Applying Systems Thinking and
Common Archetypes to Organizational Issues

Module 6: Systems Archetypes

Archetype Family Tree

This family tree is designed to show how the archetypes are connected to one another. You may find it helpful as an orientation now or as a summary when you have studied the archetypes in this module.

tree

  1. Growth - Reinforcing Loop, Vicious/Virtuous Cycle: An accelerating, positively or negatively spiraling process such as compounding interest at the bank or dropping morale during lay-offs.

  2. Nothing Grows Forever - Limits to Success: As the reinforcing creates growth or success, it often triggers a limit.

  3. Up Against the Same Limit - Tragedy of the Commons: The limits to growth phenomenon on a mass scale, typically with a shared resource that is available to everyone and which no one person or group feels responsible to manage or steward.

  4. My Capacity Isn't Large Enough, My Customers Take Their Business Elsewhere, and I Let My Standards Slip - Growth and Underinvestment: Growth is happening, and the limit is a capacity to respond; typically capacity is insufficient because it is limited by decision criteria and investment to build capacity is limited, delayed, or non-existent because standards change and investment can never be justified.

  5. My Growth Leads to Your Decline - Success to the Successful: As one enterprise grows, expands, or succeeds, resources and support are drawn away from a less successful venture. The less successful venture continues to perform less well than the favored enterprise.

  6. Partnership for Growth But End Up Feeling Betrayed As My Partner's Fixes Backfire on Me - Accidental Adversaries: Two or more entities join forces for mutual benefit, but unilateral actions by one entity accidentally damage the other, and the partnership falters or fails.

  7. Fixing Problems - Balancing Loop: A self-correcting process keeps performance close to an explicit or implicit goal, making adjustments to fix or prevent problems.

  8. My Fix Comes Back to Haunt Me - Fixes that Backfire: The corrective action produces one or more unintended results that eventually cause more problems or exacerbate the original one.

  9. Not Getting at the Real Underlying Cause - Shifting the Burden: The unintended results of the original fix distract me from noticing more fundamental solutions and may even siphon off the resources I need to implement that approach.

  10. I Become Satisfied With Less - Drifting Goals: If corrective actions are too difficult to implement for whatever reason, a lower level of performance, one that creates less pressure for action, may be implicitly or explicitly accepted.

  11. My Fix Is Your Nightmare - Escalation: Attempts to maintain competitive advantage require each party to match or beat the efforts of the other.