The Problem: People just don’t want to do, what you want them to do, when you want them to do it, and how you want them to do it.
The Solution: Shift your mental model of human behavior.
Since the fifties, Professor Jay Forrester and other thinkers such as Donella Meadows and Fritjof Capra have promoted a holistic approach to understanding systems including human systems. They weren’t the first, as Capra notes the goal of eastern mysticism, whether Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism, is to finally recognize that the universe is an unbroken whole, despite the appearance of being a multitude of separate objects. Systems thinkers understand that a system's behavior is the result of the effects of reinforcing and balancing processes. At the moment one thing changes everything changes. This approach was in stark contrast to traditional analysis at the time based on Descartes’ approach of breaking a system down into its separate parts, and looking for linear cause - effect relationships. Why should this matter to you as a leader? Because your mental models of how the world works impacts everything you do.
If you think in terms of breaking things down into separate parts and linear cause-effect relationships you will act differently then if you think in terms of systems, and networks of interconnecting hierarchical feedback loops. Inanimate objects are predictable and operate based on cause and effect. Non-living things can be pushed, shoved, and manipulated in the same manner time after time with the same results. Whereas, leadership involves people and people, like all living systems, aren’t predictable. You may push, shove or manipulate a person in one way today and the same way tomorrow and your results aren’t predictable.
In the late 1950s, William T. Powers recognized that our increasing skill at building mechanical control systems really revealed a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of human behavior. His scientific theory of human behavior has become know as Perpetual Control Theory (PCT)*.
Powers and other control systems thinkers realized that a person was, in fact, a closed loop balancing feedback system. These thinkers defined behavior as the control of perception a process by which the system constantly seeks to reduce error. Once you understand human behavior through this lens, you recognize that punishments, rewards, threats, guilt, praise, shaming, and bullying are forms of coercion that will not work long term and often create severe damage. Each carries a legacy that impacts the individuals involved, the relationships between or among people, the organization, and society as a whole.
In a systems approach, you know that a reinforcing process leads to the increase of some component of the system. Extinction is a great example. As fewer adults exist, fewer offspring are produced, leading to even fewer adults producing even fewer offspring and eventually the species dies out. Similarly, as a few people start complaining about something others begin to complain and over time it seems as if everyone is complaining. If reinforcing is unchecked, it eventually leads to collapse. Whereas a balancing process tends to maintain equilibrium. This is not about counter balance it is about error reduction. Everything is is about relationships which constantly change.
A few key concepts of PCT can help you move away from coercion towards community. First, people are systems that behave to control for the consequences (results) of their actions, not for the actions themselves. This is why people are able to create identical results by varying means or varying results with the same means. Understanding this can help you resolve problems that result from mistaking side-effects of another person’s action for intended effects. When this happens people will often say “I didn’t mean to ...” Remember this by reminding yourself that - You can’t always tell what someone is doing by looking at what they are doing. Explore the intent behind the visible actions.
Secondly, control is a simple process involving action, perception, and comparison. Actions are the only visible part of the process. When most people are asked to define behavior - they respond by describing actions. Actions result when many internal signals combine to fire neurons that affect muscles and glands. Typing (which is the action I am taking right now) is created when billions of neurons fire and signal muscles which create movement in my fingers. The only evidence I have that this internal signaling and firing is happening is the perception of letters that form words appearing on the screen. I am controlling for specific letter combinations to appear on the screen in front of me. To know if I am accomplishing this result, I am constantly comparing the letters I see to the letters I desire. It’s all about relationships.
To recap action involves muscles and glands and are visible to everyone. Perception is the present state of what you want. In PCT the perception is the data collector, the statistician. It does not involve understanding, interpreting or a mental impressions. It just is. The letters that appear on the screen when I type get recorded by me. Comparison is the function of calculating the difference between my desired state and my perception. It is basically a subtraction process. The comparator figuratively asks the question “How far away and in what direction?”. PCT is never about one thing it is always about the relationship between two or more things.
The next post will be Part II : Two practices to shift towards better communication based on PCT.
*For more information read A People Primer: The Nature of Living Systems by Shelley Roy https://a.co/d/fgqzlJO