Stage-2: Structural Model

ClosedReminder of the clarification process so far:

Develop a Holistic Model

The requirement for explanation is the foundation for all modes of clarification that are progressively called into play.

Situations vary in their relevance and our preoccupation with them varies according to many factors. So a person can be satisfied with the explanation that emerges in the Causal Mode (Stage-1).

However, progress to obtain greater clarity will be driven by the limitations of Mode-1, which might be variously described as conventionality, simplicity, naivety, partiality, implausibility, artificiality.

Many strive for greater clarity and require an account that cannot be so easily criticized. This requires:

  • setting bounds to the situation
  • seeking an overview within those bounds
  • looking beyond salient factors to an abstract system within which they manifest.

Taken together, the result is a credible complete or holistic model.

Values & Assumptions

Promoting Acceptability

ClosedEssence: Holistic Model

A holistic model is a description of all of the relevant factors underpinning a situation showing how they connect with each other. There is an assumed boundary with everything else regarded as part of the context or environment or part of some larger system which is not currently the focus.

Models provide a sense of control while fostering a more complete but abstract understanding the situation. As a situation evolves, the well-designed model endures and remains valid.

ClosedDesired Benefit: Comprehensive Overview

Because the model is bounded and designed to be complete, it provides the desired overview. Such an overview reduces complexity, protects us from getting lost in details, prevents tunnel vision, reduces risks of hasty judgement driven by salience, and is emotionally soothing.

Having an overview removes the worry that something has been forgotten or omitted in the explanation. It also reveals patterns and trends which contribute to the sense of greater clarity.

ClosedMeans: Abstract Categories

Particularities of the problematic situation are liable to change. In order to develop a robust model, it is necessary to abstract from actual phenomena. Even if the label appears to identify a particular group (e.g. the military) or event (e.g. death rate), the factor needs abstraction to become more general and more powerfully explanatory.

Each category needs to be explained in terms of its primary function, its properties and its relations to other categories in the model. Principles and guidelines for understanding and decision-making are designed to be applied to such well-defined categories.

Handling the Group

ClosedParticipation: Affirm Validity

All in the group need to be persuaded of the validity of the model. That is most likely if they have been consulted or have actively participated in the model-building process. However, that is impossible in many situations, and then affirmation and backing by respected authorities or by long-standing use must be substituted.

Example: The "separation of powers" model of government which identifies the Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary as the necessary organs, is widely used. A moment's reflection reveals that this model is incomplete because it excludes powers possessed by a Head of State (or Monarch), the Administrative Bureaucracy, and the Military. Omitting powerful political entities, limits the model's ability to clarify and predict political developments.

ClosedCommunication: Explain the Schema

Meaningful acceptance of the model is needed if it is to be a useful tool for collaboration or to enable permission for particular initiatives. Unless the schematic reduction is explained to others with relevant data and statistical analyses, acceptance of the model will be superficial at best. Properly understood, the model with its supporting data can support creativity in handling the situation and even spark innovation.

ClosedIndividualization: Identify Implications

Systems thinking is not natural for most people, but it is fostered when a model that clarifies issues is provided. The model with its data can then assist with identifying hidden risks or opportunities, which can be easily missed when focusing on specifics or the most salient features.

Channeling Your Functioning:

ClosedGain Support: Expertise

In order to develop a model, preoccupation is not enough. It must be enhanced by becoming an expert, which may be a matter of dedicated study or long work and lived experience. Expertise permits you to speak with clarity and authority, and win support for your model.

The situation explained at Stage-1 indicated that all the Board needed to do was get consensus on policy. But this was not something that could be easily implemented. The Board had a standard guide to policy-making but arguments developed around each step. It was evident that more clarification was needed.

«Policy» is a form of purpose to direct the organisation and so the mystery and disputes might be resolved by developing a holistic model of purposes with a place for policy. Enquiry revealed that purpose could be modelled as a seven level hierarchy of elemental forms with the purpose at each level answering "why" to the level below, and "how" to the level above.

Directions to promote change had to constrain and channel purposive activity and this was based on combining adjacent levels e.g. "plans" were strategic objectives (outcomes) delivered via tactical objectives (tasks). Policies fitted into this schema as "priorities" delivered via "outcomes". That formulation provided significantly greater clarification to get consensus and aid the policy-making process.

Limitations

The additional clarification provided by a well-crafted model at Stage-2 represents a step-change in clarity.

However, models that simply order categories are liable to be lifeless abstractions. They lack the disputes, differences, give-and-take and diverse agendas that characterize real-world situations.

Example: When the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea were sabotaged in September 2022, the discussion focused on the perpetrator: who caused the event? was it Russia, Ukraine, USA, or another country? This model of international relations is epitomized in the UN with its voting system. Little attention is given to the reality that no country is a unitary actor. There are multiple divergent organized elements in any country that are often in conflict and potentially act independently: the government executive, the parliament, the military, the intelligence services, other government agencies, business entities, pressure groups.

Settling at this Stage

Placing a satisfying explanation in the context of a holistic model that provides an overview of the relevant system may provide sufficient clarity, especially if there are statistical analyses as well.

If this is the case, then there will be no felt need to seek further clarification.

Transition

However, if a sense of mystery persists and there is dissatisfaction with the degree of clarification, then the situation requires further attention.

All situations are subject to social control and ethical/moral pressures. Exactly how these are wielded is the natural next step in clarification.

Tensions based on these pressures generate requirements, groups, or tendencies that infuse any model and operate as a backdrop for specific interactions. With a holistic ordered model in place, it becomes possible to identify these tensions to supplement or expand the model.

The initial Stage-1 causal explanation looked inwards to a desire to remove confusion and could be subjectively generated without excessive concern for the realities.

The present Stage-2 structural model must be objectively developed in order to cover a class of real-world situations.

So, it might be expected that Stage-3 would again be subjectively generated. Identifying these tensions requires empathy with the individuals and groups in the situation.

The mode that naturally provides for polarization and tension is the Dualistic.

ClosedRuling Out Alternative Moves

Movement directly to a mode based on dynamic depiction (L'1) is not possible because clarification of underlying tensions and enduring polarization is a prerequisite for appreciating events, interactions and feedback effects. Moving to modes based on outer circle methods (Atomistic-L'2, Unitary-L7, Unified-L'5) still seem to require a more substantial and properly developed explanation.

Originally posted: 30-Oct-2024.