.”
Fourth, don’t be Bev Priestman. Don’t attempt to divorce yourself from the outputs of the system you designed. Own them, apologize — and people will be more likely to forgive you because everyone makes mistakes.
