management and self-management: the objective-subjective dimensions

Int. J. Man-Machine Studies (1981) 14, 151-167

Management and self-management: the objective-subjective dimensions

MIKE ROBINSON

Social Synthesis Unit, Cambourne, 61 Kings Road, Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey, U.K.

A distinction is made between the way the Law of Requisite Variety applies to systems involving human beings and systems that do not. It is claimed that a proper interpretation of the Law for human systems involves the use of auxiliary concepts, some of which have yet to be clarified. The auxiliary concepts are implicit in the theoretical work of Beer and his associates, but become explicit in practice. Two of these concepts are agreement and participation, which are almost always tacit rather than explicit. Human systems are only viable when they involve agreement and participation, and this is not accidental but tied to the nature of variety itself.

It is argued that the full development and exploration of these concepts (and others allied to them) will foreshadow a new paradigm for management science, the material basis for which now exists in current computing technology.

Our central theme:

When I first expounded the cybernetic model of any viable system to President Allende, I did so on a piece of paper lying between us on the table. I drew for him the entire apparatus of interlocking homeostats , in terms of the neurophysiological version of the model - - s ince he is by profession a medical man. It consists of a five-tier hierarchy of systems. I worked up throught the first, second, third and fourth levels. When I got to the fifth, I drew an histrionic b rea th- -a l l ready to say: "And this, companero presidente, is you". He forestalled me. " A h " , he said, with a broad smile, as I drew the topmost box: "a t l as t - - the people" . Stafford Beer (1975).

Chris Evans thought human beings would soon be living with the unth inkable- - the Ultra Intelligent Machine. With luck, these UIMs will obey Isaac Asimov 's three I.aws of Robotics (a sort of mechanical version of the marriage vows): love; obey, and put-yourself-last. I do not like the idea of the UIM, and am sure they could not be organized on the tribal lines suggested. This is not lat ter-day Luddism, but a certainty that this "pro jec t ion" excludes others that are more far reaching-- tha t have to do with social structure, with politics and management , with who and what we are. Let me support this contention with a critical quotation f rom one of the founding fathers of Speculative Electronics: Marshall McLuhan. 'Way back in 1964 he wrote:

The grocery interests have long foreseen the possibility of shopping by two-way TV, or video-telephone. William M. Freeman, writing for the New York Times service (Tuesday, October 15, 1963) reports that there will certainly be "a decided transition from today 's distribution vehicles . . . . Mrs Customer will be able to tune in on various stores. Her credit identification will be able to be picked up automatically

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via television. Items in full and faithful colouring w.ill be viewed. Distance will hold no problem, since by the end of the century the consumer will be able to make direct television connections regardless of how many miles are involved"�9

McLuhan then comments (McLuhan, 1964)

What is wrong with all such prophecies is that they assume a stable framework of fact-- in this case, the house and the store--which are usually the first to disappear.

The conceptual collision between Beer and Allende adumbrates the disappearance of the usual "stable framework of fact" that surrounds the debate on "societal implications of microprocessors". The "facts" in this case are the labour power of workers, the brain power of management, the culturally accepted recipe of fixed proportions between the two- -a pinch of management yeast to every pound of worker dough- -and an ill-thought out analogy between the replacement/amplification of muscle power by machines and the replacement/amplification of brain power by computers�9 All these "facts" are embedded in a nested set of myths which function as invisible, and hence unchallengeable, dogmas. There is such a thing as an individual. There is a distinction between the objective and the subjective. At the moment it is quite impossible to ta lk- -and make sense--without the use of these cognitive constructs. Yet is is precisely the use of the constructs and myths as a [ ramework that enables us to create the exponential curves of growth in computing power (or almost anything else). I do not think we are heading for a period of infinite growth per second, nor that we should jump up and down and flap our arms 'cos it's all too horrible to contemplate. I think we are scaring ourselves witless with our own reflection.

Can you imagine Heraclitus' contemporaries ' reaction to his pronouncement that it is impossible to set foot in the same river twice. "Silly old fart! Must have finally gone off his bat!" No wonder they put about the rumour that he slept on a manure heap (Kirk & Raven, 1957). Theoretical assaults on the obvious are likely to leave the challenger with egg on their face (Miller & Swift , '1979): and with good reason. Scientific revolutions take time to accomplish. There are all sorts of practical details and social processes that have to be worked through. Thomas Kuhn (1979) has provided many insights into the nature of these details and processes. Not the least important of these is the role of the anomalous "fact". We first have to ensure that it is anomalous, that it cannot be explained by "normal" science, and then there is a circular difficulty:

Assimilating a new sort of fact demands a more than additive adjustment of theory, and until that adjustment is completed--unt i l the scientist has learned to see nature in a different way- - the new fact is not quite a scientific fact at all.

This applies where there is a paradigm. In the absence of a paradigm:

� 9 early fact-gathering is usually restricted to the wealth of data that lie ready to hand. The resulting pool of facts contains those accessible to casual observation and experiment together with some of the more esoteric data retrievable from established crafts like medicine, calendar-making, and metallurgy. Because the crafts are one readily accessible source of facts that could not have been casually discovered, technology has often played a vital role in the emergence of new sciences.

