Problems With the Rational Model

In our previous discussion of mental models, we talked about two types of models. In this post I want to divert and discuss some problems and limitations that come from applying the Rational Model approach. Many people, especially those with technical backgrounds, will equate systems thinking with a rational approach. 

In the seminal management book, In Search of Excellence,Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., found issues with the Rational Model when they studied the excellent companies. This was a particularly interesting part of the book to me (In Search of Excellence, Chapter 2). It was obviously important to them to devote an entire chapter to it’s limitations and fallacies. They uncovered what they summarized were several significant issues, all of which the excellent companies had learn to overcome; 

1. The numerate, analytical component has an in-built conservative bias. Cost reduction becomes priority number one and revenue enhancement takes a back seat.

2. The exclusively analytic approach leads to an abstract, heartless philosophy.

3. To be narrowly rational is often to be negative.

4. Rationality does not value experimentation and abhors mistakes.

5. Anti-experimentation leads inevidently to overcomplexity and inflexibility.

6. The rationalist approach does not celebrate informality.

I believe that there is a prevalence of this mentality afflicting our society today. The reductionist approach of the Rational Model leads to complexity by attempting to continue to break down issues into their constituent parts. This is meant to simplify, yet indeed it tends to introduce complexity. This has been driven in large part by our rapid march toward technological "progress". Our minds tend to want see the world as “fixed”, and want to reject randomness that exists in nature. We automatically want to place data "in it’s place”. Technology only feeds this feeling, or instinct, of a rational fixed pattern or product. As Peters and Waterman rightly observed, this can lead to complexity and inflexibility in our lives. It is also dangerous in that it can cause us to adopt a “heartless philosophy” toward the randomness (read messiness) that is real life. 

Another real danger of this is the loss of beauty. Complexity that is simply described is beauty. The celebration of form over style, function over utility, or more over enough, can lead us to crowd out our appreciation for the simple beauty of our messy world. In 2007, Gene Weingarten published an article in The Washington Postabout an accomplished violinist playing six classical pieces in the L’Enfant Metro station in Washington, DC during rush hour. Approximately 1,097 people passed by Joshua Bell, one of the finest classical musicians in the world while he played some masterpieces that have endured for centuries. This was a free performance of pure art, but very little was noticed or acknowledged by the passing crowd. Weingarten writes, “In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.” Many, if not most, of those passing by are well-educated, well-paid professionals associated in some way with the Federal Government. Yet, they did not bother to appreciate what they were passing by. Does this mean that beauty is not appreciated? Is it too hard to understand or is not relevant to our busy lives? If so, then indeed our priorities have been flipped on end, and how Rational is that really?

So if we can integrate our priorities around our life and work, we may depart from a Rational model view. A paradox is by being a little “irrational”, we can be whole.

Mental Models

Mental models are the way we see the world. Our brains develop models to make sense of the environment. Our mental models are a compilation of assumptions, our understanding of data and information and a way for us to take action. Mental models literally become neural pathways in our brain that shape how we naturally think, and form the foundation of our habits and actions. Over time, several big-picture concepts of models have been developed.

The first concept is the Rational model. The rational model thinker is driven by a need to gather as much information as possible to understand their world and to make a decision. Rational thinkers are driven to gain as much information, data, insight and understanding of a situation BEFORE acting. 

Some refer to a second model called by various terms such as muddling through or winging it. In my mind these are not really models, but more the absence of a model, or a lack of awareness. I really won't spend anymore time discussing this, as it is really not useful. 

The third way is what has been called Mixed-scanning. Those who ascribe to a mixed scanning approach will obtain enough information, context, advice, etc., that they think allows them to make a good decision for the next step. They will then move forward and try to gain as much information, data, insight and understanding of a situation AS and AFTER acting. Subsequent decisions will then get made in light of new conditions. 

If we want to obtain an integrated life, we need to learn to apply this third way thinking to our system. This model’s beauty and power comes in two forms. First it allows one to plan sufficiently and start taking action sooner. Second it allows us to be simultaneously deliberate and flexible. These are important qualities in making our life and work whole, to really use the Power in One.

