Knowledge Matters™

In the last 15 years in Australia public-sector organisations have been down-sized, right-sized, reorganised, restructured, united, bisected, and sometimes like Defence are now up-sizing! All have had grand visions, strategic business plans, roadmaps, outsourcing plans and so on. Most of these initiatives have failed to realise the expected efficiencies or significantly improve competence. Why?

I think the leaders of these organisations wish for simplicity even when it is not possible to avoid inherent complexity. In particular they put in place piecemeal business solutions and fail to recognise they are part of a wider system. In short they don’t understand their system boundaries or their cross boundary relationships, and don’t give the change initiative time to work before embarking on another. I think many public-sector organisations would benefit from a systems thinking approach to management.

The systems approach rejects reductionist simplicity and instead views the world as being a complex conglomeration of interacting systems. So the core idea for a systems approach to management is business is a ‘system of systems’. In systems thinking terms these component systems are sometimes called holons , a neologism coined by Arthur Koestler . A holon is an identifiable part of a system, or a system in its own right, which has a unique identity, yet is made up of subordinate parts and in turn is part of a larger whole. A holon displays both autonomous and cooperative behaviour, and can combine to form another holon, thus forming a hierarchy called a holarchy.

Now why is this theory important? Well I think public-sector organisations are holons, or at least have holonic characteristics. They all provide a service and develop policy. There are links between the services and the policy, which have cascading effects and are often poorly understood. Family law, for example, has impacts on welfare, education, child-support, public housing, health and so on. It would be myopic to consider it by itself yet often that is exactly what is done with organisational reform. Turf wars on who pays are all too common, and come about because organisational boundaries, like the colonial boundaries of 19th century Africa, are ill-considered. The same can be said for policy responsibilities and accountabilities. System boundaries matter!

Regards, Graham.