In Management Science we suffer from the simultaneous presence and absence of a paradigm. Let me explain. We have a set of techniques for managing things, many of

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which are clustered under the heading of Operational Research. When these techniques are applied to people, they can be classified under the heading of "Taylorism". Taylorism functions as the paradigm of management science, and its unchallenged role has been brilliantly analysed by Mike Cooley (1980). It not only provides the key to understanding the methodology of capitalist management strategy--from Henry Ford's production line at Dearbourne to the latest frill in Computer Aided Design at Lucas Aerospace--it also underlies socialism management strategy from its inception under Lenin, who said of Taylorism (Lenin, 1965):

Like all capitalist progress is a combination of the refined brutality of bourgeois exploitation, and a number of the greatest scientific achievements in the field of analysing mechanical motions during work, the elimination of superfluous and awkward motions, the elaboration of correct methods of work, the introduction of the best system of accounting and control etc., the Soviet Republic must at all costs adapt all that is valuable in the achievement of Science and Technology in this field. The possibility of building socialism depends exactly on our success in combining the Soviet Power and the Soviet Organisation of Industry with the up-to-date achievements of capitalism. We must organize in Russia the study and teaching of the Taylor system, and systematically try it out and adapt it to our ends.

The results--and problems----of this application can be seen from the motor factory at Togliatti to the sugar-cane fields of Cuba. Taylor himself said (Taylor, 1906):

In my system the workman is told precisely what he is to do and how he is to do it, and any improvement he makes on the instructions given to him is fatal to success.

The paradigm is not usually expressed in such blunt terms, but most other formulations can be translated back to this original. Beer's modelt of any viable system (Beer, 1972, 1979) does assume hierarchical control and the usual "division of labour". This was almost inevitable given the cultural and economic contect of the theory, and its founding role in "management cybernetics".

The strength of Taylor's paradigm was that, in providing an entirely mechanistic conception of "the worker", it also proved an easily understood framework for the organization of industry. The system was composed, like a machine, of a number of simple components that could only be put together in a limited number of different ways. Once it had been put together, problems (defective components) could be removed and replaced without disturbing the rest of the system. Taylor thus provides a description--a way of understanding--and a set of prescriptions--ways of acting--that appear to cover all contingencies. Of course the notion of "system-as a whole" is missing; of course the notion of human being is missing. These are "not quite" seen as facts--and even where they were, there was no overall conception, no paradigm, that enabled them to be put together as a working system. In brief, there was no alternative practice.

It is here we face the simultaneous absence of a paradigm. In the Social Sciences, where it it claimed that human beings are "studied", there is no agreed represen- ta t ion-and certainly no human representation--that can be carried over into

f Note. Here, to make the argument clear, I am making a quite unfair distinction between Beer's model and his method of approach. Although there is a Taylorist interpretation of the Beer model, I will argue later that the model itself implies a fundamental shift of paradigm.

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Management Science as an alternative. Often the opposite. Social Science has imported assumptions from the physical sciences and from political ideology that leave it no alternative but to "rediscover" Taylorism at a new and apparently more sophisticated level. From the physical sciences comes the assumption that it is possible for the observer to stand outside the system being observed, and the assumption of possibility is hidden under the methodology that it is desirable for the observer to stand outside the system (or at least not "interfere" with it) and thus attain "objectivity". Yet the possibility of "objectivity" is implicitly challenged by much widely-known research. If we go back to Whyte's (1965) classic Street Corner Society--the origin of many models about the nature of social structure--we find a theoretical insistence on the neutrality of the participant-observer, combined with admissions that no such practice could be followed. Doc, a key figure in Cornerville, is reported as saying:

You've slowed me up plenty since you've been down here. Now, when I do something, I have to think what Bill Whyte would want to know about it and how I can explain it. Before, I used to do things by instinct.

Whyte's presence did change Cornerville. More importantly, the violation of the myth that the observer can stand outside the system did not invalidate the results. More recent examples can be taken from education and psychiatry. Pupil performance depends on teacher expectation (Keddie, 1971). A strong component in the classification of "mental illness" is the match or mismatch between the social class of the patient and the psychiatrist. We could multiply examples indefinitely of cases where the "observer" turns out to be an integral part of the system. What is lacking is a theory that accounts for this "closure" and short-circuits the infinite regress of "observers" that would otherwise open up. Von Foerster has demonstrated the philosophical absurdity of regarding any social system under observation as "objectively out there", and also characterized at least one parameter of an alternative formulation. The explanation of subjects must be found in mechanisms that enable them to turn their environments into trivial machines, not in environmental mechanisms that turn the subjects into trivial machines (Von Foerster, 1971). Pask has come out very clearly against the possibility of a social science (or, for that matter, a "natural" science) that depends on the postulate of an external observer (Pask, 1978), and given a good account of the limits, usefulness, and mode of construction of such a fiction (Pask, 1979). Unfortunately, the attempts of his group to construct an alternative--Conversation Theory (Pask et al., 1975; Pask, 1976)--have foundered on this very problem. Despite the introduction of many important and closely defined, novel concepts (for instance, "P-individual" and "agreement"), there is a constant vascillation between the theoretical rejection of the "external observer" and its pervasive implicit assumption by a sort of cultural osmosis. This duality of approach, even more than the private language employed, makes for much of the difficulty and intractability of Conversation Theory. The facts are "not quite" facts, and the temptation to butrress them with "real" facts proved too much.

