Systems rich pictures and complexity
Robin Matthews

One of the themes of the strategy into action course has been complexity. Figure A1 is a rich picture of a complex system that contains complex subsystems. Complex systems is illustrated in figure 1 contained large numbers of inter-connected elements, that must be seen as a whole rather than as disconnected parts. New properties emerge from  complex systems that are quite different from the parts considered independently.

Organisations are complex systems, networks of assets that are linked in order to create synergy and feedback. We can also think of the balance business scorecard as a framework of interconnected nodes, customers, staff, finance and so on, their purpose being to enable managers to measure actual against target performance.

Networks can be used to illustrate many complex systems; connections between assets or functions of people or teams in a business firm or relationships between family members, or actors in movies, stage plays or TV programmes, or pieces in the board game or stages in a strategy roadmap. As elements are connected in a complex system the properties emerge that could not be predicted by examining the parts separately.

The rich picture we drew showed that links could take many forms: some of them from hard systems and some involving soft systems. The value chain is linked by hard systems: hard systems such as the internet and intranets, production and performance data, and soft systems such as relationships, gossip, rumour, body language and shared their culture. 

Systems = Organizations = Networks

The examples above and many more networks consist of nodes (vertices) and linkages (edges). The brain is a network made up of something like hundred billion neurons. Neurons communicate information to one another across synapses using neurotransmitters that enable receive and transmit electrochemical signals. Neurons consist of dendrites that take in signals from other neurons, and axons that carry information to other neurons. Learning emerges as synoptic connections grow stronger.	

Figure 1

Figure 1 which was intended to illustrate an organisation as a system or network and figure A2, which is like a photographic negative that focuses on the underling system and sub systems.

Figure 2

Lionel asked a real question about the nature of the information and signals that transmit information. The purple section in both figures are, entitled grammar. The first, 1 conveys the variety of transmission mechanisms.