System Three

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System Three

The metasystem component “synoptically and synergistically concerned with the optimal operation of System One — the inside and now of the enterprise” (HOE 1979: 142).

What Beer says

  • Once discriminated as “inside-and-now”, “we shall also need to discriminate a System Four — to deal with (let’s call it) the outside-and-then” (DTS 1985: 111).
  • BOTF: three information kinds converge — command axis as controller, upward filter, and “an algedonode”; sole recipient of System Two’s upward filter; parasympathetic circuits (BOTF 1981: 176).
  • Resource bargain: the “deal” on autonomy — “THESE will be tackled (and not those)” with resources provided (DTS 1985: 38–39).
  • Audit (Three*): sporadic, “by agreement with System One management”, “straight to the operations themselves” — sixth vertical channel (DTS 1985: 82); “a typical 3* function” (DTS 1985: 144).

Where it sits in the model

Holds System One via six vertical components; receives System Two. Debarred from the external/future, so System Four is born (HOE 1979: 143). With Four, the homeostat System Five monitors. “System Three in practice really runs the enterprise” (HOE 1979: 263).

Textual notes

Six vertical components differ. HOE 1979: 142–143: three “by happenstance” (environments, operations, System One managers as a team) plus three designed (command, Two, auditing). DTS 1985: 81–82: (i) Corporate Intervention, (ii) Resource Bargain, (iii) operational linkages, (iv) environmental intersects, (v) System Two, (vi) audits. DTS splits command; drops managers-as-team (DTS 1985: 84).

Punch and Judy

Punch and Judy argues that the setting of autonomy, which Beer assigns to System Three’s resource bargain, is claimed determinate but never computed or measured (Ch 13), and it reports that the one substantial quantitative test of the model drew its single negative result on a System Three hypothesis, which the original study deflected after the result rather than before it (Ch 18). The authors mark these findings provisional and present them as a stress test, not a verdict.

Open points

HOE figure labels for “3*” not checked (text layer only).

Pure VSM — Overview · Part II — The Viable System Model · System One · System Two · System Four · System Five · Algedonic signal · Punch and Judy — Overview