General Electric and Cybernetics Principles - Essay Example

Running Head: G.E. AND CYBERNETICS PRINCIPLES General Electric Using Cybernetics Principles [The [The of the ] General Electric Using Cybernetics Principles Introduction Considering as a field of studies, Professor Norbert Wiener and a team of engineers composed Computer Ethics during the 1940's World War II era. Their project was to evolve a weapon that would track down an airplane, calculate the planes heading, and transfer this data to another section of the weapon, which would then consequently fire the missile. The challenge in engineering this project provided insight to Wiener and his colleagues to create this new branch of science called cybernetics. Cybernetics has been defined as the science of information involving in feedback systems. The concepts of cybernetics, when combined with the digital computers being created at that time, led Wiener to draw some insightful ethical conclusions. He perceptively foresaw innovative social and ethical consequences. In this new century, the global economy has entered an Information Technology era in which globalization and internet-based communication network have forced all large enterprises and companies to inevitably face with the challenge of multiple venture management, including production management, strategic management, and capital management. (Ashby, 1956) The common essence for these enterprises is the uncertainty of management outcome. That is the reason why the manager cannot find a long-term and changeless way for fluctuate business environment and management objects. The theory of opportunity cybernetics and decision harmonizing in this paper is designated to overcome the difficulties of modern enterprises with multiple venture management. In the following, we will introduce several exceptional phenomena that affect the multiple venture management in the competitive global market. Then, we will outline the basic concepts and modeling of opportunity cybernetics and decision-harmonizing theory. Finally, an example of General Electric Company is shown to illustrate the practice of this theory in the real world. Cybernetics The science of cybernetics emerged during the 1940s as a part of the systems thinking movement. Norbert Wiener was the founding driver of contemporary cybernetics, working primarily on machine systems. Others have subsequently developed his work extensively in the modern field of robotics. Wiener's group was interdisciplinary, bringing together mathematicians, biologists, operational researchers and physicists in a groundbreaking approach to developing a unified science for solving complex problems. Stafford Beer has for nearly forty years led the development of cybernetics in the study of organizations, creating the branch that we now call 'management' or 'organizational' cybernetics. (Beer, 1985) This paper is concerned with the theory and principles of cybernetics and the relationship of the discipline to the achievement of quality in organizations. The focus is on the specific implementation and usage of cybernetics with its outcomes on General electric. Organizations are conceived here as societies, composed of people and existing as the product of their actions, interactions and of the technical artifacts which link and support them. Early work, from which the cybernetic principles were developed, addressed such diverse fields as automation, computing and radar, and built upon earlier discoveries such as Watt's steam engine governor, which are used to illustrate what Jackson (1991) has called 'management cybernetics'. Organizational cybernetics builds upon and draws ideas from that fundamental work, but 'breaks somewhat with the mechanistic and organismic thinking that typifies management cybernetics'. Viable System Model (VSM) The VSM is a model that in Beer's argument encapsulates effective organization. It is a model of any viable system, biological or social. The VSM stipulates rules whereby an organization is; 'survival-worthy'-it is regulated, learns, adapts and evolves. It is an organization constructed around five main management functions-operations, co-ordination, control, intelligence and policy. Beer respectively labels these systems one to five. The key to their organization is a set of laws of interconnection in the form of a complex of information and control loops. (Beer, 1985) The VSM employs, amongst other things: amplifiers to increase impact of activities where needed; attenuators as activities to absorb variety; and transducers to translate information into a usable form as it passes, for example, between functions. The VSM employs an interdisciplinary law, that all distinct organizations contain themselves, which Beer calls recursion. Another critical principle is that each contained organization, and each of the five functions, which it comprises, must be allowed as much autonomy as possible whilst maintaining the integrity of the whole. For 'management and organization', it sets out details of how enterprises might work in contrast to organizational charts that Beer rejects as merely devices for apportioning blame (pitching in cybernetic logic against hierarchical logic). The model separates out the main operations of an organization organized as divisions. It specifies the relationship between these divisions and the remaining four management functions that serve them-co-ordination, control, intelligence and policy. Operations (system one) perform the primary activities of the organization, that is, it works to achieve what the organization is set up to do. System dynamics might be employed to model the operations as processes and to investigate their efficiency and reliability. (Beckford, 1993) Operations comprise a number of divisions each with operational managers. Each division is considered to be a viable system in its own right. Viability here means that each division holds a guarantee of continuity that it too is survival worthy. Each division is allowed as much autonomy as possible whilst maintaining the integrity of the whole. A division is connected to an operational environment, amplifying its own impact on the environment and attenuating variety entering from the environment. The divisions are serviced through four management