Systems Archetypes- Places to intervene
An advantage with using systems archetypes as a problem solving methodology is that places to intervene in the system can be thought through and played with.
Donella Meadows is one of the pre-eminent systems thinkers of our time and wrote how important it was when working with systems to listen to the wisdom of the system
Aid and encourage the forces and structures that help the system run itself. Notice how many of those forces and structures are at the bottom of the hierarchy. Don’t be an unthinking intervenor and destroy the system’s own self-maintenance capacities. Before you charge in to make things better, pay attention to the value of what’s already there.
The experience of others who have applied the archetypes can also be drawn on to highlight what interventions might work better than others. Meadows wrote a highly influential piece “Leverage points — places to intervene in a system”. In this article Meadows goes into depth on what possible interventions can be made to resolve a systems issue:
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
9. The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters — arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.
As highlighted in the above graphic the first six interventions are the most common however are not as effective as the last six, which are much harder to implement and design for.
Relating to the structure of the system Meadows writes how important a role diversity plays in making a system more effective and resilient,
Insistence on a single culture shuts down learning. Cuts back resilience. Any system, biological, economic, or social, that gets so encrusted that it cannot self-evolve, a system that systematically scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw material of innovation, is doomed over the long term on this highly variable planet.
The intervention point here is obvious, but unpopular. Encouraging variability and experimentation and diversity means “losing control.” Let a thousand flowers bloom and ANYTHING could happen! Who wants that? Let’s play it safe and push this leverage point in the wrong direction by wiping out biological, cultural, social, and market diversity! (Meadows)
And when it comes to changing paradigms?
You keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm. You keep speaking and acting, loudly and with assurance, from the new one. You insert people with the new paradigm in places of public visibility and power. You don’t waste time with reactionaries; rather, you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.(Meadows)
Meadows discusses how locating responsibility in a system is frequently effective as it acts from within:
… sometimes blaming or trying to control the outside influence blinds one to the easier task of increasing responsibility within the system.
“Intrinsic responsibility” means that the system is designed to send feed- back about the consequences of decision making directly and quickly and compellingly to the decision makers. Because the pilot of a plane rides in the front of the plane, that pilot is intrinsically responsible. He or she will experience directly the consequences of his or her decisions.
Designing a system for intrinsic responsibility could mean, for example, requiring all towns or companies that emit wastewater into a stream to place their intake pipes downstream from their outflow pipe.
Whilst looking for places to intervene Meadows cautions that you cannot lose sight of your intellectual humility
The future can’t be predicted, but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can’t be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can’t surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can’t impose our will upon a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.
“We can’t control systems or figure them out. But we can dance with them!”
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