Systems Thinking Defined

Systems Thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static “snapshots.” (Peter Senge) it can also be summarized as providing the user a unique perspective on reality. For our use of systems thinking as it applies to our life and work, this is important. It provides us with a fascinating framework to look at all pieces of our life as an interrelated whole. 

Systems Thinking is a new way to look at our life and work. Classic thinking falls into a category known as rational, or reductionist thinking. As knowledge has advanced over the centuries, our ability to deeply understand the basic science that makes up the world around us has increased through the rational model approaches. Under a rational approach, individual complex elements are broken down (or reduced) to their lowest constituencies, so these "simpler" items can be analyzed and understood. This is a excellent methodology for understanding and specialization. However, it present us with two key limitations. First, it tends to ignore essential interactions, and their effects, on the constituent element being analyzed. Second, applying this models assumes that we can have, or obtain, complete knowledge. We all know from the messiness of life that this second element is not possible in real terms. 

By applying systems thinking, we can look at the parts of our life as a whole, and we can accept that we don't know everything we need to know at any off our static snapshots. By accepting these realities we can plan to the best of our abilities (I.e. Not exhaustively), begin to act, and adjust our plan as this messy life happens. This allows us to be BOTH proactive, and reactive. This allows to be effective AND adaptable/flexible. This approach, or model, to planning and decision making requires a key paradigm shift in our approach. This allows us to model our approach around two “truths”; one, we can’t know everything before we start due to lack of time, resources or randomness, and then two, once we start, we’ll know more and can act more effectively in light of new information or understanding. 

In the next several posts we will discuss tools we can apply to execute the second approach. These posts will delve into the areas of our mental models, decision-thinking, and complexity-vs-simplicity. This will require some skeptical application of tools, since many are designed under the guise of the rational model. In other words, tools will only do part of the job. They will help us in four key areas; capture, understanding, planning and context. In the end we have to be aware of limitations and utility to make “the system” work for us.

Deep Dive into In Search of Excellence

This was a go back on a classic book from my early years in program management. Written and researched in the early- to mid eighties, it actually is still very relevant today. In fact, many organizations that struggle today, like MSFC, are those that have moved away from these principles that Peters and Waterman uncovered 30 years ago. 

Peters and Waterman were consultants in the San Francisco office of McKinsey and Company, and had been studying excellence in companies. This was in the period where American business had seen great erosion of excellence. Japanese companies form autos, to appliances to electronics had made huge inroads on the domestic (and international) market share of US companies. Yet, there were still excellent companies to be found in spite of the ravages of Global competition and a stubborn recessionary economy of the 1970’s. They pursued the essential question of Why? 

There findings were summarized into eight Principles that all of the excellent companies seemed to, at least at some level, share. They are; 

7. A Bias for Action - A preference for doing something - anything - rather than sending a question through endless cycles of analyses and committee reports.

8. Staying Close to the Customer - Learning their preferences and catering to them (not themselves).

9. Autonomy and Entrepreneurship - Breaking the organization into small units and encouraging them to think independently and competitively.

10. Productivity Through People - Creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and that they will share in the rewards of success.

11. Hands-on, Value Driven - Insisting that executives keep in touch with the organizations essential business.

12. Stick to the Knitting - They know, and stick to, what they know best.

13. Simple form, Lean Staff - Few administrative layers, few people at the top.

14. Simultaneous Loose-Tight Properties - Fostering a climate where there is dedication to central values of the organization, balanced by a tolerance of all employees who accept those values.

They found that these things were as firmly rooted in the theoretical fundamentals of human behavior, as they were counter to prevailing management norms of the day (and in many cases still being propagated some 40 years later). One interesting theoretical underpinning was from Ernest Becker. He argued man is driven by "dualism”; he needs to both be a part of something and to stick out. Becker pointed out that “what man fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance. Men fashion unfreedom as a bribe for self-perpetuation”. 

They also noted that there was a feature of excellent companies “their ability to manage ambiguity and paradox”. The problem with most of our approaches to management was they focused on measurement and analysis. They focused on a rational model approach, but completely ignored the art involved. The excellent companies were in their nature "irrational”. The excellent companies lead them to revise their tenets on size (economy of scale), precision (limits to analysis), and the ability to achieve extraordinary results with quite average people. 

