Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the Viable System Model

by Raul Espejo, Alfonso Reyes

Organizational Systems clarifies the application of cybernetic ideas, particularly those of Beer's Viable System Model, to organizational diagnosis and design. Readers learn to appreciate the relevance of seeing the systemic coherence of the world. The book argues that many of the problems we experience today are routed in our practice of fragmenting that needs to be connected as a whole. It offers a method to study and design organizations and a methodology to deal with implementation problems. It is the outcome of many years of working experience with government offices as well as with all kinds of public and private enterprises. At a more detailed level this book offers an in depth discussion of variety engineering that is not available either in the primary or secondary literature.

276 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2011

Reviews

[Peter House · Rating 5 out of 5]

Organizational Systems: Managing Complexity with the Viable System Model is a deeply technical book that brings to bear enormous academic and practical knowledge in a sweeping inspection of organizational complexity. Starting with discussions regarding naming, systems, and Stafford Beer's Viable System Model, the book moves into practical discussions for modeling and approaching organizational design. There is discussion on finding and dealing with redundancy (not all redundancy is wasteful) and a survey of patterns of organizational dysfunction.

The book is not for the faint of heart and assumes some level of introduction to the Viable System Model. It would be extremely difficult to read this book without an introduction to the VSM. It would be like trying to run while putting one's pants on. If one is acquainted, the book is a powerful exploration of organizational design.

I'd like to share one powerful passage from the book that demonstrates the insight it possesses. In chapter 2, the authors recall the research of American mathematician Claude Shannon and his three problems of communication. After successfully proving that as long as one understood the noise in a system, one could always craft a signal that would suffer interference from the noise, Claude stated that he had only solved the first two problems of communication, reliable transmission. The second two, ensuring understanding and achieving commitment to action remained unsolved. Over time, communication has been more understood as successful transmission as opposed to what it meant to Shannon and others, achieving a commitment to action. From the book, "On the other hand, if we truly understand communication as coordination of actions, then in an analogous situation as before, my responsibility for effective communication goes beyond making sure that the message has been received. Only when I manage to produce a coordinated action can I claim that the communication has been effective. It is too easy to blame the others for our lack of competence in getting commitments from others."

I highly recommend this book to those that may find its content interesting.

[Gabriel Martínez]

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