The difficulties of creating theories ahead of practice are legion. We are now at that cloudy point where new theories are implicit in the old, and "not quite facts" are stirred in with "real facts". The area where this interweaving is most obvious--where a craft generates facts that could not have been casually discovered--lies in the social' application of computer technologies. In this paper, I am going to concentrate on one specific project--Cybersyn. We cannot expect to generate a theory from a single

M A N A G E M E N T A N D S E L F - M A N A G E M E N T 1 5 5

instance, but at this stage we are not looking for complete theories�9 We are looking for anomalous "facts"�9

I!

I am going to assume complete familiarity of the reader with Project Cybersyn. The development is far too important for anyone concerned with management science, with social organization, or with the relation between politics and technology to ignore, or to be half-aware of it. I am not going to encourage half-awareness by attempting to summarize the project. For one thing, I do not think it can be summarized. The details of practice are as important as the model and theory- -and at this point in history have not yet disentangled themselves. Cybersyn itself is described in four key papers by Beer (1974, 1975), Espejo (to appear), and Schwember (1977), and the underlying model is presented in two books by Beer (1972, 1979).

The task here is to highlight some contradictions that manifested themselves in the course of the project, to show how these recur in more recent, smaller-scale applications of the model, and to argue that these contradictions are the anomalous facts-- the "spaces" that appear when a new science starts to disentangle itself from the parapher- nalia of the old.

The major contradiction of Cybersyn is laid bare in the opening quotation: "at last--the people". That must have come as a hell of a shock. As Beer himself says (Beer, 1975):

�9 that story ought to convey a profound message. It deeply affected me, and it affects this work . . . . Society can no more afford the alienation of the people from the processes of government than it can afford their alienation from science.

The work then carried on as if "the people" had been substituted for "companero presidente". The conceptual leap outstripped the model, and the tensions between the two were reflected in practice.

Let us look at the matter a little more closely. Beer 's model of any viable system was developed as an extension of the science of Cybernetics into the field of management - - in the context of the Taylorist paradigm. One effect was to shift that paradigm up a level of abstraction, generality, and power. The concept that management is not fundamentally concerned with events, people, processes, or products, but with variety was revolutionary in itself. It facilitated the focusing of a whole new battery of cybernetic principles on the problems of management. Variety is quantifiable, and operations such as filtering and amplification can be applied to it. Above all, it is subject to the Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby, 1956). In the words of Ashby:

Only variety can destroy variety.

In machine terms this means that the maximum efficiency of a regulator in determin- ing outcomes is itself determined by the ratio of its possible states to those of the system to be regulated. In management terms, this means that effective management is only possible where the discrimination (range of options) open to the manager matches the range of states of the system to be managed.

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Espejo (1979a) puts the matter very well---in terms of a generaUy recognized prob- l em-when he says:

Managers, as any human being, have a limited capacity to deal with information. Moreover, they tend to operate in areas where the information proliferates at rates far greater than their capacity to absorb it. It is this very fact that suggests the need to design filters to attenuate the information reaching management. A central consideration is that, if companies are going to remain viable, this filtering process must be effective. If filtering implies keeping managers in ignorance of the situation in progress, the outcome is easy to imagine. The other extreme is also ineffective. If managers are overloaded with data containing the relevant information, they will recognize only part of this information--and it is possible that the most pressing problems of the company could be implicit in the unrecognised part.

Please note that I said "in terms of a generally recognized problem"�9 This problem-- managerial ignorance or overload--is set in the Taylorist tradition. The "solution" to the "problem" does more than provide a technique, although it is true that both useful techniques and means of assessing them are provided in plenty. The solution to the problem ultimately challenges the framework in which the problem is generated. This was the intuition that the Chileans had when they invited Beer, and not someone else, to help design a regulatory system for the Chilean economy in 1971. To quote Espejo again (Espejo & Watt, 1978):

Beer's concern was designing a comprehensive regulatory system . . . . His conception was not of a management information system for top decision makers, but a comprehensive design of information flows, communication channels and trans- ducers for the multiple layers of management in that complex situation.

We find, then, a theoretical emphasis on the system as a whole, an insistence on the importance of self-organization and self-regulation at all levels, and the structuring insight that it is the variety of the system as a whole (not of management alone) that must match environmental variety if the company/economy/"system" is to remain viable. We also find a tendency to revert, in explanation and description, to the managerial perspective of an earlier epoch. There is the consistent impression given that "participation" was somehow "tacked on" to the model of any viable system in Chile.

