Systems Archetypes and Strange Attractors LO19276

Richard Charles Holloway (learnshops@thresholds.com)
Wed, 16 Sep 1998 18:45:17 -0700

There's an interesting conversation occurring on the Complexity List right
now concerning the definition and applicability of the term "strange
attractors" in organizations or other social systems. Mark McElroy's
response on this thread opened an interesting question, I think, for LO
dialog. So, with Mark's permission, I'm reposting his question -- and his
response to an earlier posting -- and then I'll add my comment.

Mark W. McElroy wrote:

> ...[A] distinction...should be made between complex "deterministic"
> systems (CDS), versus complex "adaptive" systems (CAS), which are
> probabilistic, not deterministic. It is my understanding that the kinds
> of attractors we find in CDS are of the...point and limit cycle [types],
> while it is only in CAS that we find
> so-called "strange," or fractal attractors.
>
> Further--and this is a shift in my thoughts here--the vibrant field of
> systems thinking, as evidenced by Peter Senge's hugely influential Fifth
> Discipline and its considerable following, features the concept of
> systems archetypes, which reflect recurring patterns of behavior in
> human organizations that can be observed through the analytical
> technique of causal looping. Somebody wake me up if I'm dreaming here,
> but aren't systems archetypes and the patterns of behavior that they
> represent a form of attractors? More specifically, aren't they of the
> point or limit cycle variety? They do not appear to be "strange." And
> if they are of the point or limit cycle variety, doesn't that suggest
> that in most, if not all, organizations where these archetypical
> attractors appear, what we're dealing with is NOT complex adaptive
> systems after all, but complex deterministic systems? Please, everyone,
> comments here would be most appreciated.

Mark's question is intriguing, because if he's correct, (if the systems
archetypes described by Senge are those of a CDS), then this means that
Senge's description is about aging organizational systems and they don't
describe the CAS (or living systems) that are predicted and perhaps
present in a mature learning organization (what has been called a fourth
wave organization).

Let's assume that organizations that transition to a complex adaptive (or
living) system are no longer subject to being described in terms of
Senge's systems archetypes?" Instead, do we see systems patterns
developing that could be described as fractal?

We've been engaged in a thread on this list for sometime--actually a
couple of threads--which concern the meaningfulness of LO and whether or
not LOs work. I'd like to focus on the validity of systems archetype
descriptions for fourth wave organizations.

For instance, Meg Wheatley (Leadership and the New Science) identified the
"search for meaning" (referring to Frankl's work) as a strange attractor
in a chaotic organization. If so, then we can't necessarily predict the
paths that systems might choose, but only the region in which those paths
might occur.

What can we learn from this?

regards,

Doc Holloway

-- 
"Nature ever flows, stands never still.  Motion or change is her mode of
existence.  The poetic eye sees in Man the Brother of the River and in Woman
the Sister of the River.  Their life is always transitions.  Hard blockheads
only drive nails all the time; forever... fixing.  Heroes do not fix, but
flow, bend forward ever and invent a resource for every moment." -Ralph Waldo
Emerson


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Richard Charles "Doc" Holloway  Olympia, WA  USA
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