Problems with the Rational Model

This was a particularly interesting part of the book to me (Chapter 2). It was obviously important to them to devote an entire chapter to it’s limitations and fallacies. They uncovered what they summarized were several significant issues, all of which the excellent companies had learn to overcome; 

1. The numerate, analytical component has an in-built conservative bias. Cost reduction becomes priority number one and revenue enhancement takes a back seat.

2. The exclusively analytic approach leads to an abstract, heartless philosophy.

3. To be narrowly rational is often to be negative.

4. Rationality does not value experimentation and abhors mistakes.

5. Anti-experimentation leads inevidently to overcomplexity and inflexibility.

6. The rationalist approach does not celebrate informality.

Man Waiting for Motivation

The central problem with the rationalist view of organizing people is that people are not very rational. In fact, if our understanding of the current state of psychology is even close to correct, man is the ultimate study in conflict and paradox. We have to deal with the the following contradictions that are built into human nature: 

1. All of us are self-centered, suckers for a bit of praise and we all think of ourselves as winners.

2. Our imaginative, symbolic right brain is at least as important as our rational, deductive left. We reason by stories at least as often as with good data.

3. As information processors, we are simultaneously flawed and wonderful. One the one hand we can hold only at most half a dozen or so facts at one time. On the other hand, our unconscious mind is powerful, accumulating a vast array of patterns, if we let it.

4. We are creatures of our environment, yet strongly driven from within.

5. We act as if express beliefs are important, yet actions speak louder than words.

6. We desperately need meaning, and will sacrifice a great deal to institutions that will provide meaning. We also simultaneously need independence, to feel like we have control, and a chance to stick out.

Many organizations fail to recognize these inherent paradoxes. They call for risk taking but punish even tiny failures. They want innovation but kill the spirit of the champion. With their rationalist hats on, they design systems that seem calculated to tear down their worker’s self-image. (My example here is a company detects an abuse by an infinitesimally small group, and cracks down with onerous policies that abuse the 99% who are trustworthy.)

The Power of Stories

A story is that little knot of connectedness which we call relevance. It is the WHY of something. Related findings include: 

1. We don’t pay attention to prior outcomes. History doesn’t move us as much as a good anecdote. We reason with data that come readily to mind (called the “availability heuristic” by Kahneman and Tversky) even if the data have no statistical validity.

2. If two events even vaguely co-exist, we leap to conclusions about causality.

3. We’re hopeless about sample size. We find small samples about as convincing as large ones, sometimes more so.

Simplicity versus Complexity

One of the key attributes of excellent companies is they have realized the importance of keeping things simple in spite of overwhelming genuine pressures to complicate things. 

1. They accept that humans are not good at processing large streams of new data and information. They have found that the most we can hold in short-term memory, with out forgetting something, is six or seven pieces of data.

2. The excellent companies focus on only a few key business values, and a few objectives. The focus on key values lets everyone know what’s important, so there is simply less need for daily instruction.

3. Excellent companies used scores of devices to keep things simple. In every instance they are ignoring the “real world”, the complex one. They are in, a real sense, being simplistic, not just keeping it simple.

4. They understand the “the mark of a true professional in any field is the rich vocabulary of patterns developed through he years of formal education and especially through years of practical experience.”

Positive Reinforcement

They took a lot from B. F. Skinner’s research into motivation they found that excellent companies more often than not had aptly applied his theories. Examples were: 

1. First it needs to be specific. The excellent companies tended to use activity based MBO systems (“Get the Rockville plant on line by July 17”) rather than financially based MBO’s.

2. The reinforcement should have immediacy.

3. The system of feedback mechanisms should take into account achievability.

4. The feedback comes in the form of intangible but ever-so-meaningful attention from top management.

Action, Meaning and Self-Control

In talking about action, the authors related a number of studies that were conducted in the mid-twentieth century that showed that getting people to act incrementally usually resulted in a stronger commitment. They referred to this as “front in the door” research” which demonstrates this. The implications of the line of reasoning are clear; only if you get people acting, even in small ways, the way you want them to, they come to believe in what they’re doing. “Doing things” (lots of experiments and tries) leads to rapid and effective learning, adaptation, diffusion, and commitment; it is the hallmark of the well-run company. 