Contrast for instance the statements (Beer, 1975):

I went to Chile armed with a model of any viable system . . . . It had taken twenty years to develop, in modelling, testing, and applying to all manner of organizations.

and

�9 the systems I have to tell you about so far are designed for workers as well as ministers to use. Hence we are working on feedback systems to link the people to their government.

[My emphasis.] Or again (Schwember, 1977):

The structural model does not tell how participation of the individual, that is, the ultimate social control, can be achieved. Whatever progress was made in this Direction, was developed through the history of CYBERSYN in interaction with the

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political dynamics of the surrounding environment. The curly arrow in Fig. 2 was not contained in the original model. To which extent this arrow became existent and effective is part of the story that follows.

Examples of this dualism could be mult ipl ied--but that is beside the point. The task of unifying small disparities into a thematic contradiction is not undertaken in a spirit of criticism. It would be easy to say--and I have heard it said-- that Beer's approach is positivism run riot, and that any talk about participation was stirred in for political convenience. I believe this criticism to be one hundred percent wrong, and only superficially plausible. The truth of the matter is that the central thesis (and the model) contains a subjective/objective dialectic at its core - -and the workings of this dialectic result in apparent theoretical vascillation. It is my belief that the emergence of the importance of "part icipation" did not only flow from the very fluid political situation in Chile at that time. It was contained in the model from the very beginning, but needed a collision with a non-Taylorist practice to bring out its full importance.

I have stated that it is not my intention here to construct a theory, and I hold to that. I am trying to make a theoretical "point" that matches the anomalous "fact" of participation. The "point" is this. Variety is a subjective concept with an objective face. In the first Cybernetic account, Ashby wrote (Ashby, 1956):

It will be noticed that a set's variety is not an intrinsic property of the set: the observer and their powers of discrimination may have to be specified if the variety is to be well defined.

I do not believe the full significance of this observation has yet been realized by cyberneticians, let alone managers. Once variety has been well defined, it becomes possible to treat it as an objective category (and in calculations and design, as an objective quantity). It is this aspect of variety, which, when combined with its generality, makes it such an enormously powerful management tool. In terms of action, variety must be treated as objective. As I have said in a different context (Robinson, to appear a):

There are a certain number of states in the worm each of which calls for a different action--if some desired state of affairs is to be achieved or maintained. The "fact" that we may be wrong about the number of states in the world requiring action re-inforces this point.

In the same paper I argue that this conception of variety (the "Object ive") sets a definite limit to the range of applicability of traditional management techniques. In informal terms, these techniques exclude the possibility that management can come to grips with the intelligence of the work-force. Unambiguous, objective variety is fine when we are dealing with machines and other artefacts whose variety has been built into them--and thus cannot be other than well-defined. The transposition of these techniques to people both defines Taylorism and highlights its flaw. People are variety generators in their own right. The move towards ever more perfect regulation of people is only an apparent answer to systemic (industrial or productive) efficiency because it winds another spring. If people cannot use their intelligence, their "variety", within "the system"--according to the regulatory theory- - then they will generate variety within the system that falls outside the regulatory theory. Lenin's espousal of Taylorism goes a long way towards explaining why complaints of "indiscipline" are as common in the socialist as in the

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capitalist economies. And the answer to "indiscipline" is not more dollops of the same regulatory theory that was structurally responsible for creating it in the first place. Are we shifting ground? Can we see that "indiscipline" is not a fact but a concept that points to a theoretical structure that is usually invisible because it is almost universally assumed?

Variety is the heart of the Beer model, and everything else flows from an understanding of it. Thus the subjective nature of variety, and the need to make the subject ive/object ive t ransformation in order to use the model, is also at its core. Where the systems involve people, agreement (in the strong sense of Pask, ment ioned earlier) is essential before variety can leap the subject ive/object ive d iv ide--a t which point management becomes possible. Before this stage is reached, variety has not been well-defined. Management is impossible because the situation to be managed l!terally does not exist. [Which is not to say that there is not a situation which a manager might appear to be managing, for a t ime at least. This simply reflects a partial agreement between the manager and his /her managers, or, less often, a partial agreement between the manager and the workers. The dynamics of such partial agreements, and their tendency to erupt into covert or overt violence is analysed in The ILSA Effect (Roberts & Robinson, 1980)]. But let us return to the "point" .

Agreementt is necessary in systems involving more than one person before variety can be well-defined and before management becomes possible. Because variety, in its full cybernetic sense, is at the heart of the Beer model, so is agreement. A prerequisite of agreement is dialogue---or "part icipat ion". Participation emerged from the model itself as soon as it was put into practice. In no way was it " tacked on". It is the essence of the successful implementat ion of the model, and to conceive of it as an optional extra is entirely to miss the point.

That is my anomalous fact.

I I I

Micro-Cybersyn is the term I use to describe post-1973 at tempts to use the Beer model at a lower level than a national economy--usua l ly with small to medium sized companies and organizations. Some of these are described in Beer (1979) and Espejo (1979a,b). Here I want to examine another "single instance" in some depth. The aim is to show how the subjective and objective aspects of variety were equally central in diagnosing organizational problems, and in taking action to remedy them. In the first instance it was necessary to help in the creation of an agreed situation before any action could be taken at all. An essential part of the task was the t ransformation of subjective to objective variety.

