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“Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity”- the whole book online and free!!! [Recommended Innovation Articles (and Commentary) #27]
by : Ben ZweibelsonOriginal post can be found here: https://benzweibelson.medium.com/systems-thinking-managing-chaos-and-complexity-the-whole-book-online-and-free-recommended-59bc53b6b823
Today’s recommended article is actually an entire book (surprise!!!!), but it is available online and free to download, or you can buy a printed version in book form over at Amazon. I know some of you are fine with killing a ream of paper either way, but the entire book PDF is linked below (no paywall), making the tablet or Kindle option available as well. I cannot stress how great a book this is for systems thinking and complexity science. I use Gharajedaghi extensively in my own research, including parts of my instruction of my upcoming book on design and Joint planning that the Air University Press will publish (for free online) this summer. The HTML to the file is right here and is the entire book:
Now, this book is amazing, and I highly recommend it to people trying to break out of linear, mechanistic planning or strategic processes that project a Newtonian mindset upon war, conflict, and societies. Instead of adhering to military doctrine written not by complexity theorists but those imitating or assimilating buzz terms into their established, legacy frames, you can read it right from one of the top complexity scientists of the 20th century, mentored by Russell Ackoff (akin to the Carl von Clausewitz of complexity science IMO for my military readers). Members of the “Dead Carl Club” usually default to the argument of “okay- you don’t like the military doctrine… but you need to study the original works directly!” I repeat that exact argument here. Ignore our terrible military doctrine (or use it for a doorstop, or burn it to start a nice fire pit), and go to the source material. You will quickly realize the complexity terms sandwiched into modern military doctrine (I am looking at you, FM 3–0, 5–0, especially the latest versions) are not even remotely related to actual complexity science. They are phantasms, ripped from one discipline and hammered into an older and far more rigid (Newtonian, engineering, physics, biology inspired) war frame. Okay- back to G-man:
A few passages using Gharajedaghi to show what I mean. I am pasting below from my upcoming AUP book on design that comes out very soon and is called “Beyond the Pale”. It will also be free online, and if you follow me here and on Twitter or LinkedIn, you will be the first to know when that book drops. Here is a passage from my introduction:
“Designer Jamshid Gharajedaghi articulates perhaps the most elegant rebuke of the first institutional trope for military (as well as many communities outside of defense) fixation on ‘keeping everything simple’ so that ‘fancy’ concepts and other highbrow theory might be avoided. To paraphrase his response to this, common understanding across the entire organization is not the beginning of a developmental or transformative process- it is the last step. If every time an organization sought to critically self-reflect, implement transformative concepts and experiment with difficult theory and new learning by first achieving common understanding across the largest population of that institution or field, nothing ‘fancy’ will be allowed in the building. Gharajedaghi remarks: “I assure you that we will fast fall to the lowest level of banality. Life would proceed with setting and seeking attainable goals that would rarely escape the limits of the familiar.” This is why military doctrine must be the last stop on the long journey of organizational transformation for military affairs, and never the first (despite many examples that sadly counter this tenet). KISS provides institutional relevance tomorrow, always at the expense of warfighter innovation or improvisation.” (p.63 in Gharajedaghi book).
Another quote from my upcoming book where I cite Gharajedaghi extensively:
“Designers create that which is new, different, and necessary in light of how tomorrow’s war will be. not merely the verification of how some legacy things functioned well in the last war. Gharajedaghi, drawing from earlier design pioneers such as Ackoff, Rittel and Simon offers this excellent design summary: “Image building and abstraction are among the most significant characteristics of human beings, allowing them not only to form and interpret images of real things, but also to use these images to create images of things that may not exist. These images are then synthesized into a unified, meaningful mental model and eventually into a worldview. Man feels hunger, observes the fleeing prey, and realizes his inability to capture it. After discovering other related objective realities (wood, stones, etc.), he thinks about and eventually creates a subjective image of a tool, one yet to be, that would help him secure food. Transformation of this subjective image into an objective reality results in the bow and arrow, which in turn will be a reproducer of yet another image, and so on. This dialectic interaction between objective and subjective realities lies at the core of a process called design thinking, which is responsible for the dynamic development of human societies.” (Gharajedaghi, Systems Thinking: Managing Chaos and Complexity, A Platform for Designing Business Architecture, 60)
And another one:
“Modern militaries fixate on scientific processes, technological developments, and a rationalization of warfare so that modern military applications gain a certain objectivity, stability and order to them. This is ‘technical rationalism’ and is given a thorough treatment within this monograph through systemic design. Gharajedaghi offers: “During the past century, we increasingly specialized in one language, the language of analytical science. As we emphasized one language to the exclusion of all others, we became unidimensional- and boringly predictable. When one game states the rules for all games, it does not matter how many new games you create, they are all the same kind.” Analytical rationalization of all aspects of warfare is endemic across the modern military war paradigm.” (Gharajedaghi, 25–26)
His work in this freely available book is simply astounding, and should be considered in any modern military education for considering complexity and systems thinking in war, conflict, politics, and societal competition and tension:
“ However, modern military decision-making directs their universal and timeless relevance to any and all military challenges, which demonstrates the problematic single and double-loop cycle of systematic logic encoded in a single and dominant war paradigm. “What has become the dominant language of our time produces only a partial understanding of our reality,” as systems theorist Gharajedaghi offers, and it “relates only to parts of our being, not the whole of it.” We become trapped both conceptually and organizationally in how we think and act in war.” (Gharajedaghi, 26)
And another:
“Gharajedaghi, drawing from Ackoff and systems theory uses ‘holistic thinking’ as one of several similar terms to articulate this reflective practice. “Learning to learn is about the ability to learn, unlearn, and re-learn, both within and beyond conventional frameworks. unlearning is much more difficult than learning.” (p. 103)
Another great passage from my upcoming AUP book where I quote and address his ideas:
“ Both scientific as well as social paradigms can shift, although a distinction here places scientific development and a complete replacement of the legacy or irrelevant paradigm with the new scientific one, while social paradigm shifting occurs in a wider range along with complex social, cultural, and informational reasons. Both involve change, as well as the increasing systemic stress that humans will experience as their selective frame for conceptualizing reality grows increasingly fragile or dysfunctional over time. Whether a society is increasingly unable to use mathematical formulas to explain astronomic and planetary movements, or a military is realizing that their framework for understanding and applying organized violence to accomplish political desires is no longer functioning, these stressors build up until new theories and debate posit some paradigmatic alternative. Gharajedaghi provides a useful summary of paradigm shifting that can be applied to either construct: “A shift of paradigm can happen purposefully by an active process of learning and unlearning. It is more common that it is a reaction to frustration produced by a march of events that nullify conventional wisdom. Faced with a series of contradictions that can no longer be ignored or denied and/or an increasing number of dilemmas for which prevailing mental models can no longer provide convincing explanations, most people accept that the prevailing paradigm has ceased to be valid and that it has exhausted its potential capacity.” (p. 8)
As you can see, this book is full of fantastic systems thinking and complexity science content that can directly apply to how our militaries think (or do not think) about complex warfare. I know I just shared with you all an entire book, but this is one of those rare gems that are online (and free) that are totally worth downloading and reading every page of.