systems ~n~ practice · what effects the proposed 'solution' may have on other elements...

Unit

Systems~n~

Practice

Systems~n~

Practice

Interconnectedness

Unit TwoInterconnectedness

2.2 Systems ~n~ Practice Online - Unit Two: Interconnectedness

Prior to the development of the systems approach, the dominant paradigm for organi-zational analysis was the mechanistic approach. The mechanistic approach treats thevarious elements of the whole as discrete and independent segments. Consequently,under mechanistic thinking, in order to solve a problem, each element of the situationis identified and examined independently. Solutions are based on identifying 'problems'in particular areas and solving them independently of others without considerations towhat effects the proposed 'solution' may have on other elements within the system.

In medicine, understanding cancer research hastaken the mechanistic approach by focusing onthe individual cell. Curing cancer means elimi-nating the problem in the cell through suchremedies as chemotherapy.

Viewing cancer from a systems approach shiftsthe focus from individual cellular abnormalitiesto why cancerous cells form in the first place.

Concept I: Interconnectedness and Interdependence

The first foundational principle of systems theory is the concept of interconnectedness.

Figure 2.1

There Are Three Core Concepts of Systems Theory:1. Organizational Interconnectedness & External Interdependence2. Concept of Equifinality3. Modern Organization as a T-Box

The Human Body Represented by System & Structure

StructureArrangement of body parts to accomplish needed functions:

• Legs designed to walk• Arms attached in the middle to operate• Neck to support the head• Fingers and thumbs designed to grasp

SystemSum of all functions

needed to maintain life

• Digestive System• Respiratory System• Nervous System

• Circular System• Skeletal System• Nervous System



In short, systems theory specifically rejects the narrow focus adopted by the mechanis-tic view. Instead it treats all parts as interrelated and, to a great extent, interdepen-dent. This focus on the "big picture" in which not only the various elements and theirinternal functions must be accounted for and understood, but also on a diverse set ofinteractions among the internal and external elements of the system must be incorpo-rated in any analysis.

Interconnectedness simply highlights that all parts of a system are related. Changes inone part of the system tend to lead to changes in other parts of the system. Weneed to understand interconnectedness in order to understand modern organizations.

A primary reason for this is the complexity of the current society in which a modernorganization exists and functions. This can be illustrated by comparing the steps nec-essary to construct a log house and the steps necessary to construct a jet.

Figure 2.2 - A mechanistic view of an organization reveals the organizational structurewith policies and procedures, each individual and seperate.

Figure 2.3 demonstrates the view of an orgainzation through the lenses of “Effective Structure” and “Efficient System.”

CEO

Marketing Production

Advertising

Research

Personnel

Operations

Purchasing

Payroll

Staffing

+


Pharmaceuticals: A Mechanistic or Holistic Approach?

"Interconnectedness" refers to asystematic approach to looking atan organization as a whole ratherthan as the sum of separate units.Decisions, made within the frame-work of the interconnectednessconcept, take the view of the entireorganization not a single unit ordepartment. Using a singledepartment or unit as the basis fora decision is characteristic of themechanistic approach. A mecha-nistic approach to medicine wouldlead to diagnoses based only on asingle organ of the body. Instead,doctors seek to apply a holisticapproach that looks that the sys-tems within the body (nervous, cir-culatory, etc.) and at the body asa whole. However, there existexamples in the recent pastindicative of a mechanisticapproach that led to unforeseenconsequences when drugs wereintroduced into a wider popula-tion.

Vioxx was a verypopular prescriptiondrug used to treatarthritis pain andinflammation. WhileVioxx was effectivein most patients inreducing inflammation and thuspain levels, it also caused danger-ous, and sometimes deadly, sideeffects in other systems of thebody. Among the serious sideeffects unknown at Vioxx's intro-

duction were asthma and otherrespiratory complications, psycho-logical effects (anxiety and depres-sion), gastrointestinal problems,and most serious, strokes and car-diovascular failure. The treatmentof one disease led to unintendedand undesirable effects in manyother systems of the body. A holis-tic approach would have anticipat-ed the wide range of effects basedon the chemical composition of thedrug and side effects of otherdrugs.

For several decades, physiciansroutinely advised women enteringmenopause to consider hormonereplacement therapy to avoidhealth risks, such as osteoporosis,associated with post-menopause.The prevailing wisdom was thatthe effects of hormone replace-ments were minimal in relation tothe benefits. However, more recentresearch associated hormonereplacements with several serioushealth risks, including cancer.Again, a therapy designed for aspecific set of symptoms createdan additional, unintended, out-come in other areas of the body.

