System Two

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System Two

The function that damps oscillation among the units of System One. Without it, System One “would go into an uncontrollable oscillation” (HOE 1979: 177). From Pure VSM — Overview Draft 0.8; not project canon.

What Beer says

  • “System Two is logically necessary to any viable system, since without it System One would be unstable — it would go into an uncontrollable oscillation” (HOE 1979: 177). It has “the highly specific function of damping oscillations, and nothing else. In fact, then, System Two is a service to System One” (ibid.).
  • Those in the role are often accused of destroying horizontal variety, “whereas their proper function is merely anti-oscillatory, as the school timetable example makes clear” (HOE 1979: 178).
  • Under-represented in management technique: “It is always present, or the organization would shake itself to pieces” (DTS 1985: 66).
  • A productivity change is relayed “automatically” as “a statistical statement couched in achievement numbers” so oscillation does not set in (BOTF 1981: 174).

Where it sits in the model

A designed vertical cohesion loop with System Three. BOTF analogue: “the spinal cord” (BOTF 1981: 124). Not System Five policy, not System Four outside-and-then.

Textual notes

Function is stable; placement shifts. BOTF: “the metasystem subsuming all Systems One” (BOTF 1981: 172). HOE: “a service to System One” (HOE 1979: 177). DTS: “anti-oscillatory device for System One” (DTS 1985: 66).

Punch and Judy

Punch and Judy argues that the necessity of System Two, as Beer states it, cannot be disconfirmed: his own line that System Two ‘is always present, or the organization would shake itself to pieces,’ and that most successful System Twos are ‘entirely unofficial and largely unrecognized,’ leaves no observation of absence to count against the claim (Ch 9), and the model returns degraded presence rather than absence for System Two (Ch 24). The authors propose, but have not run, a re-analysis that removes each of the five system blocks in turn to test what each contributes (Ch 29). These are the manuscript’s arguments and a research proposition, not findings against the model.

Open points

Author notes (not claims): BOTF→HOE shift may be emphasis, not membership; draft placement sections await review.

Part II — The Viable System Model · Viable System Model · System One · System Three · Punch and Judy — Overview