REWRITINS THE CODE

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20

REWRITIN
G THE
CODE
1

ystems thinking teaches that there are two types of complexity— the
"detail complexity" of many variables and the "dynamic
complexity" when "cause and effect" are not close in time and
space and obvious interventions do not produce expected outcomes.
The tools for systems thinking introduced in this book are especially
designed for understanding dynamic complexity. They help in seeing
underlying structures and patterns of behavior that are obscured in the
fury of daily events and the incessant activity that characterizes the
manager's life. They help in understanding why conventional solutions
are failing and where higher leverage actions may be found.
But what about detail complexity? What about the hundreds, per-
haps thousands, of feedback processes in any real managerial situation,
all operating simultaneously? How can we possibly cope with such
complexity? What good is systems thinking, anyhow, if it only teaches
us to identify a few feedback processes amid this welter of activity?
In Chapter 13,1 suggested that one of the subtler lessons of
the

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systems perspective is that this enormous detail complexity
renders
all
rational explanations inherently incomplete. Human systems are
infinitely complex. "You can never figure it out," I suggested—
because it's "un-figure-out-able." Nonetheless, we can enhance our
mastery of complexity.

Evidence is overwhelming that human beings have "cognitive lim-
itations." Cognitive scientists have shown that we can deal only with a
very small number of separate variables simultaneously. Our conscious
information processing circuits get easily overloaded by detail
complexity, forcing us to invoke simplifying heuristics to figure
things out.

But then how can we explain driving an automobile at sixty miles per
hour in heavy traffic—or playing tennis, or playing a Mozart sonata?
All of these tasks are enormously complex, involving hundreds of
variables and rapid changes that must be recognized and responded to
immediately. Moreover, to the extent that we are masterful in these
tasks, they are accomplished with little or no "conscious attention."
We drive through traffic while carrying on a conversation with the
person next to us. The tennis professional focuses entirely on the
strategy of the match and the point being played. The concert pianist
thinks only of the aesthetics of the performance, not the mechanics.

Clearly there is an aspect of our minds that deals quite well with
detail complexity—in fact, which is designed for the task. In the
chapter on personal mastery, we called this "the subconscious" to

suggest an aspect of mind that lies "below" or "behind" our normal
conscious mental processes. Other labels are possible, such as auto-
matic mind or "tacit knowledge," but the label is unimportant.
2
What is important is recognizing that we have enormous capacities to
deal with detail complexity at the subconscious level that we do not
have at the conscious level.

It is also important to recognize that the subconscious can be
"trained." In fact, all learning involves an interplay of the conscious
mind and the subconscious that results in training the subconscious.
We did not start off driving in heavy traffic; we practiced driving very
slowly in a parking lot or on a quiet street because the subconscious
was not yet trained to the task of driving. Gradually, more and more
of the task is "taken over" by the subconscious—shifting gears
becomes "automatic," "natural." This frees our conscious mind
(with its limited information processing ability) to focus on the next
stage of learning.
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There are many ways by which the subconscious gets pro-
grammed. Cultures program the subconscious. If you grow up in a
society that discriminates sharply between certain races or castes, you
will literally see and interact with people differently from the way you
will if you grow up in a culture that is less race or caste-conscious.
Beliefs also program the subconscious. It is well established, for
example, that beliefs affect perception: if you believe that people are

untrustworthy, you will continually "see" double-dealing and chicanery
that others without this belief would not see.

Perhaps most subtly, language programs the subconscious. The
effects of language are especially subtle because language appears not
so much to affect the content of the subconscious but the way the
subconscious organizes and structures the content it holds. If this is
true, how, then, have we been teaching the subconscious to organize
information?

As shown in Chapter 5, it is extremely awkward in normal verbal
language to describe circular feedback processes. So, by and large, we
give up and just say, in effect, "A caused B, which caused C." But this
convenient shorthand suggests to the subconscious mind that "A did
cause B." Subconsciously, we tend to forget that "B also caused A."
If all we have is linear language, then we think in linear ways, and we
perceive the world linearly—that is, as a chain of events. It is
impossible for us to grasp the scope of the consequences, but we
know they are sweeping.

However, if we begin to master a systemic language, all this starts to
change. The subconscious is subtly retrained to structure data in
circles instead of straight lines. We find that we "see" feedback
processes and systems archetypes everywhere. A new framework for
thinking becomes embedded. A switch is thrown, much like what
happens in mastering a foreign language. We begin to dream in the new
language, or to think spontaneously in its terms and constructs. When
this happens with systems thinking, we become, as one manager puts
it, "looped for life."

As organizational theorist Charles Kiefer puts it, "When this
switch is thrown subconsciously, you become a systems thinker ever
thereafter. Reality is automatically seen systemically as well as linearly
(there still are lots of problems for which a linear perspective is
perfectly adequate). Alternatives that are impossible to see linearly are
surfaced by the subconscious as proposed solutions. Solutions that
were outside of our 'feasible set' become part of our feasible set.
'Systemic' becomes a way of thinking (almost a way of being) and
not just a problem solving methodology."

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Rewriting the Code

The subconscious is not limited by the number of feedback pro-
cesses it can consider. Just as it deals with far more details than our
conscious mind, it can also deal with far more intricate dynamic
complexity. Significantly, as it assimilates hundreds of feedback re-
lationships simultaneously, it integrates detail and dynamic complexity
together.

This is why practice is so important. For any meaningful interplay of
conscious and subconscious, practice is essential. Conceptual learning
is not enough, any more than it would be for learning a foreign
language or for learning to ride a bicycle. In this context, tools like
microworlds come into their own—as cultural media, as places to
practice thinking and acting systemically.

The value of systems thinking also goes beyond that derived by any

institution. To explain, let me take a step back.

There is a certain irony to mankind's present situation, viewed
from an evolutionary perspective. The human being is exquisitely
adapted to recognize and respond to threats to survival that come in
the form of sudden, dramatic events. Clap your hands and people
jump, calling forth some genetically encoded memory of saber-
toothed tigers springing from the bush.

Yet today the primary threats to our collective survival are slow,
gradual developments arising from processes that are complex both in
detail and in dynamics. The spread of nuclear arms is not an event, nor
is the "greenhouse effect," the depletion of the ozone layer,
malnutrition and underdevelopment in the Third World, the eco-
nomic cycles that determine our quality of life, and most of the other
large-scale problems in our world.

Learning organizations themselves may be a form of leverage on the
complex system of human endeavors. Building learning organizations
involves developing people who learn to see as systems thinkers see,
who develop their own personal mastery, and who learn how to
surface and restructure mental models, collaboratively. Given the
influence of organizations in today's world, this may be one of the
most powerful steps toward helping us "rewrite the code," altering
not just what we think but our predominant ways of thinking. In this
sense, learning organizations may be a tool not just for the evolution of
organizations, but for the evolution of intelligence.