A third example is the common,over-the-counter drug: aspirin.Aspirin is widely considered toprovide safe, effective relief ofpain and fever. More recently, con-nections have been establishedbetween aspirin and the preven-


patients can be deadly forothers. Two major issues ingeriatric medicine is over-medication and drug inter-actions. Many seniorpatients seek treatmentthrough several physi-cians, each of whom spe-cialize in one particular

system, organ, or dis-ease. As a

result, pre-scriptionof drugs

that maycounteract

one another,or in combina-

tion be verysafe, become

lethal, is a serious con-cern for patients with multiplehealth issues. An interconnectedapproach reviews the implicationsof any one treatment in conjunc-tion with the patient's overall situ-ation and other treatments toavoid these potential risks.

tion of strokes andheart attacks, as wellas the potential forsurvival of strokes orheart attacks if takenduring the initial phaseof the events. However,even after decades ofuse by millions of peo-ple, a previouslyunknown side effect,Reye's Syndrome,was discovered inchildren who tookaspirin while suffer-ing from viral infec-tions, such as a cold,flu, or chicken pox. Reye'sSyndrome can affect all organsand systems of the body, but themost acute symptoms are usuallyin the brain and liver.

An interconnected approach tomedicine considers all of thepotential effects on the body aswhole. Even treatments that maybe safe and effective for many

System theory’s foundational concept suggests a view of a modern organization as a whole made up

of interconnected segments, where, to varying degrees, the performance of each segment affects and is affected by the performance of all others.



In Colonial America, many colonists builttheir own homes. The process was rela-tively simple although it requiredknowledge of basic construction princi-ples and some basic skills in carpentry.

One person could assemble a log housewithin a relatively short period of time;this was a necessity since most colonistsarrived in a location in the spring andwere forced to create a viable shelterbefore the winter. The number of stepsnecessary to construct a basic log home(the basic log house during this periodwas a one room dwelling with a fireplaceand dirt floor) could be measured in dou-ble digits. Trees were cut, stripped ofbranches and leaves, and re-cut to meetthe necessary dimensions. Logs werestacked and clinking (usually a combina-tion of mud, grass, and other bindingmaterials) was stuffed to fill gaps.

Compare this to the construction of a jet.Literally millions of steps are necessaryto build and assemble a jet. In order to

create a jet, it is necessary to mine min-erals to create aluminum and steel. Theore must be refined, and so forth. Thenumber of steps necessary to construct ajet numbers in the millions and requiresliterally hundreds of persons to complete.A comparison of organizations furtherillustrates the difference in complex mod-ern personnel decisions versus filling thesame roles in earlier times.

In the colonial period, the economy wasagrarian. The single family, or extendedsingle family, was the model. A familywith multiple children, as many as possi-ble, provided the labor necessary to oper-ate the average single family farm.Obviously, from the very beginning, therewere exceptions to this from large planta-tions to urban craftsmen. However, thesmall farm, with labor primarily drawnfrom the immediate family provides oneparadigm for an organization.

In this paradigm, the organizationalstructure is simple and well-defined



based upon socio-cultural guidelines.The father was the head of the

organization in regard to produc-tion activities; male children,based on the order of birth, werethe other leaders within theorganization. The mother was thehead of the "support" functionswithin the organization; support-ed by the female children.Eventually, spouses of children,as they joined the family, wouldbe worked into the structurebased upon their role as defined

by their spouse.

This model varied in some ways, but questions about responsibilities and obligationswere basically negotiated within this relatively small group of related people. In thesmall family unit, decisions can be made based upon personal knowledge. If one adultchild was adept at mathematics, this child could be assigned responsibility for manag-ing the bookkeeping for the family.

The modern organization, for example the organizationnecessary to build a jet, requires a more complicatedstructure. Thousands of unrelated persons must worktogether, completing millions or billions of individualsteps in the production process. To complete a processwith many individual steps requires more employees.

More employees necessitate a wide variety of managerialdecisions. In the organization with thousands of employ-ees, the chief executive cannot know which employee is adept at mathematics throughpersonal knowledge. A mechanism must be created to identify an employee with theseskills. This requires other employees, human resource managers, be available to deter-mine what skills are required for a particular position and how to identify the employ-ee, or potential employee, with these skills. The organization cannot depend upon thatsingle employee to perform all of the accounting function; specialization must occur. Inorder for specialization to occur, the process of managing the accounting functionmust be analyzed and broken down into subprocesses. Again, this requires additionalemployees. Layer upon layer, the complexity of the organization builds.

2.8 Systems ~n~ Practice Online

Assume you work for a small compa-ny that produces only one product:latches for automobile doors. Thecompany is organized along function-al lines. There is a purchasingdepartment, where raw materialssuch as steel are bought from ven-dors, a production department,where the latches are actually pro-duced, and a marketing departmentwhich actually sells the latches tomajor automakers.

Each of these departmentshas a specific, uniquepurpose. In a traditionalorganizational chart,the connectionsthough the organi-zation are throughdepartment man-agers. However,although the orga-nizational chartdoes not show it,there are still con-nections between thework of each depart-ment.