service functions which are coupled by transducers, and which attenuate variety as information flows 'upwards'. (Vidgen, 1997) Recursion Recursion means that the whole can be found in the parts. That is, whole viable systems can be found as divisions of a viable system (the divisions that make up operations, which is system one in Beer's terminology). A viable system is itself a part of a larger viable system. Recursion offers a novel way in which a shared vision and related policies can penetrate an organizational activity. Shared vision or identity is determined by the policy function using a participatory method. At higher resolution recursive levels, the shared vision is interpreted within the identity of the whole and is subsequently implemented. Using a recursive design aims to avoid the negative effects of coercive structures. Recursion implements through management function, whereas traditional hierarchy implements by management authority. Recursion for example promotes autonomy. The parts have as much independence as is possible given the constraints that exist when co-coordinating and controlling to maintain a whole. The viable system organization allows for participation to be fulfilled in terms of functions. For example, channels for resource bargaining exist between operations and control. Vertical loading is encouraged. This means loading down responsibility to the 'lowest level' at which it can be managed. Task formation is encouraged to produce whole jobs and to reverse mechanical, reductionist tendencies. People consequently take responsibility over their work. They can determine the needs of their customers and work out for themselves how this best can be achieved. A customer is any person or group who we provide with a product, service or information. Job grouping is encouraged to bring together efforts that are naturally related. This would gather sets of jobs, for example, by geographical location, client type, or some other logical grouping. To overcome the danger of risk aversion, management must develop a cultural environment where risks can be calculated and minimized, and where learning from mistakes is encouraged, perhaps incorporating ideas of the learning organization. (Senge, 1990) Variety The perspective and tools of systemic thinking feature strongly in team learning. In particular, the tools of systemic thinking bear relevance to many forms of team learning. Take management teams as an example. The primary task of all management teams is dealing with complexity. Management teams deal with a variety of complex situations. Attention may be directed towards possible structures that support the learning organization. Management teams inquire into the future through strategic visioning and policy analysis. The trouble is that conventional analysis tends to employ language that seeks to analyze such situations as somewhat static, relatively simple situations. Systemic thinking offers a language through systems archetypes that help people get to grips with dynamic complexity. It helps to bring together people's mental models in a shared systemic language, generating team learning and understanding, and a shared sense of purpose. Stability Stability describes the ability of an organization to 'manage' itself towards its purposes or goals while interacting with environmental disturbance. An example is the maintenance of body temperature in humans and warm-blooded animals. The temperature control system behaves in an autonomous manner, needing no active direction or management from the brain - although the brain is where the rules of temperature control are generated. Unlike stability, temporariness exists where there are elements of the organization whose behavior is at least partly random. To return to the example of the car wiring loom, it is not only 'complex but describable', but also 'deterministic'. Its behavior can be known in advance, as any given input to the system, for example operating a switch, will generate a precisely predictable outcome. The outcome of the meeting between two people would be 'probabilistic'. This is because, while the agenda for discussion may be known in advance and a 'most likely' outcome can be predicted, the variables in the meeting, such as mood, posture and experience of the parties, separately and together, make the outcome uncertain. Managers in organizations, usually unknowingly, perform many tasks using the black box technique. It is not possible to grasp the full complexity of the organizations, which are managed. Manipulating the inputs to the organization, recording the outputs, and deducing patterns of response achieve management. These patterns can then be used to inform future actions in order to gain stability in policies and rules of conduct. In order to use the black box technique effectively, it is vital to measure the effect on output of changes in input. (Hammer, 1990) Unfortunately, most managers, and most of the performance management systems on which they rely, are not integrated in this way. They deny the black box its effectiveness by not recognizing the connectedness of input and output in an appropriate way. 3-4 Homeostat and Meta System The Homeostat and Meta System (system three and four) capture information about the total environment. Multimedia sequences enumerate issues pertaining to the indirect control of System 3 and 4 by managers in the metasystem, but for the most part the nature of System3 is explained in this specific multimedia sequence. The segment that afforded the structured learning context, and from which managers were channelized to multimedia at certain fixed times, facilitated a very useful vehicle for broadening upon the information given in the multimedia, comprising reinforcement, modeling activities, summaries, and case study material to help ground managers understanding of the VSM. This comprises internal and external environments. Intelligence is gathered about strengths and weaknesses of internal processes. A model of the external environment is provided that identifies opportunities and threats. This SWOT information is brought together in an operations room, which is an environment for decision- making. Vital intelligence information is disseminated throughout the organization to those who