Changing systems

Do you ever wonder why:

• A new political party in power doesn´t change anything for the people?
• Great and successful new CEOs cannot change the directions of the poor businesses when they are in crisis?
• All the newspapers yell ”We are doomed” when the world is a better place than before in many ways?

All these things happen because of the systems around you. You cannot change the system easily. And there are better and worse ways of improving systems. Before going to details, I recommend you to read the basics of systems from here if you are not aware of them. Let's keep things simple and focus on the most common and central components of the system: different elements of the system, interconnections between the elements, and the goal or purpose of the system. There are more components like feedback loops, but let's forget them this time. Some things are wrong when the aforementioned lunacies happen. This doesn´t mean that the system isn´t working. It means that the system isn´t working in a way people think it should work.

If your interconnections and the system´s purpose or goal don´t change, changing the system´s elements don´t change much how the system functions. You can change all the members of the parliament, members of the parties, reporters, and the board of directors in companies, but the functions of the systems stay the same. It doesn´t matter who you are or what you have done before, or how intelligent you are, the most probable results stay the same as before.

Changing the interconnections of the system brings more changes. When you change the interconnections, you change the elements, too. No dog will bite its master´s hand if he feeds it. And no employee will work against his employer´s will unless it happens by accident. The same happens with politicians. They won´t act against their financiers in the parliament. This can be seen anywhere in the world where politicians get money from other sources than their bank accounts. You may wonder why they aren´t working for their voters in the parliament? You have to ask a question: ”Which comes first, the money for ads before the elections or the votes? Great CEOs cannot work wonders with poor business models or bad products. When the poor business models have poor interconnections with a company´s clients or poor interconnections are in between the company and its departments, the direction of the company doesn´t change. Poor results stay poor.

The last but the most important component is the purpose or the goal of a system. It is also the single most important component for a well functioning system. It is not the most important thing for a system. The most important things are the mindsets behind the system´s different components. But let's forget them this time. Everybody has to understand that the stated purpose or goal of the system is not the real goal or purpose of the system.

For example, the purpose or the goal of parliament is not to take care of the voters´ interests in many countries. This applies to most of the countries, including the United States, Russia, and Finland. If you listen to politicians, they always talk about the importance of taking care of the voters´ benefits. If you look at the result, you notice that this doesn´t happen often. Most insanities that businesses do are because their purpose is to take care of their directors´ benefits or their owners´ benefits. The latter happens, for example, when companies work unethically. If you think about the newspapers, you can see that they sell with fear. Everything is always dangerous, or something isn´t working well. It is hard to see any positive news titles. Fear sells and newspapers sell-by inducing fears into your brain.

Do not blame people for the systems. They have only very limited effects on how systems work. Corruptive systems don´t change by changing elements. Non-functioning systems can have flaws in their design. They can move their interconnections and purposes slowly into wrong directions. Long-term socio-economic cycles are the results of the slow changes in systems in the wrong directions. We live in one such time. Something drastic will happen because corrupted systems always get destroyed. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I am wrong if something drastic won´t happen in the next ten years in Western countries.

Until next week,

-TT