A System Problem and Its Symptoms are Separated By Time and Space

    One of the reasons that problems are often hard to solve in social systems is that they are frequently separated from their causes by both time and space. This is a result of both system delays (due to stocks) and system interconnectedness (due to feedback loops). 

    Consider once again, Figure 19, shown below. Investment performance in an insurance company (shown in the top right of the figure) is shown to be directly influenced by portfolio mismatch, but only after a significant delay, and indirectly influenced by many factors that are far removed (spatially) from the firm's financial performance (e.g., sales person skills). Managers in actual insurance companies may or may not be aware of these delays and connections, but their existence ensures that, if a problem arises with an insurance firm's investment performance, deciding what to do to permanently correct it will be difficult indeed. Mentally keeping track of the various interactions and delays, over time, is next to impossible in such a system. 

    Figure 19: Causal Loop Diagram of a Model Examining the Growth or Decline of a Life Insurance Company.

    The fact that system problems and system symptoms are separated by time and space implies the need for a holistic or systems approach to problem solving. Although this is perhaps obvious to someone reading this book, it is the exact opposite of the traditional approach to problem solving practiced in most of science and in most organizations. The traditional approach to problem solving is the reductionist approach, which involves breaking down a system experiencing a problem into "manageable" pieces and then analyzing each piece in isolation. The reductionist approach ignores the connections between a system's pieces, because the behavior of an entire system is thought to be merely the sum of the behaviors of its parts. This view is implicitly a "linear" view of the world as the behavior of a linear system is, indeed, merely the sum of the behavior of its parts. The behavior of a nonlinear system, however, is more than just the sum of its parts. A nonlinear system can only be analyzed in its entirety, with the connections between its parts being as important as the parts themselves. An old Sufi allegory known as the "Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant" illustrates the folly of the reductionist approach to problem solving, and the usefulness of a "nonlinear" approach to problem solving, quite nicely. 

    Beyond Ghor was a city. All its inhabitants were blind. A king with his entourage arrived nearby; he brought his army and camped in the desert. He had a mighty elephant, which he used in attack and to increase the people's awe.

    The populace became anxious to learn about the elephant, and some sightless from among this community ran like fools to find it. Since they did not know even the form or shape of the elephant, they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching some part of it. Each thought that he knew something because he could feel a part.

    When they returned to their fellow-citizens, eager groups clustered around them, anxious, misguidedly, to learn the truth from those who were themselves astray. They were asked about the form, the shape, of the elephant, and they listened to all they were told.

    The man whose hand had reached the ear said, "It is a large, rough thing, wide and broad, like a rug." One who had felt the trunk said, "I have the real facts about it. It is like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive."One who had felt its feet and legs said, "It is mighty and firm, like a pillar."

    Each had felt one part out of many. Each had perceived it wrongly.

    Idries Shah. 1969. "The Blind Ones and the Matter of the Elephant," p. 25. In: Tales of the Dervishes. New York: E. P. Dutton.