Systems Archetype Basics: From Story to Structure

[Pages:196]Systems Archetype Basics

From Story to Structure

Daniel H. Kim AND Virginia Anderson

PEGASUS COMMUNICATIONS, INC.

Waltham, Massachusetts

? 1998 by Pegasus Communications, Inc. First printing May 1998 (3-ring binder) First printing February 2007 (softcover) Digital version December 2011 (PDF)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For additional copies, information about other titles published by Pegasus Communications, Inc., or general inquiries, contact:

PEGASUS COMMUNICATIONS, INC. 319 Littleton Road

Westford, MA 01866-4133 USA Phone 800-272-0945 / 781-398-9700

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ISBN 10 1-883823-04-8 ISBN 13 978-1-883823-04-7

Acquiring editor: Kellie Wardman O'Reilly Project editor: Lauren Johnson Production, art, and design: Boynton Hue Studio

Revised edition

PEGASUS COMMUNICATIONS, INC. is dedicated to providing resources that help people explore, understand, articulate, and address the challenges they face in managing the complexities of a changing world. Since 1989, Pegasus has worked to build a community of organizational learning practitioners through The Systems Thinker?, Leverage Points? for a New Workplace, New World newsletters, books, audios and videos, and its annual Systems Thinking in Action? Conference, webinars and other events.

CONTENTS

To the Reader: Why Use This Book? vii

Section 1 About the Systems Archetypes 1 Section 2 Fixes That Fail 7 Section 3 Shifting the Burden 25 Section 4 Limits to Success 43 Section 5 Drifting Goals 61 Section 6 Growth and Underinvestment 73 Section 7 Success to the Successful 87 Section 8 Escalation 99 Section 9 Tragedy of the Commons 111 Section 10 Using Archetypal Structures 127 Section 11 Additional Learning Activities 139

Appendix A Potential Responses to the Learning Activities 151 Appendix B A Palette of Systems Thinking Tools 177 Appendix C Systems Archetypes at a Glance 179 Appendix D Additional Resources 183 Appendix E A Glossary of Systems Thinking Terms 185

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TO THE READER

Why Use This Book?

Congratulations! By picking up this book, you've taken a major step in learning to use the systems archetypes. This powerful collection of systems thinking tools offers a highly effective way to grasp the complexities of organizational life and to address the stubborn, recurring problems that often confront us in the business world. Systems Archetype Basics: From Story to Structure is designed to help you discover the principles of the archetypes and begin actually using them. This workbook also builds on the first volume in The Pegasus Workbook Series: Systems Thinking Basics: From Concepts to Causal Loops, which focuses on the foundational principles of systems thinking and introduces behavior over time graphs and causal loop diagrams.

Why Systems Archetypes?

Why take time out of your busy schedule to read this workbook and complete the Learning Activities? Because the systems archetypes open a window onto important, recurring "stories" that happen in all walks of organizational life. The archetypes let us step back and see that many organizations--from small startups to huge, established companies-- experience similar systemic challenges. Systems archetypes help us deepen our understanding of these challenges and design effective action plans for addressing them.

How to Use This Book

There are many ways to present the systems archetypes. In this book, we start with the more familiar, accessible ones and work our way up to the more complex ones. For this reason, we recommend that you read the sections in numerical order, although you're certainly free to choose a different order depending on your interests and familiarity with the material. We also hope that you'll collaborate as often as possible with others on the readings and the Learning Activities--working together often yields far more insights than puzzling through the concepts and exercises on your own.

Systems Archetype Basics begins with an introduction to the archetypes in general, including their history. The next eight sections explore the archetypes one by one. Each of these sections follows a similar structure: They begin with a story that captures the "signature" dynamic of that particular archetype. They then explain the archetype's storyline in general terms and explore the typical behavior over time of that archetype. Next, the sections introduce the archetype's systemic structure, or template, and show how to map the opening stories onto the template. Each section closes with tips for diagramming the archetype, a deeper look at what we

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viii

TO THE READER

can learn from the archetype, and guidelines for managing the dynamics of the archetype.

Section 10 goes more deeply into the many rich ways you can use and apply the archetypes, including tips on detecting particular archetypes at work. Section 11 contains additional Learning Activities for those readers interested in more practice. Finally, the workbook closes with a set of appendices that offer potential responses to all the Learning Activities, a summary of the 10 tools of systems thinking, a list of the archetypes "at a glance," an additional resources list, and a glossary of systems thinking terms.

About the Learning Activities

Mastering the systems archetypes requires lots of practice with real-life examples. Accordingly, almost all the sections in this workbook contain a wealth of illustrations from the business world and a series of Learning Activities that challenge you to apply your new knowledge. The Learning Activities can be done as self-study or in groups, though, again, we encourage you to work in groups as much as possible.

These Learning Activities generally start with a story. Then, you'll be asked to briefly summarize the archetypal theme in the story, identify key variables, graph the behavior of some of those variables over time, and create a causal loop diagram that depicts the archetypal, systemic structure manifested by the story. Each set of Learning Activities also ends with a special activity that invites you to choose a story from your own life that you feel demonstrates the particular archetype in question. As you complete these activities, remember that there are many ways to diagram a system. Try to focus more on understanding the nature of the archetypes rather than diagramming them "correctly." The Learning Activities, and the potential responses to them, are meant to spark your imagination and serve as a starting point for you to think about the archetypes.

Acknowledgments

The work contained in this book is built on the prior work of many others. First, we acknowledge Peter Senge for introducing the concept of system archetypes to a broad management audience in The Fifth Discipline. In many ways, the tremendous success of his book is what made the writing of this workbook possible in the first place. We also acknowledge all those who were involved in the development of these principles and concepts before they ever appeared in The Fifth Discipline, including John Sterman, John Morecroft, Michael Goodman, Jenny Kemeny, and David Kreutzer. In addition, we thank Peter Stroh, Sherry Immediato, Kristin Cobble, Donella Meadows, and all the workshop participants and The Systems Thinker contributors who have given us valuable insights into understanding and applying the archetypes. Finally, we honor Jay Forrester's brilliance and insight in founding the field of system dynamics, which we believe has much to contribute to the practice of management.

TO THE READER

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In addition, we're deeply grateful to the following people for reviewing early drafts of the sections and offering helpful suggestions for strengthening the presentation: Chaddus Bruce; Teresa Hogan, The CocaCola Company; Richard Karash, Karash Associates, Inc.; Renee Moorefield, The Coca-Cola Company; David Packer, the Systems Thinking Collaborative; Kristina Wile, the Systems Thinking Collaborative.

At Pegasus, we thank Kellie Wardman O'Reilly for helping us to envision and initiate this project, and Lauren Johnson, whose tireless and persistent efforts as project manager and editor were instrumental in producing this book with high quality and in a timely manner. Thanks also to Cia Boynton, for creating the attractive design and transforming the manuscript into a book, and to Scott Young for coordinating the printing cycle.

We hope you'll find your adventure into using the systems archetypes stimulating and rewarding on both a personal and professional level. We also invite you to contact us with any comments, questions, or suggestions about using this book or about the archetypes in general.

Enjoy!

Daniel H. Kim (dhkim@alum.mit.edu)

Virginia ("Prinny") Anderson (VRAnderson@)

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