This is a reading-response on a particular topic.
Since this is a public space where I invite you to read things, I usually try to keep them of general interest. So I feel like warning readers when I'm indulging in non-general-interest topics.

This journal will probably continue to include both esoteric writing samples, like essays and poems, and personal updates.
I just can't always be bothered to write about the personal stuff. Whereas when I get something juicy and complicated in mind on a particular topic, I want to write about it to hash out my own thoughts.

So, for those of you who like listening to my thoughts, read on.

Everybody else can just be glad to know I'm still alive. I do get out on my bike, and enjoy good restaurants, and make friends, and follow through on commitments. I sometimes even garden or draw. Mostly, though, I'm still working my way deeper into Portland's sustainability and public planning circles, looking for people, groups, and places that contain insights that appeal to me.
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“Whole system design” ... a concept I've been running into lately...is it an approriate term? Or, like "sustainable development," does it rouse suspicions of internal contradiction, of two goals fused together into a fragile construct?

Can one actually design a system from scratch, or is it more productive to speak of evolving or affecting existing systems? Are human and natural systems better understood as artificial / mechanical constructs, or as organic, evolving entities? You don’t "design" a racehorse; but you can imagine, and attempt to breed, train, or buy, one with particular features.
Designing a racetrack makes linguistic sense; but it's still more of a variation on past examples than as a completely new concept. There are a lot of constraints you'd be wise to incorporate. Your task doesn't involve deliberating over the basic shape or features; it's more about tweaking details like materials, engineering structures and drainage, anticipating crowd requirements, to suit your local conditions and preferred results. In a sense, the "designer" is really more of a describer or translator, taking complex relationships that have already been developed, and articulating them into a buildable, workable pattern for this time and place.
Anybody can imagine, and most people can draw, a racetrack. But just like the horse, to get a good one you have to have a very deep understanding of what's already known about horses and races.

On the recommendation of my aunt Katharine, I’ve been reading “Leadership and the New Science,” by Margaret J Wheatley. In it, she describes analogies between organizational management and “the new science.” The New Science refers particularly and repeatedly to quantum physics, particularly its qualities indeterminacy and entanglement. (For the most part, the author seems to do a good job of representing the physics accurately; she does make claims about its implications for understanding Reality, but they are acceptable metaphors.) Wheatley also refers occasionally to biological models such as evolution (which seems sound) and “morphogenetic fields” (I haven't heard about this from biological sources; I wonder if the idea has been discredited).

Wheatley emphasizes a shift from understanding the world as a mechanical interaction between discrete parts, to a study of entities defined primarily by mutual relationships. She points out that real-world entities can wither or substantially alter if they are examined independently of their defining relationships. She articulates a picture of a world composed primarily of patterns; of entities defined not as particles in isolation, interacting via forces, but entities as ripples and “fish” responding to the endlessly changing dynamics of the fields / “oceans” of which they are a part.

If one regards the boundaries of individual organisms as absolute, then there is a terrifying and inevitable progression toward decay and death in every case. If one regards those boundaries as trivial, and examines the patterns of the whole, then there is a remarkable tendancy for self-organization and recovery within the system’s response to its own inherent instabilities. Life continues, grows, evolves. Wheatley emphasizes the comforting aspects of living in an ordered universe; though self-organizing entities may not always respond to our efforts at control, neither do they fall apart when we stop trying.

Whole system design, or holistic thinking, involves getting away from divisive analysis. Conventional models (Wheatley calls them "Newtonian" or "mechanical") attempt to understand the world by defining entities to be studied, separating them into parts, and then analysing the parts in order to compile a better picture of the whole. Management can proceed along the same lines: define a problem, isolate its elements, adjust the parts or replace them as needed to create a solution.
But, dividing things into parts necessitates drawing arbitrary boundaries between such “parts.” Both philosophically, and practically, it is difficult to prove that such boundaries exist before they are drawn. Any drawing of boundaries, assigning of an individual atom to one or another part, means severing or ignoring relationships that already exist.
For example, in biology, where does the eye stop and the brain begin? The optic nerve processes information before it even leaves the globe of the eye; visual data is combined into packets that leave the eye socket blended into patterns of line and color, and are further interpreted in various areas of the brain. The optic nerve extends a fair ways into the brain area, too. Where does “sight” happen? In practical terms, do you send a blind patient to an optrician, a neurologist, or some other specialist?

