Hi Joe, you write that, "The good news is that there exist non-reductionistic approached to design, engineering, as well as governance and policy. But those approaches will be shied away from until we are truly convinced of the futility of our urge to directly control."
Do you have any information on resources that specifically talk about these approaches? I am coming from a business background (M.B.A.), and I find that all of the resources you find in that domain would fit what I think you would call "Direct Control."
As in, the best way to manage employees in this given scenario is an even more specific set of guidelines/rulebooks that they must follow (whether it's cleaning the shop up at night, or how a salesperson sends out his emails).
I am finding that in most cases, these rules do nothing. The people continue to act as they always have. In many ways it directly seems like the exact type of thing John Gall talks of in Systemantics, regarding the inertia of the system and how it exists to serve its own purposes and not ours.
Systemantics was a WONDERFUL book, one of the best reads I've ever had, and directly applicable to my life, and how foolish I have been in thinking that I could create complex systems from nothing (and explaining how/why those systems then crashed around me despite herculean effort to support them), but it was mostly a book about WHAT NOT TO DO with complex systems.
So I am hoping you have some suggestion about WHAT TO DO when dealing with complex systems? Again, from a practitioners standpoint? (It does seem like Gall's advice that ALL complex systems that actually DO work have come from a gradual increasing in size and complexity from a smaller, simpler system that worked from the very beginning gives us a clue in this regard, but I haven't seen anyone try to take this to the next level and make concrete suggestions about how to go about creating these scenarios.)
Hi Joe, you write that, "The good news is that there exist non-reductionistic approached to design, engineering, as well as governance and policy. But those approaches will be shied away from until we are truly convinced of the futility of our urge to directly control."
Do you have any information on resources that specifically talk about these approaches? I am coming from a business background (M.B.A.), and I find that all of the resources you find in that domain would fit what I think you would call "Direct Control."
As in, the best way to manage employees in this given scenario is an even more specific set of guidelines/rulebooks that they must follow (whether it's cleaning the shop up at night, or how a salesperson sends out his emails).
I am finding that in most cases, these rules do nothing. The people continue to act as they always have. In many ways it directly seems like the exact type of thing John Gall talks of in Systemantics, regarding the inertia of the system and how it exists to serve its own purposes and not ours.
Systemantics was a WONDERFUL book, one of the best reads I've ever had, and directly applicable to my life, and how foolish I have been in thinking that I could create complex systems from nothing (and explaining how/why those systems then crashed around me despite herculean effort to support them), but it was mostly a book about WHAT NOT TO DO with complex systems.
So I am hoping you have some suggestion about WHAT TO DO when dealing with complex systems? Again, from a practitioners standpoint? (It does seem like Gall's advice that ALL complex systems that actually DO work have come from a gradual increasing in size and complexity from a smaller, simpler system that worked from the very beginning gives us a clue in this regard, but I haven't seen anyone try to take this to the next level and make concrete suggestions about how to go about creating these scenarios.)
Thanks!
Whether it is unclear the outcome of this (and most likely we shouldn't be doing it), there is a 100% certainty it will not come out as expected.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210913005498/en/Woolly-Mammoths-Will-Walk-the-Arctic-Tundra-Again-New-Biosciences-and-Genetics-Company-Colossal-Pioneers-Animal-De-Extinction-Technology-to-Help-Restore-Lost-Ecosystems-and-Help-Ensure-a-Habitable-Planet