The study in question was conducted by the Social Synthesis Unit (Robinson, 1980) for a Medical Counselling Service that we will call P A R A M E D I C .

t Note. It should be emphasized that this concept of agreement covers both tacit and explicit agreements. Tacit agreements are far more common and often more profound and far-reaching than explicit agreements. In the non-Pask sense, explicit agreements--for instance, Contracts--can often be misleading, and divert attention away from the real agreements that keep the organization in being and enable it to cope with its environment.


P A R A M E D I C was a registered charity, and had been providing medical counselling for more than 10 years at the time of the study. Over this time it had developed its own ideology and style of working. The dominant ethos was co-operative. All major policy decisions, and many minor ones, were made by an elected committee. The organization was small (involving at most 40 people) and the policy committee was relatively large (10 or more people). Everyone within the organization was eligible to sit on the policy committee. More importantly, the decisions and their contexts were freely available to everyone in the organization. This information was an ordinary part of everyday interaction. Everyone knew someone on the committee personally. This method of operation gave P A R A M E D I C great flexibility. Suggestions could rapidly be taken up and tested. Internal change and adaptation provided no difficulty. In the course of time, and by a selective employment policy, all members of the organization came to know the "operat ing program" [in the sense of Barker (1968)]. The formal structure was supported by, and largely integrated with the informal structure.

Then P A R A M E D I C took over a c l in ic - -Rose-House- - to extend its service and provide aftercare for its clients.

Rose-House had been in existence for a similar length of time, and had its own ideology and working style. P A R A M E D I C was a non-profit charity. If income was greater than expenditure, the surplus was disbursed to clients in the form of grants. The tradition of Rose-House, on the other hand, was solidly in "Private Practice". It existed to make a profit. It was sold because it was not making enough profit. Its organization reflected this aim. There was a clear and rigid distinction between the owners and the staff. The "operat ing program" was centralized in the owners, who made all major decisions with as little consultation as possible. Productivity, not service, was the major consideration. Wages were scaled accordingly. Sick leave was unpaid. Responsibility followed a strict "chain-of-command" hierarchy. This form of organization was understood, and it worked.

When P A R A M E D I C took over Rose-House there was an immediate financial and organizational crisis. The financial crisis was straightforward. The client flows were mismatched, and the charges insufficient to cover the new costs. The remedy was relatively easy. The organizational problem was more complicated, and rooted in the disjoint traditions. Before action could be taken, the variety of the situation to be managed had to be specified. It was not "an intrinsic property of the set", and the observers' powers of discrimination were the problem. There were (at least) two "sets", depending on which side you were on. A prescription that would work for one side (because they agreed with it) would cause an immediate foul-up when applied to the other side.

The structure of the organizational problem was based on an asymmetry of power and an asymmetry of meaning. The power relations were that P A R A M E D I C found itself in the bosses' s lot--which was kind of odd for a co-operative grouping. This facilitated the imposition of the language of P A R A M E D I C on Rose-House--wi th both sides retaining the old meanings.

The concept of the primacy of "caring" was imposed by P A RA MED IC, but their interpretation was not. "Caring" was accepted by Rose-House as an alternative description of the "profitable efficiency" that they already practised. It was not seen as calling for changes in practice or emphasis. Similarly, the battery of P A R A M E D I C concepts to do with staff involvement were imposed in linguistic form, but not as a

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practical interpretation. "Staff involvement" was linked with ideas of responsibility, flexibility, co-operation, tolerance, and it was considered that above average working conditions were an essential factor in the process.

In line with this ethic, immediate changes made by P A R A M E D I C at the time of the take-over should be mentioned. All the Rose-House staff were retained. Wages were raised, sick leave instituted, and Contracts of Employment (with annual increments, terms of redundancy, and so on) were introduced. There was also a transitional period of several months during which no clients were seen at Rose-House, although all staff remained on new pay at the new levels. There can be no doubt that in purely statutory and economic terms conditions were much improved. It therefore came as something of a shock to P A R A M E D I C to find that they were regarded with hostility and suspicion by Rose-House staff.

The hostility was rooted in "subjective" not "object ive" conditions. From the Rose-House point of view, the cluster of concepts associated with staff involvement had a negative interpretation. "Consultat ion" by the Director (seen as belonging to P A R A M E D I C ) was seen as "indecisiveness". Flexibility was taken for confusion. Co-operat ion and discussion were taken as slackness and gossip. Improved working conditions meant that P A R A M E D I C was seen as a "soft touch" and did not result in an increase in "responsibility" but a decrease in ef for t - -and an increase in complaints about the decreased effort. These complaints were taken seriously by P A R A M E D I C (interpreted as "participation") and a self-perpetuating cycle of disaffiliation and discontent came into being. The asymmetry was closed. The language of PARAME- DIC was generally used, but was incapable of describing the different interpretations within it.