will benefit from it. Intelligence rapidly transmits urgent information to policy, alerting policy makers to serious problems in operations, co-ordination and control. G.E. Policy deals with strategic decisions and issues of management style, as well as urgent information. It receives all relevant information from intelligence about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and, on the basis of this SWOT information, reviews and modifies policy. It arbitrates between antagonistic internal and external demands. (Evans, 1997) It represents the essential qualities of the whole just described. Feedback, Control and Co-ordination Systemic thinking is the discipline that integrates all five disciplines into a combined theory for the learning organization. With personal mastery, for example, it helps to clarify the dynamic nature of structures in our lives. Systemic thinking illustrates the interrelated nature of creative tension and emotional tension, and how we can better achieve our intrinsic desires by amplifying creative tension and attenuating emotional tension. Systemic thinking points to the link between negative feelings we might have about ourselves and the way that this may impact on erosion of our goals. More broadly, systemic thinking enables us to appreciate our connectedness to the world, to see more and more of the interdependencies between our actions, our reality, and how our intrinsic desires fit in with this. A systemic view allows us to learn about structures in the world in which we live our lives and to avoid a blinkered reaction to experiences, resulting in blame and guilt. It is systemic structures that explain events, not the actions of individuals. Systemic recognition of the way things work is an important step towards commitment to the whole. In the learning organization, people become able to test many mental models-our own and other possible ones-in each situation as it arises, ensuring that each one and a range of them are well considered. In the learning organization such skills will be institutionalized through organizational practices that most likely will involve a facilitative organizational structure. Methods for reflection and inquiry are considered central to the discipline of mental models. Senge is keen here on the work of Chris Argyris and Donald Schn called action science. Action science is concerned with spontaneous, tacit theories-in-use that enter into discussion and dialogue. These include actions such as unilateral control, unilateral self-protection and defensiveness, smoothing over and covering up. Such actions are employed whenever feelings of embarrassment or threat come into play. People are often unaware of these so-called intrapsychic forces and the consequences that they lead to in discussion and dialogue. One method that addresses intrapsychic forces is called 'the left-hand column'. The purpose is to become aware of the tacit assumptions that shape conversation and often prevent us from achieving things we set out to do. The idea is to place in the right-hand column things said in a situation experienced as difficult. After reflection, other things are recorded in the left-hand column that were thought and felt but not said. Systemic thinking helps further by testing if mental models are systemically flawed in the sense that they neglect critical feedback or delay, or miss points of high leverage. It helps to expose assumptions mental models are making about the dynamic nature of reality and to evaluate the validity of the assumptions. The aim is to better understand and indeed to improve our mental models of the world, not to draw elaborate systemic diagrams of the world. Mode 2 SSM is a conceptual framework to be incorporated in everyday thinking. The main feature of mode 2 SSM is recognition of two equally important strands of analysis-a logic-based stream of analysis and a stream of cultural analysis. The logic-based stream of analysis encourages practitioners to investigate the situation they are in, to look for new opportunities, and to seek ways to achieve accommodation between people, thus closing the gap that exists between them. The stream of cultural analysis is an intertwined inquiry into the intervention itself. It is both a 'social systems' analysis and a 'political systems' analysis. (Oliga, 1993) Three things are focused on. First, is the intervention itself, exploring the role of the client, problem owners, and problem solvers. Second, 'social systems' analysis looks at roles, norms, and values as they influence behavior. (Moore, 1996) Third, 'political systems' analysis investigates political interaction, coalitions and the use of power as it makes an influence on decision-making. Co-ordination (system two) aims to ensure that there is an efficient and stable use of resources achieved in a harmonious fashion. It receives vital information about short-term problems faced in operations. It dampens uncontrolled oscillations between divisions. It also, or even primarily, manages conflict that might arise between divisional managers. Control (system three) acts as a control function that maintains relatively stable equilibrium between the interdependent divisions. Control deals with vital information about problems in operations that short-term co-ordination is not able to cope with. Control manages resource bargaining. Control also audits the divisions in a regular and routine manner. Audit may include operational, quality and financial audits, such as budget reviews. Control action is taken when audits show up operational problems that have not or cannot be dealt with through co-ordination. Additionally, control interprets policy decisions and ensures that they are effectively implemented throughout operations. VSM and Culture Beer's most famous homomorphism, the viable system model (VSM), draws correspondence between 'management and organization', and human brain structure and function. The VSM stipulates rules whereby an organization (biological or social) is 'survival worthy'-it is regulated, learns, adapts and evolves. Beer invented team syntegrity to complement the VSM when applied in organizational contexts, adding his statement of participatory democracy. Beer recognizes various ways in which comparison can be made. Metaphor