That question nagged at me as I read the explanations by John Seddon and Simon Caulkin of how the British Governments' imposition of a hugely-expensive, computerised, performance-reducing activity control-system had prevented Haringey's social workers from saving Baby P from his piteous fate.
Think about it. Even the most successful and respected of systems thinkers are little more than frustrated spectators as politicians, economists, corporate executives, civil servants pile one major system failure on another. Nobody takes much notice of us when we offer a our perspectives on the case of Baby P, the global financial melt-down, the futility of carbon-reduction targets in the face of global warming, and the multitude of other fundamental errors that have led, or will lead, to actual and potential disasters. So much of what we see around us cries out for the systems approaches that we understand so well. Yet, after decades of effort, as systems thinkers, we still have little or no influence on the obsolete, dysfunctional, and potentially lethal policy-forming processes that will be as disastrous for the future of our children and grandchildren as they were for poor little Baby P.
Do we want Presidents, Prime Ministers, Ministers, secretary-generals, global executives, to seek our advice and put the necessary resources into implementing systems approaches to tackling the lethally complex issues our societies face in the coming decades? For a few years, Stafford Beer enjoyed that kind of relationship with President Salvador Allende of Chile and achieved remarkable results. Given similar opportunities, I believe that we could transform the human family's chances of coming through the 21st Century in good shape.
Why were Allende and his young Ministers able to hear and act upon Stafford Beer's ideas for applying the Viable System Model to managing Chile's chaotic economy? Why did those twenty Japanese executives hear and act upon W. Edwards Deming's revolutionary ideas in 1950?
Are those the only two occasions on which systems thinkers have been given a really big chance to show what systems thinking can do? And if so, why?
I think we know the answer. Many of us have written books that have substantial sections on how the Command and Control Leadership model is the fundamental obstacle to the adopting and sustaining a systems approach in any sphere. John Seddon even wrote a book entitled “Freedom from Command and Control”.
It had never occurred to me until the Baby P case, but, now I began to think that if we want to do the work that has to be done, perhaps we systems thinkers first have to mount a sustained attack on the origins and the most pernicious manifestations of the Command and Control Leadership model.
The more I thought about it, the more attractive and do-able the strategy seemed to be. As a starter I have registered a domain name www.kickingcommandandcontrol.com as the home of the Kicking Command and Control Internet Forum.
“Kicking” here is a little pun. Firstly, it is the idea of a sustained attack. Second, it has the sense of kicking an addiction.
I am working on a Draft Template for the Forum and will circulate it for comment in a week or so.
Meantime, to get an idea of where I think such a Forum might take us, please look at how the remnants of the Neo-Liberals tackled a similar dilemma at the end of World War 2. And, remember, as Aristophanes said, “Wise men learn from their enemies”.
