Mechanistic Thinking, Silos, and the New World of Complexity
The collaborative work that the Digital Age requires cannot exist and cannot be developed within conventional frameworks such as existing siloed structures. If silos keep organizations stuck, why do they exist at all? To understand this, we have to look at where mechanistic thinking comes from in the first place.
Sir Isaac Newton is arguably one of the greatest minds in human history. He developed the whole conceptual apparatus for the scientific revolution to happen; still today, from designing tables and chairs to sending a human being into space (and getting him/her back again), a large part of our existence obeys and can be understood in the light of the laws of nature he uncovered. Basically, anything that is not too small or not too fast is subject to Newton’s laws.
The method of investigation he developed, the Scientific Method, has allowed fundamental discoveries in every aspect of the physical world: by breaking things down and understanding the pieces, we gain insight. We gain knowledge that dispels superstition, the offspring of ignorance. No amount of words would suffice to praise his genius and his contribution to mankind.
The influence of Newtonian thinking has been immense and, indeed, it has been the engine for the myriads of life-altering innovations that the industrial revolution spurred. In order to succeed, this “revolution” needed an infrastructure, a way of allowing people to make their efforts converge toward a common goal, what we call today “an organization.”
Unsurprisingly (and unwittingly), organizations in their development followed the Newtonian approach: they broke down the whole into pieces to allow a better understanding of its functioning and, as we are talking industry and making money here, the way to control them. The Functional organization was born, as well as the Hierarchy that goes with it, represented in Figure 2.1.
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Figure 2.1 A hierarchy
What Is a Hierarchy?
Let’s make a small digression.
Hierarchy is not a “bad thing”; it is an inherent part of any sustainable evolution and, neurologically, accounts for a robust set of synapses, the ones formed over several millennia by a large part of the human species. In fact, Hierarchy is what Jethro proposed to Moses in order to devise a mechanism to cope with the growing needs of legality that the unruly Israelites were creating.
…and you shall appoint over them [Israel] leaders over thousands, leaders over hundreds, leaders over fifties, and leaders over tens.
And they shall judge the people at all times, and it shall be that any major matter they shall bring to you, and they themselves shall judge every minor matter, thereby making it easier for you, and they shall bear [the burden] with you.
—Exodus, 18:21
Unfortunately, the biblical meaning of Hierarchy—levels of competencies—very rapidly regressed (as opposed to evolved) in organizations into one of separation, epitomized by non-communicating silos and fueled by unintelligent, self-referential technology and ways of accounting for performance. Still today, human setups such as Law Firms use horribly anachronistic metrics like “revenue per square foot” as a result of this lack of understanding (Figure 2.2).
Figure 2.2 Hierarchies lead to silos
Hierarchies are, instead, a way of arranging competencies for a common goal; this has become increasingly more obvious with the exponential increase in interactions that has characterized the last 20 years. Such a level of interactions has a name—Complexity—and has made a whole new set of properties “emerge.”
This is where the Newtonian edifice shows some cracks; for Newton, the world was clockwork-like, a perfect mechanism of interacting, unchanging parts where everything was completely predictable in its evolution.
What we have come to understand scientifically in the last century is now very clearly manifesting itself through digital technology: we need radically different ways to allow people to collaborate within organizations and among them. We need a new organizational paradigm that can help us deal with the emergent properties that are the result of much more tightly knit interactions. We need to address what we have come to call the Dilemma of Complexity.
Understanding Complexity
We can address the Dilemma of Complexity by using a systemic Thinking Process from the Theory of Constraints.
The Conflict Cloud Thinking Process teaches us that a highly effective way to frame a complex situation is to think of it in terms of conflicting positions, legitimate needs that provoke those conflicting positions, and a common goal. Once we have framed a situation in this way, we can then surface all the assumptions (mental models) that keep us stuck in any given conflict or situation of blockage. When we have identified all these elements, we have a way to allow a win–win solution to emerge. This approach can be used at a variety of levels, from solving day-to-day problems to analyzing and solving highly complex issues.
Let’s take managing organizations and complexity as an example. Here, we are going to look at the conflict of complexity, in other words, two possible and conflicting approaches to dealing with complexity.
