An Introduction to

Understanding Socio-Cultural

Systems & Design

Practice at moving quickly from one problem to the next gets people good at solving crises, but not from preventing them.

Typical day for the teacher, principal, AEA support person:

•Crisis A, problem A, crisis B, meeting A, meeting B, crisis C, problem B, problem C, problem D, crisis D, lunch, repeat.

Objectives for Today’s Learning:• To understand that in a system, everything is

connected to everything else.• To know something about what systems

thinking means.• To learn the key components of social-

systems theory.• To conduct some basic application of a

methodology for dealing with socio-cultural organizations.

Equal Distance Activity

Remember your own number.Make a circle by counting off beginning with number one.Pick any two people in the circle and memorize their number.When we begin, your job is to keep equal distance from both people you have chosen.

Connecting Question for Today

• Keep Hamel’s “Future of Management” in mind as we learn together today – what connects the two?

What is a System?

• A set of two or more elements whereby: that satisfies the following three conditions:– The behavior of each element has an effect on the

behavior of the whole.

– The behavior of the elements and their effects on the whole are interdependent.

– No matter how they are organized, each element has an effect on the behavior of the whole and none has an independent effect on it.

– Russell Ackoff, 1999.

Simply stated. . .

• Interconnecting parts that form a whole.• Properties of the system change if you take

away parts or add more parts.• If you cut a system in half, you do not get two

smaller systems, but a damaged system that will not function as it did before.

• The parts are connected and work together.• Its behavior depends on the interactions of the

parts. Change the interactions and the behavior changes.

Characteristics of a System

• Have a purpose

• All parts are necessary

• The arrangement of the

parts affects performance

• Attempt to maintain

stability through feedback

Bicycle – Personal Fitness - Family

• What’s its purpose?• What are the component parts?• How are the parts organized and arranged? Why?• Describe one or two key processes in making the system

work.• What feedback mechanisms exist in order for the system

to improve and/or adapt?• What are the key success measures of the system?

Connections to the World of Education

• What paradigm of systems do schools belong/fit? Why?

• What system orientation seems primary in:– How classrooms are organized?– How leaders – classroom, team, building, and

district – view and conduct their work?– Our current school improvement initiatives?– Who gets blamed and how for failure?

A Brief History of U.S. Schooling

• Modern conception of K-12 schooling, particularly the “comprehensive high school” can be traced to the 1890’s.

• 1890: The Committee of Ten recommends a design for creating a new public education system.

The Committee of Ten

• Identified Challenges:– A revolution in American society

• Migration to urban centers.• Massive numbers of new immigrants• Political unrest• Economic unrest• Radical shifts in the ways in which people worked

and earned a living

The Committee of Ten

• The industrial revolution is rapidly changing the way people think about organization.

• “Mechanical Model” is the dominant mental model for organizing people and systems.

Mechanical Model of Systems

• The world is a large clock – we can understand the world by simply understanding all the parts.

Mechanical Model of Systems

• The most efficient (and therefore best) way to organize is to:– Simplify tasks down to their most basic components

and then get people to repeat them consistently.– Take the work to the worker.– We can understand how things work best by breaking

them apart and studying the parts.– Measure the results at the end of the process – reject

products that aren’t right.– Develop a clear command-and-control hierarchy –

people who don’t “fit” are removed. Systems are good and right, people who create variation in the system are bad – preserve the system!!

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• Leaders, facing the daunting task of ensuring America succeeded in the new industrial world, created the modern American K-12 system.

• This system quickly became and remains:– The greatest school system ever created to advance

an industrial-based society.– Is copied the world over in countries and societies

attempting to compete in an industrial world.– Such an inherent part of the American experience that

it carries on, with little variation, as “the way we do it” yet today.

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• Some components designed in:– Schools are just like factories with learning as

the end product.• 8 to 3:30 is a work day.• Break down subjects to their independent parts –

hire teachers to follow a prescribed curriculum to teach the parts.

• Test the students at the end on their understanding or memory of those parts.

• Evaluate students based upon what they know when they reach the end of the line.

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• Some components designed in:• “Pass” or “Fail” students based upon their quality

at the end of the line.• Build the system with unwavering, tight cycle

times. 7 hrs a day, 2 semesters a year, 180 days, 13 years.

• Create a principal who monitors teachers who monitor students – remove teachers and students who don’t do what they are supposed to.

• Move the assembly line of products (students) to the workers (teachers) to install their pieces.

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• Some components designed in:• Students who make it through are certified as

“good enough” – we even give them a name and model number.

• If the product is bad its because the raw product was faulty – not the system!

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• The industrial society needed a few leaders and managers and a multitude of unskilled or semi-skilled laborers.

• The school system was designed to create the needed workforce. This was done by “sorting and selecting” students based upon whether or not they could succeed in school. Dropouts, failure and mediocrity was acceptable because “those” kids had a future in the factory.

Mechanical Model Applied to Schooling

• The results?– America became the greatest industrial power

the world has ever seen.– America became the wealthiest nation the

world has ever seen.– American’s quality of life surpassed anything

previously seen in the history of mankind.– America became the greatest military power

in the world.

Time to Ponder

• What have been the “good” and “bad” about the industrial-age designed schools system we have inherited? (Expose and challenge assumptions)

• What about this short history lesson has a familiar ring to it?

• How does it connect to Hamel’s arguments?• What elements of the school system designed at

the beginning of the 20th century remain today?• Might now be a good time to redesign the

American school system? Why or why not?

“Real Life” Design Examples

• Clear Creek Amana

• Central City

• Early Childhood Special Education System

System Destroyed

• While we have been working today the school system as we know it has been destroyed. We have been tasked with creating a new school system from scratch.

• So. . . what would we have if we could have what we wanted?

Redesign the School System

• So. . . what school system would you have if you could have what you wanted! NO CONSTRAINTS.

– What would it produce for the children, parents, teachers and community?

– How would things be organized? – What would people in the system be doing?

• How would teachers and students interact with one another and the community/world?

Design Specifications

Design Specifications

Reflection

• What do you notice about the set of specifications we have generated here today?

• Are the specifications reflective of what we see in our current system?

• Do you see conflicts between what we say we want and the system we are asked to operate in?– What is interesting about the specifications?– What is challenging?