Using Systems Theories As A Way To Understand Problems In Organizations

To summarize and apply our study of systems theories as a lens for organizational life, the following provides a set of core questions a systems consultant would ask to guide the analysis of organizations. These questions can also be used to guide you analysis of the problem being examined in your own case study.

• Core Questions of Systems Consultants

  
  

  1. What is the cycle of production for this organization? i.e., what are we about as an organization?

  - What do we bring in (input), how do we use it and form our products (throughput), and what do we send out into the larger world (output)?
  - What are the feedback mechanisms?
  - What are we doing to reverse the entropy of the system?
  - How do we decide between possible options (equifinality)?

  2. What is our "proper place" in the broader society and economy?

  - The issue is genotypic function (Productive, Maintenance, Adaptive, Managerial/Political), what is our place?

  3. How do we balance our need for "profit" with a long term view of what we need to "survive"?

  - The issue here is the Maximization Principle.
  - How do we storing, re-invest, build public relations, etc.

  4. How are we scanning our organizational environments?

  - What "sectors" do we scan?
  - How do we make sense out of these out of the environmental sectors that we scan?