Imagine that the MarketingDepartment obtains a much largerorder from a customer than is expect-ed. The Marketing Department doesnot share this information with theother two departments. The invento-ry of finished product will beexhausted; the orders placed byother customers will be delayed. TheProduction Department, now awarethat the inventory of finished productis not adequate to meet the demand,schedules its employees to workovertime to replenish the inventory.However, after a day of running thedepartment at maximum capacity,the Production Department shuts

down. Why? Because the ProductionDepartment has used all the avail-

able steel in the raw material inven-tory. It can no longer produce anyadditional product because it doesnot have the required materials. Atthis point, the PurchasingDepartment becomes aware of thesituation and immediately ordersadditional steel. In the meantime, thecustomers who did not receive theirorders have begun to complain to the

Marketing Department.

Systems thinking allowsthe analyst's mind to

recognize and accountfor a variety of orga-nizational elements.As a result, it isimpossible tomove to a viewof any elementof the system ascompletely inde-pendent or dis-

crete. It also forcesan investigation of the

cause/effect nature ofrelationships. This investi-

gation, because of its scope,can never be completed. Thompson

(1967) describes this as the basis fororganizational rationality.

Organizations seek to avoid uncer-tainty. They take a variety ofapproaches to achieve this, such asseeking to regularize input and out-put functions or forecasting, and thatrequires the ability to identifycausality in the environment and theinterrelationships within the system.

The realization that everythingis related to everything else isone of the most practical

An Example of Interconnectedness

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applications of systems thinking(Kaplan et al., 2001). Such a realiza-tion is directly responsible for a majorshift in the modern managerial para-digm. The old paradigm of focusing onthe task at hand and directing allefforts to solving one problem at atime has shifted to highlight theimportance of interconnectednessbetween organizational structuralcomponents and work teams.A holis-tic paradigm that views the orga-nizational structure as a wholecomposed of interdependent partsis the easiest way to insure afully functional structure and anoperating system free of costlyand wasteful inner-friction.

In aligning the inner components (sub-systems) of an organization, a holisticview yields an effective structuremade up of components well connect-

ed to each other based on the com-mon purpose that serves as a sharedvision. Also, such a paradigm high-lights the importance of interdepen-dent relationships between the sys-tem and other environmental systemsand forms the premise for the recom-mended holistic approach to organiza-tional management and task design(French & Bell, 1995). Finally, thisparadigm highlights the infinite inter-connectedness of systems acrossindustries, sciences, and geographicdiversity.

The direct implication here isthat, to varying degrees, the over-all performance of the organiza-tion affects and is affected by theperformance of its subsystems aswell as the performance of its sup-pliers and other organizationalsystems within the environment.

The next 6 pages illustrate examples of interconnectednessin different types of organizations: a tire manufacturer, a college, and a hospital. Studythe examples and comparethem to your own organization.

Your Organization

Your Department

You



Interconnectedness Structure Worksheet

Personal Level

Manufacturing Example - Goodyear Tire Co.

Brandon

Assembly Line

Supervisor

Tammy

Night Shift

Manager

Charles

Quality

Inspector

3

Elin

Scheduler

Heather

Machine

Operator

Ginger

Plant Manager

Ginger

Plant Manager

Michael

Production

Worker

John

Stock

Specialist




Departmental Level

Manufacturing Example - Goodyear Tire Co.

Production

Purchasing Quality

Assurance

Finance

Inventory

Human

Resource

Human

Resource

Sales Shipping




Personal Level

Service Example - A College

Brandon

Request

Transcripts

Tammy

Clerical

John

Enrollment

Counselor

Elin

Receptionist

Heather

Mail Clerk

Ginger

Director

Michael

Transcript

Evaluator

Summar

Record Keeper

Ginger

Director




Departmental Level

Service Example - A College

Registrar’s

Office

Recruiter Accreditation

Agency

Faculty

Academic

Affairs

Enrollment Enrollment

Financial Aid Alumni Affairs




Personal Level

Service Example - Healthcare

Kelly

Nurse

Ginger

Medical

Director

John

X-Ray

Specialist

Elin

Receptionist

Terri

Lab Tech

Heather

Paramedic

Michael

Patient

Phyllis

Record Keeper

Summar

Medical Doctor




Departmental Level

Service Example - Healthcare

E.R.

Ambulance

Services

Medical

Supplies

Medical

Lab

Surgical

Unit

Marketing

& P.R.

Critical

Care

Pharmacy BIlling



Personal Level

• Start by placing yourself (your function) in the center oval.

• Identify others in your department whose position directly affects your ability toperform your job and place their names and positions in the blue squares. Identifythose who are directly affected by your job's function in the red squares.

This is a copy of the online form you will fill out inthe COMPLETE section of this unit’s coursework.


This is a copy of the online form you will fill out inthe COMPLETE section of this unit’s coursework.


Departmental Level

• Start by placing your department in the center oval.

• Identify other departments within your organization whose performance may affectthe performance of yours and place them in the blue boxes. Next, identify depart-ments affected by the performance of yours and place them in the red boxes.

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