Without exception, the dominance and coherence of culture proved to be an essential quality of the excellent companies. Moreover, the stronger the culture and the more it was directed toward the marketplace, the less the need was there for policy manuals, organization charts, or detailed procedures and rules. {on organization} The answer is that if companies do not have strong notions of themselves, as reflected in their values, stories, myths, and legends, people’s only security comes from where they live in the organization chart. The excellent companies are marked by strong cultures, so strong that you either buy into the norms or you get out. 

Finally, and paradoxically, the excellent companies appear to take advantage of another very human need - the need one has to control one’s own destiny. At the same time that we are almost too willing to yield to institutions to give us meaning and thus a sense of security, we also want self-determination. With equal vehemence, we simultaneously seek self-determination and security. 

Transforming Leadership

Here they drew much from James MacGregor Burns in his book Leadership. Burns identified two types of leadership; transactional, which is the necessary activities of the day, and transformational. Transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. This is all about the WHY and getting people to connect to it. This is about engaging people in a highly motivated construct to uniquely add value as only this organization can.

Managing Ambiguity and Paradox

Excellent companies know how to manage paradox. From McGregor’s theories (Theory X and Theory Y), the human relations school of management was born. The overwhelming failure of this movement was precisely its failure to be seen as a balance to the rational model, a failure ordained by its own silly excesses. Whereas the rational model was a pure top-down play, the social model became a pure bottom-up play. You pick one or the other. As a leader, you are authoritarian or you are democratic. In reality, you are neither and both at the same time. The clear starting point of their new theory was founded on acceptance of the limitations of rationality. Their new theory was based on: 

1. People’s need for meaning;

2. People’s need for a modicum of control;

3. People’s need for positive reinforcement, to think of themselves as winners in some sense;

4. the degrees to which actions and behaviors shape attitudes and beliefs rather than vice versa.

Excellent companies have figured out how to manage ambiguity. They have developed cultures that do things counter to conventional wisdom. They have figured out that “the very process by which a firm becomes most productive in an industry tends to render it less flexible and inventive”. The excellent companies understand that beyond a certain surprisingly small size, diseconomies of scale seem to set in with a vengeance. In conventional estimates of scale economies, we have vastly underestimated “transaction costs,” which means  the cost of communication, coordination and decision making. Large scaled organizations tend to forget how to learn and they quit tolerating mistakes. The company forgets what made it successful in the first place, which was usually a culture that encouraged action, experiments, repeated tries.

What Matters?

I believe there are many fundamental truths that are available to us all to guide our life and work. I found that there are profound principles in the world of systems management that can be applied to much broader, nontraditional audiences. 

Through my blogging here, I want to introduce these principles and develop their application in our life and work. I have to give a warning upfront, this is not always going to be a politically correct or socially sanitized. It however, is delivered in love and respect for everyone that reads it. Agree or disagree, you take no different station in my eyes or heart. My granddaddy used to say “reasonable people can disagree, but disagreeable people can never be reasonable”. I hope my writings can help us, together, to return to reason.

Moral Truths

There are moral truths that guide our life and our relationships to others. Indeed all of Western Civilization was originally founded on the basis of moral truths. There are many moral truths that people can ascribe as true, based on their beliefs or culture. in October 2000, writing in the  publication Counseling and Values, Richard Kinnier, Jerry Kernes and Therese Dautheribes developed “A Short List of Universal Moral Values”. I found these to particularly intriguing.

1. Commitment to something greater than oneself.
2. Self-respect, humility, self-discipline, and acceptance of personal responsibility.
3. Respect and caring for other individuals (i.e., The Golden Rule)
4. Caring for other living things and the environment.

It is interesting to note that none of these things are consistent with our media-focused, technology obsessed, social media centric modern world. None of them go to the heart of being popular, having the biggest McMansion, or the most toys.