In terms of variety, the situation can be seen in the following simplified way. One- to-many mappings were seen as one- to-one mappings, and one- to-one mappings were seen as many-to-one or as one- to-many mappings. A definite instruction (1 : 1) could be obtained from a different P A R A M E D I C member in different words and so became indefinite (M : 1). The variety of the situation was amplified to allow Rose- House to find an interpretation that matched their own t radi t ion--and often "contradicted" the original instruction. On the other hand, a general instruction (1 :M) would be interpreted, rigorously, for the wrong specific case (1 : 1). "Try to economize" ( I : M ) became "don ' t repair the burst pipe because it costs money" (1 : 1!)-- to name but one ludicrous example. Communication was lost in a howl of positive feedback. To try and apply "object ive" variety management techniques in this situation would have been an unmitigated disaster.

Some internal attempts to break the cycle only succeeded in reinforcing i t -- providing a precise organizational analog to the eruptions of interpersonal violence from apparent consensus described by The ILSA Effect (Roberts & Robinson, 1980). There was an attempt, enforced by the asymmetry of power, to override the "operating program" of Rose-House by fiat. This was only unusual in that, instead of the usual at tempt to impose a dominance hierarchy on an egalitarian system, it was an attempt to impose eglitarianism on a dominance hierarchy. In both cases the subjectivity of those on the receiving end is violated. This account cannot be simply identified with classical organizational concepts of co-operat ion/dominance or heterarchy/hierarchy.

The consequence of the violation of subjectivity is resistance, and the response to resistance is sanction. In the P A R A M E D I C / R o s e - H o u s e case the resistance was


effective non-co-operation, and the sanctions took the form of "warnings" and "threats of warnings". ("Warnings" were the beginning of a formal-contractual process that could terminate in dismisal.) Dismisal is clearly the organizational parallel of anni- hilation in the interpersonal mode.

From a systems point of view, the situation was simplified by the existence of the Rose-House hierarchy. Only those at the higher levels carried commitment to the "operating program". Those were the people who were more threatened. They were also the people with whom PARAMEDIC interacted most, and co-opted onto the policy-making committee. This meant that the implicit conflict was impOrted into the highest level of decision making, where it could be sensed (a generalized feeling of discontent) but not expressed.

The general solution to the problem was to provide an organizational model that both sides could understand and agree on. This was easier said than done. Nevertheless, without this there would have been no situation to manage. The model had to cut across, and yet account for, the conflicting models already held. The immediate lever was the financial crisis. That, at least, was agreed. Analysis of its causes enabled an organizational picture to be drawn that did provide a new model, as well as pointing to the necessary actions to relieve ~he financial problems. The analysis was based on a straightforward use of the Beer model, and came up with three related issues. The organization, at the operational level, was not composed of two parts but of four. Two were seriously neglected, and one operational section was trying to provide management for the whole organization. On top of this there was a total absence of any sort of planning. Lastly, and related to this, the functions and intentions, even the identity of management was unclear. Beer's Systems 1 to 5 had all collapsed togethe~ into an undifferentiated heap.

The one advantage of this confusion was that it gave the consultants a much freer hand. The suggested organizational model did not run into "bureaucratic" vested interests. The financial crisis provided an opportunity to introduce the model as an "objective description"--which it was, since the cash problems were agreed. Having been introduced, the model then facilitated the solution of the problems of subjective variety by providing a framework of co-ordination and action. Action (and "information" about action) could be unambiguously interpreted by everyone with reference to the model. The influence of the old models began to recede.

This is not the time to go into the details of what was done. It suffices to say that a Planning Section was created. Its initial function was to provide "environmental intelligence" that would anticipate and forestall future financial crises. More importantly (!) it enabled extra channels of communication to be opened between the lower levels of the Rose-House hierarchy and the predominantly PARAMEDIC management. One consequence of dealing with the "higher" levels of the hierarchy was that the hierarchy itself was reinforced. The position was akin to a classic "double-bind" (Bateson, 1978). Staff had been expected to disassociate themselves from hierarchical concepts--yet they held their positions on the policy committee because of their position in the hierarchy. Most important of all, the new model encouraged a Debate throughout the organization on the organization. From this Debate came the agreement on which action could be planned. Management became possible.

In this account, I have stressed the problems of subjective variety. This is partly to try and counterbalance the emphasis that is often placed on "objective" problems. It is also

1 6 2 M. R O B I N S O N

intended to forestall an interpretation of the Beer model (not implicit in the original) as a " t ru th" about the world. It provides a coherent set of rules and techniques that will work- -and work very wel l - - i f they are agreed. Dia logue-- the transformation of subjective to objective variety--is central to the successful use of the model.

IV

The conception of the subjective/objective dialectic is not without problems of its own. Here I want to indicate some of these problems and demarcate them from the class of problems that arise with traditional management technique.

