Systems Approach (Organism Metaphor)

- views organisations as complex organisms that must interact with the environment to
survive
- not self-contained & self-sufficient

- systems thinking is a discipline for seeing whole. it is a framework for seeing

interrelationships rather than things, for seeing “patterns of change” rather than static “snapshots”.
—Peter Senge

sup
. . . .

. . . . a dot..a square
organism external

. . . .

sub
System Components
What it is made of?
- hierarchical ordering
- no equality in the positions, there’s always a vertical & horizontal slice
- interdependence
- there’s no self-sufficient, any leader should actually aim for partnerships,
broaden the link/alliance
- permeability
- any organization should always have a door/ window open
- go around/interact with other systems

System Processes

How does it work?

- input-throughput-output
- go out and seek outputs
- exchange
- you need to be really interdependent/permeable/interrelated
- feedback
- in any system there’s always feedback coz there’s no systems that is
perfect.,there’s a chaos/problem
- we all need people who will give us feedback. that’s how we improve. - Bill
Gates, Microsoft.

System Properties

- Holism
- it is all better if it is a work of a whole rather than a work of one
- every part of the system contribute somehow
 - Equifinality
- there’s always a goals/objectives and there’s always diff. ways on how to
achieved those goals but even though there’s a difference there’s always a
way to achieve a certain goal through interdependency
- Negative entropy
- if there’s a dysfunction, there’s should be imbalance
- creating order, system is supposed to be exhibit this entropy to achieve the
balance and stable.
- Requisite variety
- the external environment is a system itself, a bigger one
- how complex and dynamic your environment is, that is how dynamic and
complex you are to be expected
- same level of dynamism and complexity
- you should cope up and adapt in what is happening outside/ in your
environment

Systems Theory
- Cybernetics
- proponent: Norbert Wiener
- system goal is achieved or maintained through various mechanisms
and corrective feedback
- the study of information processing, feedback, and control and
communication systems, where information is the “reduction of
uncertainty; the less predictable the message is, the more information
it carries” as described in the equation
- Theory of Organising
- proponent: Karl Wrick’s
- equivocal situation = there’s ambiguity, there could be
misunderstanding!
- how people make sense of confusing verbal inputs
- resolving ambiguity through enactment (socially constructed
meanings)
- New Science Systems
- not always logical and predictable
- complexity - happens at the border between right order and randomness
- open up ideas about how the complex and chaotic nature or organisations
could lead to a new and innovative organisational form and process.