Political Truths

Without the restraints of some higher moral law, democracy instinctively works against natural marriage, traditional families, and any other institution that creates bonds and duties among citizens. It insists on the autonomous individual as its ideal. These truths, I believe were the very foundation of our founding. Again if you look at the four fundamental moral truths above, none of them are based on the individual as supreme.

Indeed our republican government was established with this in mind. It was established to both release and restrain the individual and the collective. Our system of checks and balances at the federal level, and the balance between the federal and the state governments was meant to make government sufficient to enable liberty, but not supreme. I especially like the quote from Horatio Seymour , “The merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it.” Indeed unchecked democracy is the “tyranny of the mob”.

Individual Truths

I believe we are happiest and most effective when we are functioning as a whole person. We are made up of three elements; mind, body and spirit. Much like a three-legged stool, take away one and balance will be tricky, take two and you fall flat. Our body is our earthly vessel, indeed in the Bible it is our temple, the place of worship. Our mind is the core of our being. It is our thoughts, our emotions, our intellect and our passsion. Our mind makes us, at least partially, conscious and separates us from the animals. Our spirit is what makes us truly conscious and able to see ourselves as we really are, and see well beyond ourselves to greater good and higher purpose. In Christianity it is our spirit self that becomes of God, directed by his Holy Spirit, and seeks God by directing our mind and body.

In the end, I believe that every to person needs to integrate moral truths and a whole person approach to embrace a fullness in life This takes time and perspective, two things that are difficult to discern in an “always on” world we’ve chosen to make for ourselves. So clearly we need a new system to make our life and work have meaning and to work for us, and each other. In my Power of One series, I will explore these system approaches to life and work and making our life come together in a whole, logical framework.

My Re-Introduction

This is my return foray into the world of a blog. I want to use this space to share writings and ideas in the general theme of looking at life in a whole or “systems“ view.

First about me. I am an Alabama born, Mississippi raised southerner. I am a son of the South and I make no apologies for it, but I have lived and traveled well beyond the south. I spent nearly 40 years in the world of engineering in the nation space program, including almost 30 years with NASA. I am not, however, blogging in, or as a NASA official. This is my personal blog and is in no way the official policy of any organization. All of these thoughts, ideas and beliefs are my own and can be subject to change.

I am also a Christian, which means I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I do not condone any discrimination for those of other, or even no faith. I also don’t believe my faith must fail to permeate what I think, in order not to offend those who do not believe as I do. This will be a professional blog, and anything that doesn’t fit that will not be welcome here. I want to engage in the lost art of civil, reasonable discourse at all times.

I believe my experiences of working in complex projects over the years has helped to develop applications of techniques and models they can help others order their lives and work. My work is shown me that extremism is dangerous, extreme risk is bad, but extreme risk aversion is also detrimental. Reason and balance should always carry the day. So In my next post, I want to talk about what matters to me, and why I think it should matter to us all.

The Power In One Series- Introduction

I would like to embark on a new series here I call "The Power in One". In this we will discuss the ways we can use Systems Thinking to make sense and order of our complex world of work and life. The Power in One is about simplification, balance and flow. it is about taking a systematic view of our lives so we can focus on the most important aspects that makes us, well us.

Throughout the The Power in One, we will discuss not only what IS The Power in One, but what is NOT. This will be a recurring theme, because I think in simplifying things it is important to know what is, and isn't. When looking at things systematically, a system must be defined and it's boundary conditions understood. So the The Power in One is not another exposition on time management and productivity, although those are important aspects of any personal system. It is not the establishment of a new app, or fad, or a cult-like movement. It is simply (a key word) about applying some well-worn principles, in ways our modern lives have forgotten, to achieve some unity with the world around us.

The Power of One series will involve a number of posts following the four themes (plus a conclusion) below;

Systems Thinking

Self-Mastery

Self-Management

A New Model

Putting it All Together

I am actually using a systems thinking process and tools for these themes, which follow a tool known as an OODA Loop, for Observe (Who are we?), Orient (How do we see things?), Decide (What and How we'll deal with the world?) and Act (What we do.). I hope you will join me in this journey. Your comments and feedback are important and will make this a better journey for everyone.