The intellectual technology of guiding societal evolution [Enrique Herrscher, ISSS 1998 Plenary Session, July 20/98]

These notes are a rough transcription, prepared as each individual presenter and/or commentator spoke at the ISSS 1998 conference. Gaps and errors have likely occurred. For more accurate citations, please consult the original presenters. These notes have been contributed to the ISSS by David Ing, of the IBM Advanced Business Institute (sabi@systemicbusiness.org).

• Enrique Herrscher (university in Argentina)

1. from soft to hard;
2. from theory to practice; and
3. from ISSS to the world.

• Actually, the chart is a system, so don't read vertically.

• Can measure enthusiasm of people, happiness

• Two consequences:
1. Will not be taken seriously.
2. Won't enter the corporate world.

• Like a solid trunk of a tree, which have developed into branches.
• Now have a wonderful binder of procedures, which contains only abstracts, whereas previous conferences would have had the entire paper.
• At the other end, practice is looking to the theory.
• The theory isn't wrong, there's just too much of it.
• Think that everything should fit: relevance, which will result in surviving ideas.
1. No relevance:
• Not everything is based in relevance: there are some ideas which have no relevance when the research is being conducted, but will be relevant later.
• Milstern: pure research.
• The rest of the effort must be relevant.
2. Future Relevance:
• Ismael by Daniel Quinn is an inspiration to him (a book you sleep on).
• Must have market-driving work, not what they're asking for.
3. Present relevance:
• Senge is important, market-driven, as that's what corporate leaders want to hear.
• Could divide the conference into one of these areas, in the future?
• Academy of Management has 3 publications:
1. Review: pure theory.
2. Journal: application.
3. Executive: translate theory of executives, because no translation ==> no money.

• Don't need to look from von Bertalanffy.
• He looks from 1986 at Philadelphia, the first ISSS he attended.
• Speed increasing, to be a third cultural revolution.
1. First revolution: learn to write
2. Second revolution: learn to print: disseminate
3. Access revolution: learn to access: Internet
• CNN reaches 130 million
• Internet from 70 million to 700 million
• Knowledge: 1400 universities within companies.
• How much knowledge has entered the workplace?

• Globalization (with winners and losers)
• (Related to?) increasing income gap: (even if average is the same).
• Technological change
• (Creates?) unemployment problems across the world
• Human capital
• (With) contingent employment: 35% of U.S. is part-time employment
• Instantaneous communication
• Hasn't prevented wars, or fundamentalism

• Mass customization: better quality and lower cost at the same time.
• Global restructuring: In the desperation of managers, many things are being applied.
• Strategic leadership:
• Shell using system thinking for serial restructuring.
• GE under Jack Welch implicitly applying systems thinking through work-outs.
• There's a new managerial mindset.
• People not trying to restore equilibrium, but the disrupt equilibrium.
• A new paradigm: The context changes faster than we can.

• Even if we are on the right track, we will be run over if we stand still.

Questions

• Okay, pluralism.

• Should leave pure scientists alone.
• Not all science in the ivory tower, but should have some.