From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking
by Russell L. Ackoff
An excerpt from a classic Pegasus Conference keynote

Thirteen years ago, many Pegasus Conference participants experienced a watershed moment when they heard Russell Ackoff’s entertaining chronicle of the dawning of the Systems Age. One listener, Hal Williamson, recalls his own response: “I had a huge ‘aha’: you cannot solve a systems problem by an analysis of its parts. Ackoff is brilliant. This insight and others from his 1993 talk refocused my way of looking at the world. In fact, you could say this presentation changed my life!” Like Hal, many of us would say that our capacity for seeing things whole has deepened over the years. And yet, have we completely shed the Machine Age habits of mind that draw us into reductive problem solving as opposed to creative problem dissolving? In its striking clarity, Ackoff’s message endures as a reinforcement of our growing instinct to embrace new patterns of thought and action better suited to the complexities of today and tomorrow. Here’s an excerpt from this classic presentation:

The Advent of Systems Thinking
Why did the concept of systems finally encroach on Machine Age thinking? It has to do with the fundamental characteristics of systems. First, a system is a whole that consists of two or more parts. Each part affects the behavior of the whole, depending on the part’s interaction with other parts of the system. In addition, the essential properties that define any system are properties of the whole, and none of the parts have those properties. For example, an automobile has an essential property in that it can carry us from one place to another. No single part of an automobile—a wheel, an axle, a carburetor—can do that. Finally, once we take a system apart, it loses its defining characteristic. If we were to disassemble a car, for example, even if we kept every piece, we would no longer have a car. Why? Because the automobile is not the sum of its parts, it is the product of the parts’ interaction.

To understand a system, analysis says to take it apart. But when we take a system apart, it loses all its essential properties. Furthermore, its parts lose their properties. The discovery that we cannot understand the nature of a system by traditional analysis forced us to realize that we needed another kind of thinking. This new way of thinking came to be called synthesis.

Synthesis is the polar opposite of analysis. To illustrate, analysis says that the first step to understanding a system is to take it apart. Consider a university, for example. If we wanted to use analysis to define a university, we might first say that it consists of colleges. Colleges, in turn contain departments, and departments are made up of students, faculty, and areas of study. We would continue to reduce the university in this way until we arrived at its indivisible elements. Then we would try to build up our understanding of these elements into an understanding of the entire university.

With synthesis, we do exactly the opposite. To define a university using synthesis, we would first try to determine the larger system of which the university is a part; in this case, education. As a second step, we would try to understand that larger system as a whole. Finally, we would refine our understanding of the university by identifying its role or function in the containing system of which it is a part.

Analysis is useful for revealing how a system works—its structure. If we want to find out how an automobile works, we analyze it. We take it apart and see what each of the parts does. If we want to repair an automobile, we need to analyze it to discover which part is not working correctly. Analysis therefore, gives us know-how, or knowledge.

By contrast, synthesis reveals why a system works the way it does. For example, we all know that the British drive on the left side of the street, and that in English automobiles, the steering wheel is on the right. Yet though we could take apart countless English automobiles, we would never arrive at an explanation for these facts. This is because the explanation does not lie inside the vehicles or their parts; it lies outside them, in the function that automobiles perform. A book appeared recently that contained a possible explanation for British driving habits. The book said that the typical knight riding on horseback down an English country road was right-handed, and thus wielded his sword with his right hand. If he felt that he might meet a highwayman coming in the opposite direction toward him, and wanted to be in a position to defend himself, he would move to the left side of the road, so that his sword-wielding right hand would face the oncoming threat. The theory is that when the British developed their automobiles, they simply followed the example of the knight.

Of course, American society has never featured knights in shining armor, so when it came time to design automobiles, U.S. automakers came up with a totally different solution. As with British cars, the explanation for the design of American cars lies outside their physical structure, in their role or function.

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