The first position in the conflict is: Manage complexity by breaking it up into its parts, or structures. Why would we want to do that? What is the need we try to protect by adopting this position? We can verbalize that need as understand the components. The opposite, conflicting position is: Manage complexity by focusing on the interactions and dynamics, or patterns. Again, why would we want to do that? What is the need we try to protect by adopting this position? We can verbalize that need as understand the interdependencies. The common goal to both needs, the necessary conditions, is to manage complexity.
Now that we have pinned down the conflicting positions, we can start to surface all the assumptions that keep us stuck wondering which of these two positions is the best way ahead.
If the goal is to manage complexity and we assume that an element of complexity is its components, then that leads us to want to break the complexity into its parts to understand them better. On the other hand, if the goal is to manage complexity and we assume that complexity is generated by interdependencies, then we want to focus on the interactions and dynamics, or patterns.
How do we move forward out of this conflict? How can we find a solution that allows us to achieve the common goal, to manage complexity, and at the same time respect the legitimate needs to understand the components as well as the interdependencies? How can we do that without swinging like a pendulum between two opposite and conflicting positions?
This is where we see the power of the Conflict Cloud. We take the two conflicting positions and we surface the assumptions that keep us stuck. Why do we believe that we must either break the complexity into its parts or focus on the interactions and dynamics? It’s because we make a series of assumptions, and if we can invalidate those assumptions (essentially mental models that do not have any value of truth), then we can find a way ahead.
We can verbalize the assumptions between the conflicting positions of “parts” versus “interactions” here as follows: (1) the whole is equal to the sum of its parts; (2) no new properties emerge from interactions among the parts; (3) interactions among the parts are always and only deterministic and linear (mechanistic view).
Now that we have verbalized those assumptions and they are “out in the open,” we have cleared a path to find a solution that will allow us to lead and manage organizations in a way that is appropriate, adequate, and effective for today’s complex reality. Figure 2.3 shows how we organize graphically a conflict cloud.
Figure 2.3 The complexity conflict
In order to “evaporate” this dilemma and forge ahead in redesigning more meaningful and effective organizations, we need to find a systemic solution that invalidates its underlying assumptions while respecting the needs that have originated the dilemma. In the Theory of Constraints, we call such a systemic solution an “injection.” (The technical definition of an “injection” in TOC is a statement that invalidates the assumptions between the conflicting positions of the cloud while respecting both needs.)
To generate such an injection, some elements of Knowledge are needed and they come from the monumental body of work developed, separately, by Dr. W. Edwards Deming (1900—1993) and Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt (1947—2011). In the last 20 years, my effort has been to integrate and evolve the work of Deming and Goldratt to make it suitable for a complete overhaul of the prevailing, silo-based organizational design and cost-driven management style. I published the various stages of development and implementations of this integration of Deming and Goldratt first with Oded Cohen in the book Deming and Goldratt: The Decalogue (1999) and later in Sechel: Logic, Language and Tools to Manage Any Organization as a Network (2011), and more recently with Giovanni Siepe and Angela Montgomery in a chapter for Springer called “Managing Complexity in Organizations Through a Systemic Network of Projects” (2015) and our book Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization (2016). I am, indeed, forever indebted to the many companies and to their leaders and teams that over the last two decades adopted these principles in their organizations.
In the aforesaid publications, you can find a comprehensive account of this scientific, professional, and ultimately, cognitive journey. What follows in the ensuing chapters is a short summary for the purposes of this book.
Summary of Chapter 2
- Everything that is not too small or too fast is subject to Newton’s laws.
- Newton envisaged a universe that was mechanical and where components were separate.
- This mechanical worldview underpins organizations envisaged as vertical hierarchies.
- Silos are the result of a lack of understanding of how to govern interactions where complexity exists.
- Complexity is characterized by a large number of interdependencies that cannot be cut into separate components.
- Complexity calls for a new understanding of how to govern interactions and a new organizational design that can shift away from a silo-based model.
- The Knowledge provided by Dr. W. Edwards Deming (Theory of Profound Knowledge) and Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt (Theory of Constraints) provides the basis for a new understanding of how to design and manage organizations for complexity.