Field notes on systems &amp; performance

The Viable System Model – Part 5

Every viable system contains viable systems and is contained in a viable system. Stafford Beer Tweet Recursions of the Viable System With Systems 2 and 3, the organization will have stabilized and…

Nov 16, 2025 3 min read

Why Projects Fail Quietly: The Hidden System That Shapes Delivery Excellence

1. Introducing the Disturbance At first glance, high-performing project delivery seems like a matter of planning, discipline, and execution. Yet anyone who has worked inside a real project…

Nov 16, 2025 6 min read

OmniCraft Industries – Process Excellence and Agility

OmniCraft Industries transformed its operations by embracing process excellence and empowering its workforce, leading to a 30% boost in efficiency. By decentralizing decision-making and fostering…

Feb 8, 2025 5 min read

Building a Resilient Startup: How to Design a Scalable and Adaptive Organization Using the Viable System Model

Many startups struggle with managing complexity, ensuring adaptability, and maintaining a clear vision while scaling operations. The Viable System Model (VSM), developed by Stafford Beer, provides an…

Feb 5, 2025 8 min read

Mediation vs. Litigation in Business – Is Going to Court Ruining Your Business Partnership?

Discover the advantages of mediation over litigation in resolving disputes within your business partnership. Uncover strategies to maintain relationships, foster communication, and achieve…

Jan 28, 2025 9 min read

Top Mediation Failure Reasons & How to Ensure Effective Business Mediation

Mediation failure can turn what seems like a promising resolution process into a frustrating deadlock. In the world of business, disputes and disagreements are inevitable, and many opt for effective…

Jan 27, 2025 10 min read

Happy Employees, Healthy Profits: The ROI of Mediation

I’m sipping coffee in a family owned bakery’s cozy, somewhat cluttered back office, the air rich with the scent of fresh bread and pastries. Across from me sits Maria, the bakery’s co-owner, her…

Jan 26, 2025 9 min read

Maria’s Bakery

Jan 25, 2025 3 min read

The Resurgence of VisionTech

In the lively heart of Toronto, three ambitious entrepreneurs—Alex, Jordan, and Sam—launched VisionTech, a startup aimed at revolutionizing how small businesses integrate artificial intelligence into…

Jan 25, 2025 2 min read

The Cybernetics of Having a Thick Skin!

Human beings are survival machines; they, by nature, strive to reduce their discomfort as much as possible. When we are hungry, we search for food; and when in need of protecting ourselves against…

Jan 24, 2025 3 min read

Organizational Design

The Myth of Best Practice

“We need you to tell us what the ‘best practice’ is here,” is a request very familiar to many business and management consultants, or “we chose this consulting firm because they have worked with many…

Jan 23, 2025 4 min read

The Cybernetics of Learning

Conflict denotes the existence of a difference between what has been sensed and what the individual believes it ought to be. Therefore, the response to a conflict, or in other words, the attempt to…

Jan 22, 2025 2 min read

The Cybernetics of Dispute

Imagine a hypothetical social system in equilibrium. We already know that there will be no conflicts being perceived by any member of this system, because the whole social system is in equilibrium…

Jan 21, 2025 8 min read

Abstractions and Generalizations — What Every Mediator Should Know

People use abstraction and generalization to order the world around them. They develop and rank categories, and use those categories—good person/bad person—to evaluate and interact with others. I…

Jan 20, 2025 1 min read

Basic Notions – Control

Stafford Beer asserts that “control is an attribute of a system”[1], whereby identifying a system to be “in control” means that “it is ultra-stable: capable of adapting smoothly to unpredicted…

Basic Notions – Cybernetics

The distinguished mathematician Norbert Wiener[1] coined the word Cybernetics from Greek κυβερνητική (kybernētikḗ), from Latin gubernātor, meaning helmsperson, steersperson, or pilot, as steering a…

