REPLY How to promote good work (SD6563)

[SDMAIL George Richardson]

Posted by  George Richardson <gpr at albany.edu>

On Sep 3, 2007, at 8:26 AM, SDMAIL Richard Stevenson wrote:

> Today I received several personal emails from SD mail subscribers
> around the world who all (my summary) said, "we have given up  subscribing
> to this forum because many people  consider the SD mailing list to be
> a place where only politically correct thoughts are accepted."


"Methodologically" correct or really "politically" incorrect?  Could  
have some examples?

>
> None of them wanted to be identified - because there's no mileage in
> being a rebel, apparently.
>
> But clearly some people do actually want
> to change the world through SD - not simply to further their
> intellectual curiosity or their academic ambitions.  And clearly none
>  of them believes that the ISDS represents their views -  nor that the
>  centre of SD is in Boston.


This posting has just switched from talking about the discussions in  
this listserve to talking about the International System Dynamics  
Society.  I'm unsure about a lot of things at this stage of my life,  
but I'm certain that this listserve is not the Society, and the  
Society (1000 people?) does not have one view.

> And that's my point, actually.  Cozy introspection and
> congratulations are the hallmark of the ISDS.  But it's no longer> enough.


The international society engages in "cozy introspection"?  In its  
conferences?  In its journal?  It certainly doesn't do it in this  
listserve.   I think I need examples.

> We all know that Jay is a genius - accepted.  Clever causal loop
> diagram games are fun.   But please - now let's move on and make SD a
> serious subject  for change in the real world.

"Fun"?!  Clever causal loop diagrams, drawn carefully and used  
wisely, are, like all our diagrams, crucial tools for communicating  
complex structural and dynamic thoughts.  We can't communicate  
circular causalities any where near as well or succinctly using 
text  or (heaven forbid) equations.  I guess I don't know what other  
options you've got in mind.

As for making system dynamics a serious subject for change in the  
real world, I'm all for it.  I'm sure the readers of this listserve,  
readers of our journal, and our conference attendees, would be happy  
to see postings suggesting better ways to do that.  And although it  
may be uncomfortable, I would think most of us would like to see  
examples of efforts to contribute to this goal that were rejected  
somehow and kept out of the Review or a conference.  We'd want to  
learn how not to reject strong efforts to help the field improve.  
Do  we have such examples?

> The ISDS is
> abrogating its power and its responsibilities. And - dare I say it -
> adulation is not constructive.

Actually, adulation is very constructive.  Adulation of the right  
sort flags great work in the field.  Every year we identify  
outstanding work in the field and honor it in awards at our  
international conference.  Recognizing the tendency of the Forrester  
award to focus on academic publication, the Society recently added an  
award for applcations, which everyone hopes will be able to honor  
great work of consultants, corporate practitioners, and others who  
see their best products to be applied work.  Those honors identify  
the best work in the field and thus help to show others some paths to  
similarly great work.

Our journal has an international editorial board that similarly works  
hard to present to its readers the very best work in the field.  And  
it publishes applied work as well as academic work (as an academic  
doing applied work I don't like that distinction, but others  
apparently want to be able to make it).  Accepting an article for  
publication is a form of adulation that serves a very high purpose in  
a field:  it leads to the regular appearance of the best submitted  
work, so it serves to show what really good work should look like.    
Flagging high quality work is indeed constructive for a field.

I have to hope that the filtering that goes on to select award  
winners and journal publications searches for methodological  
correctness rather than "political" correctness.  We'd have to  
acknowledge that there is always the potential for editorial boards  
and award committees to select based on what their years of past  
study and experience tell them identifies great work (in fact, that's  
what we're hoping they do), so they could be looking backward rather  
than forward more than some might like.  A field that has no  m
echanisms for allowing rebellious work of merit to reach public  
scrutiny will probably not grow well and may die out.  So we have to  
worry about that, and people who think we have not been good at this  
should keep speaking out constructively about how to do it better.   
But we have to be careful here:  some rebellious work is just junk.

> The SDS website (http://www.systemdynamics.org/).  It's outdated,
> boring and uninformative, particularly to the non-academic inquirer.

I won't comment on that until I have the time to help.  Why make  
people feel bad about what they've managed to do unless you are  
prepared to help make them feel better by contributing?

> The Beer Game is old, for heavens sake.

