{"id":776,"date":"2011-04-27T04:23:12","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T04:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=776"},"modified":"2011-04-27T04:23:12","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T04:23:12","slug":"system-sickness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=776","title":{"rendered":"Systemic Sickness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sickness, illness, ill health, unhealthy, disease, disorder, distress<\/em>\u00a0are all words that we use\u00a0when how we feel falls\u00a0short of\u00a0how we expect to feel. The words impliy\u00a0an illness\u00a0continuum and each of us\u00a0appeara to use different thresholds as\u00a0action alerts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The first is crossed when we become aware that all is not right and our\u00a0response and to\u00a0enter a self-diagnosis and self-treatment mindset. This threshold is context-dependent; we use external references to detect when we have strayed too far from the norm – we compare ourselves with others. This\u00a0early warning system works most of the time – after all\u00a0chemists make their main business from\u00a0over the counter (OTC) remedies!<\/p>\n

If the first stage does not work we cross the\u00a0second\u00a0threshold\u00a0when we\u00a0accept that we need\u00a0expert assistance and\u00a0we switch into a different mode of thinking – the “sick role”.\u00a0\u00a0Crossing the second threshold\u00a0is a big psychological step that\u00a0implies a\u00a0perceived loss of control and power\u00a0– and explains\u00a0why many people put off seeking help.\u00a0They enter a phase of\u00a0denial, self-deception and self-justification which can be very resistant to change.<\/p>\n

The same is true of\u00a0organisations – when they become\u00a0aware that they are performing below expectation then a “self-diagnosis” and “self-treatment”\u00a0is instigated,\u00a0except that it is called something different such as an “investigation” or “root cause analysis” and is followed by a “recommendations” and an “action plan”.\u00a0 The requirements\u00a0for this to happen are an ability to become aware of a problem and a capability to understand\u00a0and address the root cause both effectively and efficiently.\u00a0 This is called\u00a0dynamic\u00a0stability or “homeostasis” and is a feature of many systems.\u00a0 The image of a centrifugal governor is a good example – it was one of the critical innovations that allowed\u00a0the power of steam to be harnessed safely a was a foundation stone of the industrial revolution. The\u00a0design is called a negative feedback\u00a0stabiliser and it has a drawback –\u00a0there may be little or no external sign of the effort required\u00a0to maintain the stability.<\/p>\n

Problems arise when parts of this expectation-awareness-feedback-adjustment process\u00a0are missing, do not work, or become disconnected.\u00a0If there is an unclear expectation then it is impossible to know when and how to react. Not being clear what “healthy” means leads to confusion.\u00a0It is too easy to create a distorted sense of normality by\u00a0choosing a context where everyone is the same as you – “birds of a feather flock together”.<\/p>\n

Another danger is to over-simplify the measure of health and\u00a0to focus\u00a0on one\u00a0objective dimension – money – with the assumption that if the money is OK\u00a0then the\u00a0system must be OK.\u00a0 This is an error of logic because although a healthy system implies healthy finances,\u00a0the reverse is not the case – a business can be both making money and heading for disaster.<\/p>\n

Failure can also happen if\u00a0the most useful\u00a0health metrics are not measured, are measured badly, or are not communicated in a meaningful way.\u00a0 Very often metrics are not\u00a0interpreted in context, not tracked over time, and not\u00a0compared with the agreed\u00a0expectation of health.\u00a0 These multiple errors of omission lead to conterproductive behaviour such as the use of delusional ratios and arbitrary targets (DRATs), short-termism\u00a0and “chasing the numbers” – all of which can further erode the underlying health of the system – like termites silently eating the foundations of your house. By the time you notice it is too late – the foundations have crumbled\u00a0into\u00a0dust!<\/p>\n

To achieve and maintain systemic health it is necessary to include\u00a0the homeostatic mechanisms at the design stage. Trying to\u00a0add or impose the feedback functions afterwards is\u00a0less effective and less efficient.\u00a0 A\u00a0healthy system is desoigned with\u00a0sensitive feedback loops that\u00a0indicate the\u00a0effort required to maintain dynamic stablity – and\u00a0if that effort is increasing then that alone is cause for further investigation – often long before the output goes out of specification.\u00a0 Healthy systems are economic and are designed to require a minimum of effort to maintain stability\u00a0and sustain performance –\u00a0good design feels effortless compared with poor design. A\u00a0system that only detects and reacts to deviations in\u00a0outputs\u00a0is an inferior\u00a0design – it is like driving by looking in the rear-view mirror!<\/p>\n

Healthy systems\u00a0were designed to be healthy\u00a0from the start or have evolved\u00a0from unhealthy ones – the books by Jim Collins describes this: “Built to Last<\/em>” describes organisations that have endured because they were destined to be great from the start. “Good to Great<\/em>”\u00a0 describes organisations that have evolved from unremarkable\u00a0performers into great performers. There is a common theme to great companies irrespective of their genesis –\u00a0data, information, knowledge, understanding and most important of all a wise\u00a0leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sickness, illness, ill health, unhealthy, disease, disorder, distress\u00a0are all words that we use\u00a0when how we feel falls\u00a0short of\u00a0how we expect to feel. The words impliy\u00a0an illness\u00a0continuum and each of us\u00a0appeara to use different thresholds as\u00a0action alerts. \u00a0The first is crossed when we become aware that all is not right and our\u00a0response and to\u00a0enter a self-diagnosis … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Systemic Sickness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,43,47],"tags":[56,91,93,100,134,252,253,254,255,270,295],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","category-why","category-transactional-analysis","tag-awareness","tag-design","tag-diagnosis","tag-dynamic-stability","tag-homeostasis","tag-self-deception","tag-self-justification","tag-sick-role","tag-sickness","tag-system-behaviour","tag-treatment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}