Jan 19, 2025 2 min read

Basic Notions – Disturbance or Perturbation

Basic Notions – Disturbance or Perturbation Adding to the complexity of the example depicted above, should forces change their directions or magnitudes in a way that the total sum is not zero, the…

Jan 19, 2025 2 min read

Basic Notions – Equilibrium

Tapping into physics and Newton’s first law of motion, we know that “an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by a net external force.”…

Basic Notions – Feedback Loops

For any control to happen, the system needs to have some sort of a sensor to detect, encode, and feed information from the environment or system itself into the system, some form of logic to process…

Basic Notions – System

The eminent cybernetician Stafford Beer defines a system as “anything that consists of parts connected together.”[1] George Klir[2] also says that “the term ‘system’ stands, in general, for a set of…

Basic Notions – Variety and the Law of Requisite Variety

Basic Notions – Variety and the Law of Requisite Variety To control—or manage[1]— anything, there is a need for something to measure it with; so as to control complexity, we need a measure to…

Jan 19, 2025 3 min read

Organizational Design

Cooperation and Teamwork

To increase performance and efficiency, we have learned to focus on 3 major factors: Clarity, Accountability, and Measurement We try to clarify each role and clearly define tasks for each individual…

Organizational Design

Design a Conflict-Wise Organization

There are several key areas that probing them helps better understanding of (and designing) an effective conflict management system: What does success look like in a conflict situation? How can this…

Jan 19, 2025 6 min read

Do No Harm, Neutrality, … and a Cold Autumn Morning!

“You look awfully pensive this morning,” said Contra, joylessly looking at the steam coming out of his mug, “your coffee is getting cold, Thesia.” “I heard something in the class last night, and now…

Jan 19, 2025 8 min read

From Conflict to Dispute

The overuse and dramatization of the word ‘conflict’ in contemporary media, by employing terms such as armed conflict, countries affected by conflict, deadly conflicts, and such, have dramatically…

Jan 19, 2025 2 min read

From Management to Leadership – Redefining The Agile Organization

Moving fast and efficient requires awareness and agility. It’s just not possible for a large ship to change course as fast as a speedboat. Often, highly bureaucratic and hierarchical organizations…

Jan 19, 2025 4 min read

Managing Value Conflicts

It has been suggested that conflicts or disputes that involve strongly held values/beliefs are the most difficult to resolve. Is this always the case? Are there specific ways to address these…

Jan 19, 2025 8 min read

Transformational Process Design for Dispute Resolution

Before any dispute resolution process is designed or implemented, there should be a planning process to avoid surprises and pitfalls and minimize the risk of failure. Without advanced planning, there…

Why Cybernetics

Why Cybernetics In classical binary logic, Aristotle’s principle of non-contradiction states that things cannot be ‘A’ and ‘Not A’ at the same time, and therefore, everything can be categorized into…

Jan 19, 2025 4 min read

The Viable System Model – Part 4

Too close a view may interfere with one’s grasp of an overall problem or concept. Stafford Beer Tweet System 4 – Forward Planning, The External Eye With Systems 2 and 3, the organization will have…

Jan 14, 2025 3 min read

The Viable System Model – Part 3

If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control. Stafford Beer Tweet Authority vs. Providing Service The design of a Viable System is not hierarchical and is not…

Jan 13, 2025 7 min read

The Viable System Model – Part 2

Science has sought the ultimate source of energy in the physics of the sun itself . . . the hydrogen-helium fusion. Science now seeks the ultimate source of control, in the cybernetics of natural…

Jan 12, 2025 3 min read

The Viable System Model – Part 1

The Foundation of the Viable System Model To design a Viable Organization, why re-invent the wheel when we have access to the most viable system of all: Human Beings? Humans have successfully evolved…

Jan 11, 2025 6 min read

Stafford Beer

A “world leader in the development of operational research, who combined management systems with cybernetics” (The Guardian), Professor Stafford Beer is well known for his considerable contributions…

Jan 10, 2025 2 min read