Hi Winfried
You have had some reservations about EKS.
Winfried I have just reread Heart of the Enterprise by Stafford Beer, an
interesting comment he makes on specialization on situations (see page
461) of the viable system (i.e. system 1).
This is one of the fundamental premises of EKS, specialization not on the
function or process but the basic need.
I thought I might share with you I am in the process of finding a number
of issues (with a client) and problems that could not be easily solved by
using Systems Thinking but rather a combination of VSM and EKS. I
identified that the firm was behaving slightly schizophrenically and there
was a lot of confusion around roles, goals and control. By using VSM I
found there was not an effective system two (no invariant control
mechanism, so the system was oscillating like crazy, and everyone blaming
everyone else for the mess). Also there was a mixture of roles between
systems one and three (that is like me turning up on your doorstep and
acting like a father to your kids) causing major identity problems.
Also there was no effective system 4 (this area connects very well with
EKS).
Then I found that the company was specializing on a process (EKS) not on a
basic need. So they are under increasing competitive pressure.
So they are being degraded from the inside and attacked from the outside,
all in all a sorry state of affairs. I could have never known this
without having knowledge of both VSM and EKS.
I each case I would have seen only half the problem.
Kindest
gavin
--Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz>
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