True.  It is amazing that it has been played for decades and written  
about famously (e.g., The Fifth Discipline) but still surprises.   
People who have played it before can play it again and fail miserably  
because they failed to 'get' the deep insights it has to offer.  I  
suspect that's partly because lots of folks around the world run the  
Beer Game but have not stopped to learn from Sterman's superb debrief  
notes and videos, but even those who go through John's debriefs can  
fail to hold onto the game's deepest insights.

People still run the Beer Game because it puts the lesson of "system  
as cause" more viscerally than almost anything else people have put  
forward.  It leads quickly to feedback thought as the debriefer draws  
out from participants the decision rules they were using (or, in the  
case of the supply line, not using).  It leads people to rethink our  
human tendency to blame workers when things aren't working right.  It  
helps people begin to make the move from thinking about events and  
individual decisions to thinking about dynamic behavior and policy  
structure.  And when the debriefer shows examples of runs from  
previous games, including a run of a simulation, it leads people to  
doubt their conviction that you can't model the necessary  
intricacies, complexities, and subtleties of human decision making.

Let's face it:  It's a great game, and used well it's a great  
teaching tool.  Could we use more like it?  Absolutely.  Get to work.

> So what else can the SD
> mailing list offer, besides garrotting at source new, interesting
> exchanges of views on serious systemic matters that transcend causal
> loops and stocks and flows?  There is a VERY fine line between
> moderation and censorship - and I firmly that believe the mailing
> list moderation leans strictly to the latter.

Bob has spoken to this issue.  Because I know him well, and for  
decades, I have absolute trust and confidence that whatever filtering  
he does benefits the field and the conversations on the listserve.   
[But I do have to ask:  How can one know about the filtering without  
seeing all the submissions and those that get through?]

> In my opinion (and clearly more widely) the SD Society itself has
> become a moribund, introspective, techno-fascinated, academic
> dinosaur that is slowly strangling the growth of our field.
> It is,  to be frank, unprofessional.

It is unprofessional and unconvincing to claim that one's opinion is  
"clearly more widely" held without the willingness of "the others" to  
speak up.  That's like a student in a class who tells the department  
chair he thinks professor X is doing a terrible job, and "lots of  
others think that way too but won't say it."  I don't buy it from a  
student, and I don't buy it here.  Furthermore, the claim in the  
author's first sentence was about emails he received from people  
about this listserve, not about the Society.  How did we make that 
leap?

Do these opinions have more to do with this listserve than the  
Society?  This listserve is actively contributed to by only a tiny  
fraction of system dynamics practitioners.  Often the folks writing  
questions are new to the field.  Sadly, sometimes the folks trying to  
answer the questions are almost as new to the field.  The listserve  
is not the Society, just as the Society is not the field.

> But we have to be careful, too.  In particular, in the 1990's the
> "systems thinking" movement also threatened to remove academic
> substance from the field.  That flank needs to be protected, too.
>
> Apparently SD wants to be loved ( i.e. academically respected) and
> also wanted (i.e. gainfully employed) at the same time.

Is there something wrong with that?

>
> Time, I believe, for a new paradigm in system dynamics? But -
> do we  have to demolish the temple first?
>
> I think that maybe we do.

Now we have moved from accusations about the listserve, to  
accusations about the Society, to a belief that change in the field  
is necessary.  How does that follow?

Personally, I'd prefer to have another home built before I demolish  
this one.  If we have to have a new paradigm, I'd like to see it  
compete in the intellectual marketplace before we demolish the old  
one based on some sight-unseen promise.  Again personally, I prefer  
to build from within.  Make the journal better by contributing to  it.  
Make the Society better by working in it.  Make the field better  
by doing great work and letting the world know about it.

And I have to ask:  Why do we have to rebuild the field because we  
aren't talking very within it?  Is the field broken, or the Society,  
or this listserve, or is it our general communication skills as  
scholars and practitioners?  It sounds to me as if it is the latter.

Let's fix what's broken.  In my view, if anything is broken it is  
definitely *not* the power of the system dynamics perspective and  
approach as I have come to see and use them.

..George

George P. Richardson
Chair of public administration and policy
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy
University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222
Posted by  George Richardson <gpr at albany.edu>
posting date  Mon, 3 Sep 2007 11:51:46 -0400