First of all, the notion of dialogue, of participation, is, in the old context, problematic and highly controversial-- to say the least. I have argued that traditional techniques, broadly characterized as "Taylor ism" are fundamentally incapable of coming to grips with the intelligence of the work-force. [For a more technical presentation of the argument, see Plotting & Planning (Robinson, to appear)]. This means, to put it quite bluntly, that I do not believe Cybersyn (Micro- or Macro-) is applicable in situations where traditional capitalist relations of production (ownership versus the sale of labour power) hold. This position can be supported from several angles. In the first place classical ownership re la t ions--no matter how smoothly things might appear to be going--support the constant generation of dual perspectives on the whole point of the existence of the organization. This d isagreement-- the proliferation of subjective variety--is inevitable and unmanageable. Cybersyn questions the basis of industrial and social organization, not as a " theoret ical" position, but as an alternative practice. If this is not a convincing argument, try reflecting on the implications of Beer 's own argument that efficiency and management are only made possible by the creation of a transparent economy. Thus, on the small scale, Cybersyn is applicable to co-operatives; on the large scale to planned or socialized economies. This is not, of course, a problem for Cybersyn, only for those organizations that cannot use it because their structure excludes the possibility of free dialogue. For them, there is no alternative to Taylorism.

The first point, then, is that Cybersyn-type methods are not applicable to all management situations, but to a limited set of them. The methods are applicable in cases where the situation is agreed, or in cases where there are no structural impedi- ments to dialogue and agreement. In turn, this means that the involvement of the workers and staff in the design of the indices and flow-charts that form the specific model of the organization is mandatory. As Schwember puts it (Schwember, 1977):

The answer requires some understanding of the philosophy of the whole approach and a lot of experience and insight of the process itself. And consequently, it should be the co-operative work of the systems expert with the plant worker.

If we take it that a theoretical account of agreement can be provided [and Pask has gone a long way in this direction (Pask et al., 1975)] then "should", in this quotation, takes a much stronger value. It has to do with the initial necessity of a subjective/objective transformation.

A second point now arises. The subjective/ob/ective trans[ormation is reversible. Agreement characterizes a "momen t " (which in terms of duration may range from a few seconds to an epoch, and may cover two people or a whole population). Continuing agreement, or a succession of different "moments of agreement" , can only be supported


by continuing dialogue. As yet we have very little experience of such processes. Before Cybersyn the initiation of "continuing dialogue" has been based on political intuition, ~Jad sometimes on principled political intuition. The products of such a dialogue have often been innovatory and significant. Roger Hay, for instance, provides a very interesting account of the book-keeping and accounting system practiced in China. He notes that it is efficient, well integrated with the planning, implementation, and monitoring apparatus, that it is "open", and that there are "many features of the system that militate against the falsification of records" (Hay, 1979). Unfortunately, one cannot avoid the historical lesson that large-scale dialogue has always been abruptly, and often violently, halted. After Cybersyn, I believe the arguments in favour of "continuing dialogue"t have been immeasurably strengthened. Nevertheless, there is still much practical and theoretical work to be done before we can be said to have established a paradigm, let alone a "normal science".

The importance of the continuing dialogue is that it gives life to agreement, provides the possibility of maintaining the subjective/objective transformation that makes variety management itself possible. This in turn goes back to the original point: "at lastwthe people". It makes especially poignant the problem that we do not have a developed methodology or model for dealing with this last "closure" (Schwember, 1977):

The problem of continuous survey of the reaction of the workers and the public at large was a source of permanent concern for the CYBERSYN team. No tool exists for this purpose anywhere, besides the public opinion polls. The limitations of these methods, and the cost of carrying a continuous poll left this possibility out of consideration.

It is here, as much as in dealing with the problems of "objective" variety, that electronic and computer technologies must play a vital role. This is a role that is not inevitable, not a simple extrapolation of the "existing" situation [see Social Chips? (Robinson, 1979a) for an expanded account of this point]. But it is a role that does not assume the persistence of a "stable framework of fact".

Let me illustrate this by counterposing an unresolved problem to a "technical possibility". The problem is a problem of participation and can be precisely specified in the following way: can the possibility of periodic monitoring be reconciled with the need for continuous monitoring in a viable system? The dilemma is that to maintain the subjective/objective transformation (the continuing dialogue which is itself necessary for systemic viability) there is a need for real social control. The debate must be capable of leading to action. But control from the base can only be "impulsive" or "periodic", while the system itself will need continuous monitoring. On the other hand, the person or group doing the continuous monitoring will end up with effective control--which in turn could precipitate a decay of the "objective" variety in the system; a reversal of the subjective/objective" transformation.

It do not believe the solution to this problem is an empirical matter, a case for "finding the right balance". It calls for a theoretical innovation that will be far from simple, and will take into account a whole number of social processes that are only just beginning to be understood. For instance, I have "discovered" that under normal (or non-crisis)

t Note. This does not mean "dialogue" with an aggressor.