offers a poetic identity relation. The research scientist wishing to be more exact may test the ideas through analogy. Yet this tends to destroy the identity relation that, 'the metaphor poetically enshrines'. In any case, analogy by definition is open to dispute. The research scientist, Beer stresses, needs to formulate models precisely, using tools of rigorous science-mathematics, statistics and logic. The aim is to produce two deeper level homomorphic models (that may well be isomorphic). An example used by Beer is modeling 'learning rats' and transposing this into a model for 'a learning industrial plant'. (Beer, 1985) Another example is Beer's sketch for a cybernetic factory. He constructs a machine capable of adapting to its environment in the guise of an intelligence amplifier modeled on the homeostat (a word derived from homeostasis). The result is an industrial concern looked at through cybernetic eyes as imitating functions of a living organism. The question then asked is, what kind of organic control system can be proposed to pursue environmental adaptation Beer's most famous homomorphism, the viable system model, discussed below, draws correspondence between 'management and organization', and human brain structure and function. In his model, Beer offers a clear view of how a participatory structure might be conceived, an offering that Senge notably fails to make. The managerial situation is modeled, drawing on the science of neurophysiology, set out in Brain of the Firm, as a brain-directed organism operating in an environment. To prove his point that there are laws of an interdisciplinary nature, Beer also constructs the viable system model in Heart of the Enterprise from cybernetic first principles. Appreciating Beer's views on ORMS and cybernetics, in particular those on science and modeling, is an essential prerequisite to getting to grips with the viable system model. Conclusion General Electric, by using cybernetics in their organization, and in order to establish appropriate attitude to be developed to quality, recognizes as an issue - that, the lack of quality in a product or service must be acknowledged. Frequently, companies adopt an ostrich-like attitude to quality, finding it easier to blame poor performance on a host of other reasons. For example, when a previously successful sales performance declines, a common reaction is to focus on market changes, the sales team or activity by competitors rather than on the product or service itself. Issues such as pricing and margins are often raised, perhaps leading to a focus on manufacturing performance in terms of productivity. Rarely is quality of product or service considered as a potentially primary issue at the outset. It is essential that quality be treated as a potential part of the problem and be considered as a possible cause of decline. Even where a company is performing well, a positive attitude to quality needs to be developed and maintained. A product, which is considered 'good enough' probably isn't so in today's competitive markets. There is no room for such complacency. Creativity and leadership must be seen as essential strands in quality improvement. However, while some writers see great strength in Crosby's approach to this, there is also, perhaps, inherent danger. The founding charge here seems really to be one of a lack of substantial underpinning to Crosby's approach, perhaps reflecting other comments about promotion 'through slogans and too often full of platitudes'. There can be no doubt that many of the most sustained management theories and approaches through the years have been well marketed, yet when examined by others have been demonstrated to have either theoretical or methodological weaknesses. This is almost inevitably true. Theories validated within one paradigm can probably always be disputed from within another. The issue of platitudes and lack of substance has already been largely addressed and goal orientation comes into focus. It is clear that GE considers only one goal for the organization, and that is zero defects. The external setting of goals by the management is far from empowering or emancipatory and neglects to address workers' perception of their own values and needs. It must be recognized, however, that the requirement for quality is being driven from the environment of the organization. If survival of the organization is to be achieved, then quality products, which 'conform to requirements', are an essential feature. Misinterpretation of 'zero defects' as meaning the avoidance of risk is another reasonable point. There will always be an element of risk involved in a change of behavior or process. References Ashby, W. R. (1956) An Introduction to Cybernetics, Chapman and Hall, London. Beckford, J. (1993) 'The viable system model: a more adequate tool for practising management', Ph.D. thesis, University of Hull. Beer, Stafford, "Diagnosing the System for Organisation", Wiley , 1985, ISBN 0-471-95136-6 Evans, P., & Wurster, T Strategy & the New Economics of Information,., Harvard Business Review, September - October 1997, P71-82. Hammer M., Reengineering work: Don't Automate, Obilerate, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1990, P104-112 Jackson, M. C. (1991) Systems Methodology for the Management Sciences, Wiley, Chichester, UK. Moore M., A Learning Experience with SSM, OR Insight, Vol 9 Issue 2, April/June 1996, P13-20 Oliga, J. (1988) 'Methodological foundations of systems methodologies', in R. L. Flood and M. C. Jackson (eds) (1991) Critical Systems Thinking: Directed Readings, Wiley, Chichester, UK. Senge P. M., The Fifth Discipline - The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation, Century Business, London, 1990. ISBN 0-712-65687-1 Vidgen, R., Stakeholders, Soft Systems, and Technology: Separation and Mediation in the Analysis of Information Systems Requirements, Information Systems Journal 7, 1997, P21-45. Bibliography Ackoff, R. L. (1981) Creating the Corporate Future, Wiley, New York. Bendell, T. (1989) The Quality Gurus: What Can They Do for Your Company, Department of Trade and Industry, London, and Services Ltd, Nottingham. Burns, T. and Stalker G. M. (1961) The Management of Innovation, Tavistock, London. 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