Introduction: Multilevel Change book- A work in progress

Introduction: Multilevel Change- A work in progress

Preface

I have been writing a book on the theory of change over a number of years. I intend to publish parts of the book here for comment and just to keep the thing moving. Eventually I intend to publish my ramblings as a readable book aimed at managers, although the theory is more generalizable.

My interest in change started while working as a manager of an engineering research group that concentrated on achieving major changes in existing industries, but of most interest, in assisting new industries, like coffee in North Queensland.

I have been working on the theory of change since doing my PhD in the early 1990s, especially when going on to teach at a university business school. While there I published a number of papers and wrote, but never published others. I will put some of them here for those interested in the more theoretical side.

For medical reasons I retired in 2001. Somewhat serendipitously, we lived overseas for a number of years where I had the space to start writing again and reflect on a vastly different social system . By writing, I was able to get things out of my head and to see where the gaps were. This is another reason to be writing here.

Enough background for the moment; time for content.

Overview

Given the importance of change in businesses, you would think it would be well theorised. It is not, otherwise my writing would be superfluous. There are many books and papers on the subject but none contain a general theory; more bits of theory or consultant’s atheoretical recipes. Further, theory development on the subject has been slow (something I intend to explain why with my own theory).

The main ideas can need to be separated out:

· Multilevel structure (deep structure). “The general scheme of things”, the complex ordering of society, the entity in which change occurs. The main point is that it is multilevel; hence revolutionary change (at more fundamental levels) through to minor change, such as the seasonal change in fashions (an annual cycle), are possible. It is multilevel structure that the processes of change act upon. It is multilevel structure, as a retention mechanism, that re-configures when change is achieved. DNA is a biological analogy. Multilevel structure has a number of features: It is a product of its past- history matters, and it both enables and constrains change.

· Processes of change. There are a number of different processes that can achieve change, potentially at any level of multilevel structure:

o Emergent change resulting from an unexpected event such as a new technology, climatic events, or at the extreme, a meteor hitting the earth

o Programmed change. Programmed change has strongly predetermined nature and has at least two distinct forms.

§ Purposeful change (Design). It is a process used by people, which uses a generic process of design, formalised within the professions, in terms of designing a plan, an investment, a product, a technology, an organisational structure, an experiment or a medical treatment.

§ Cyclic change. Cyclic change includes “natural” cycles, such as human development and the annual seasons, but extends to product life cycles or business cycles, where a predetermined program is underway.

· Dynamics. Dynamics is the way processes interdependently interact with multilevel structure as change occurs.

o Juxtaposition. Juxtaposition is the relative position between entities in both time and space. One of the most critical forms of juxtaposition is isolation. Innovations tend to appear in isolation to the mainstream. Further, time is relative. The time scale for change at the less fundamental levels tends to be short, days or weeks, whereas change at more fundamental can be decades or centuries apart, although the period of change can be relatively short (punctuated equilibrium). Events that occur in one time period in one location can have unforeseen consequences for another place in another time (exaptation). Similarly a small event in one place can trigger a much larger event in another (butterfly effect)

o Feedback loops. Feedback loops occur when some of the output of a process feeds back to the input of the process. A positive feedback loop occurs when the output of a process leads to even more of the same output. Stock market booms and busts are positive feedback loops as either virtuous or vicious cycles. Negative feedback loops are used to temper the output in order to achieve stability. Central banks use interest rates in an attempt to control the growth of the economy, raising them to slow it, lowering them to stimulate it. Not raising interest rates in a fast growing economy can become a positive feedback loop and create a bubble. Major changes are usually driven by positive feedback loops, virtuous or vicious.

o Control systems. Control systems are inherent to any ordered system or society; it is what makes them stable and the process by which an attempt at orderly change can be attempted. Personal experience illustrates the difficulties in attempting to make a modest change or even keep stability in society or environmental and mechanical systems. Control systems at their simplest are concerned with the rate and extent of change of one thing on the desired output while avoiding instability or undesired change. Altering the hot and cold taps on a shower to achieve a desired temperature is a simple example.

oCompetition and cooperation. These are the conjoined twins acting together in in all levels of the ecosystem of business. Competition alone is an over rated dogma of "free markets". Real businesses both compete and cooperate with similar businesses ("competitors"), suppliers and customers. Paradoxicaly, I will argue that "businesses survive by not competing"; that is the whole point of business strategy.  They coexist, just as organisms do in an an ecosystem.

These ideas will seem daunting, especially their interaction. However they can be explained in simple language without mathematics and can be illustrated with real case studies or vignettes.

These ideas can be used to explain seemingly paradoxical or unexpected events as well as the anticipated ones.

A key concept I want to convey is in understanding events and outcomes rather than predicting them. The ideas go even further and challenge the ability to predict future events and paths. However by understanding how a system works gives insight into how to interact with it.

Notes


The intention is to produce a popular book as opposed to an academic tome, hence I will use limited endnotes giving key references and additional notes.

While the book/blog has a business focus, it has a multidiscipinary basis. I draw from business management, strategic management, entrepreneurship, engineering, technology, organisation theory, economics, sociology, philosophy of science, current debates in evolutionary theory, biological ecology, general systems theory, complexity theory and deterministic chaos, to name some.

The methodology of my reseach will be covered in an appendix. Given the nature of the systems studied; with an emphasis on small populations and "outliers", a case-based approach was used. Similarly, the emphasis is on theory buiding rather than testing. The philosophical basis used, "transendental realism" (Bhaskar) will be discussed and justified.

Metaphors feature through the work as they are a way of isolating the concept being considered from the baggage of its business context; a means of simplifying or isolating the concept be discussed. Metaphors were used as part of the original research, a technique I will elaborate and justify in the methodology appendix.

While many of the terms I use may seem like jargon, this is not the case. The words describe a specific phenomena in its context. To name a phenomena is to identify it. This practice is used in all areas of science; physical, natural and social.