164 M. R O B I N S O N

circumstances, volutary attendance at meetings can be "anticipated" by the following formula (Robinson, 1977, to appear b):

Total Number of Number of +�9 / membership

people = formal roles present V ofthegroup

which means that the usual run of meetings are not well attended, or as McLuhan put it (McLuhan, 1964):

The price of eternal vigilance is indifference. The problem also turns up, in a slightly different guise, for Micro-Cybersyn appli-

cations. In the PARAMEDIC example that I cited earlier the staff themselves raised the problem by opening a discussion on the "role" of the Director. How could the necessary (internal and external) authority of a Director be reconciled with the reality of participation and "collective control". To state the problem in terms of "periodic versus permanent monitoring" gives us a way of identifying it--but it may be a false dichotomy. Until we have far more social information, we will simply not know. The question is important, but lies outside current paradigms and research programs. All I can do here is take the question a little way from the realm of "not quite facts" to a position where research can be initiated.

The technical possibility" that can be counterposed to this problem is gleaned from Pask (1976). Distinguishing the notion of "subject" from "individual human being", he writes:

� 9 stable conceptual systems not uncommonly exist in several, maybe many, brains over which they are distributed, (cultures, schools, of thought, traditions, social institutions). Hence, cultures A and B may "converse", or people may converse with cultures, and so on.

and later

Methods of conversation through a mechanical interface, most fitted to one or two subjects, have been extended to small group operation in the learning/teaching environment, and are currently used in team operations for decision/design environments (including such activities as planning and theory building). In other words there is no difficulty in going from two person to several person interaction, using computers as distributive media, and no other-than-technical limitation in contemplating nation-wide or industry-wide systems.

I am sure that the "no other-than-technical limitation" is wildly optimistic. Neverthe- less, the possibilities of using computer networks to conduct meaningful mass con- versations--forming and reforming conceptual structures, monitoring moments of agreement and drawing attention to disagreement, amplifying our abilities to plan by discussion--are immensely attractive. It may be that only advanced computing technologies can provide the infrastructure for a genuine democratic process (Robin- son, 1979b) In this process people would be participants in the creation of plans not just the objects of plans�9 This symbolic development would be far more exciting, far more human, and (in my view) far more intelligent than current projections about so-called Ultra Intelligent machines.

This type of development should begin to provide us with the sort of "facts" we need to begin to answer questions like that of periodic versus permanent monitoring. It is also


likely that many frameworks will have to be changed--among them those that I mentioned at the start of this paper: that there is such a "thing" as an individual; that there is a distinction between the objective and the subjective. To go further than this speculation would be to try and anticipate a theory that I have already said we have not got.

V

I have argued that a symbiotic development of computing techniques is more "desirable" and more socially useful than the development of supposedly "indepen- dently intelligent" machines. The latter fit into a Taylorist regulatory project that cannot, by its nature, deal properly with the fundamental concept of variety. Symbiotic projects, on the other hand, deal with matters of self-organisation and self-regulation-- a far more tenable basis for the creation of viable complex systems. Various facts and "not quite facts" have been adduced in support of the argument.

Traditional management techniques have to some extent been parodied. Here again it is useful to distinguish between the paradigm or model and the "approach". Very often the success of "objective" techniques depends on an accompanying approach that can go a long way to meet the subjective variety of the situation. Horabin & Lewis' (1977) Ordinary Language Algorithms, as a model, fits neatly into the objective regulatory tradition. OLA's flowed from research into the nature and origins of error in skilled human performance. Lewis discovered "time and time again" that:

"poor performance among workers" was due almost entirely to the fact that nobody had taken the trouble to tell them, in sufficiently clear terms, how to perform correctly.

The OLA model was already a large step away from the mechanistic conception that attempted to trace error to "over-dependence on unreliable cues, misinterpretation of feedback, and the like". But there is a danger that if we take the model alone, and tell people precisely what to do, then it will not work (because it has become a purely "objective" technique). The Lewis & Horabin approach provides the subjective aspect that meant Ordinary Language Algorithms did work and were effective. Lewis identified a (subjective) theoretical issue. He termed it the "issue of specificity" and illustrated it by reference to legal Algorithms (Pask & Robinson, 1980).

If you are too precise, people can evade the law by producing categories that fall outside it. If you are too vague, then it is not clear whether any judge would uphold your regulations. The problem of specificity runs through the whole attempt to algorithmicise any area whatsoever.

We noted the same problem of objective technique in the PARAMEDIC case (where it was characterized as a confusion between one-many and many-one mappings in the absence of agreement). Beer (1979) has also noted the often pathological response of management to this problem. When a regulation is not obeyed, more precise regulations are produced--which are in turn evaded. Which results in the production of whole volumes of further regulations, and so on. This organizational disease is picturesquely termed "hypertrophy of the command axis".

166 M. ROBINSON

Where traditional management techniques work, I would claim it is because the approach provides the subjective aspects that are missing in the model. I also believe that we are rapidly approaching the limits of this "limited saccess" because of the very scale and complexity of the social systems with which we now have to deal. Until it is recognized that the subjectivities as well as the objectivities are exponentiating, we will continue to "scare ourselves witless with our own reflection".

Vl Conclusion

I have tried to show how the "not quite facts" of participation and agreement can supplement the classical concept of variety in distinguishing between successful and unsuccessful "management techniques" of the past. These concepts should be given explicit consideration in the design of management systems of the future.

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management and self-management: the objective-subjective dimensions

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