Even in a machine, there may be interactions between fields such as heat and magnetism that would allow one disctrete part to interfere with another.
In human organizations, the interconnections are even more significant -- the boss’s cousin works in the marketing department, the electrician and the comptroller go fishing together, there are love triangles and families and histories that extend beyond the boundaries of the company, yet connect its members.

Effective relationships and communication channels exist outside of any nominal departmental chains of command; often the “real politics” of an organization consists of groups of friends hatching ideas together, and then finding ways to move those ideas smoothly through the official channels without offending or alienating the official decision-makers. Where did the “decision” come from? The offficial who approved it, the group that promoted it, or the person who first spoke the suggestion? Where does the spouse or child “consultant” who offered a key insight during a casual Friday lunch, fit on the organizational chart?

Groups also develop a “feel” or atmosphere that goes beyond individual relationships, and influences both insiders’ and visitors’ behavior. Cultivating this “feel,” transforming “company culture,” can dramatically affect quality, productivity, honesty, motivation, creativity, customer service, and a host of other relevant factors. Newcomers to the company couldn’t point to a single cause for such a culture. Current managers may not have as much influence as an existing legacy. But excellent managers, and other participants, can recognize and foster productive “atmosphere.” Key players can reinforce the dynamics that suit a particular group, and redress threats to this dynamic before they have a chance to spread.

This is where my question come in. Wheatley describes an alternative worldview, where whole systems are understood as flows of information and relationships, through which “things” (structures, objects, individuals) appear and dissolve as their relevance changes. Can anyone, or any team, be said to “design” such a system?
It might not be possible. It’s like trying to “design” a river.
You can design a model of a river, or design an alteration to the river, that will shift its cours in less dangerous or more productive directions. But you cannot, really, hope to “design” a river: its very nature involves inputs and outputs that you do not hope to control.

What you alter, what you change, is the underlying conditions. You can alter the shape of the drainage basin, the patterns of vegetation and substrate through which the water flows. You can alter the composition of available species to populate the river; you can alter the rules about traffic and construction around it, to encourage or discourage certain aggregate effects by people. But there still are elements of weather, bedrock, slope, and the nature of water and life itself, that will remain forever beyond your ability to control. (Heartbreaking efforts aside; it is true that if you were determined enough, you could tunnel through a certain amount of bedrock, or encapsulate a certain part of the watershed in an atmospheric dome. This still gets away from the fundamental idea of designing a river, though: it becomes a way to alter or control it.

A company is not a river, though, is it? Don't people create companies?
Before a company exists, its founders can be said to have a great degree of control over it. Yet, their design must fit the market, the materials, the people, and the technologies available, or it will fail. Good company plans are the result of accurate predictions about what will work in a given setting; great company plans develop self-sustaining positive dynamics, that allow the official structure to adapt when necessary without threatening the confidence or productivity of the group.
It might be more accurate, then, to describe the formation of a company as anticipating where the rain will fall, and getting into the right place to collect it. There is a degree to which small changes to the landscape -- berms, contracts, a cultured element like a forest or "dream team" of skilled workers -- can substantially alter the path and power of the stream. But to apply such power-plays, you need terrific insights into how the system works, and exactly where to attempt your change. Most human efforts involve tapping into existing streams; fewer people have the insight to create or renew streams of power.

So with organizations, with systems, you can’t work from scratch. Even working from hypotheticals is questionable. You have to start with a given system or group -- a specific timberland, an organization, a group of people such as “citizens of the Portland Metro area,” and carefully examine the relationships within and beyond this group that determine its functions and nature and, ultimately, structure. In many ways, the structure that you eventually understand or design is among the least interesting aspects; it’s just that the concrete reflections of underlying reality are much easier to discuss and measure.

Perhaps there was something in the symbolic nature of alchemical designs: metaphor and symbolism are powerful tools for teaching humans to apply intuition. Such tools can help us manipulate our own latent abilities and hidden relationships. We're already a part of the world we seek to affect; it's a question of how to tune our minds and bodies to achieve the understanding and results we want.
Trained intuition can be an excellent guide to managing these “energies,” and perceiving the underlying fields that are the difference between a healthy, productive, humane workplace, and an accident waiting to happen.