Synthesis and Systems

An important departure in entrepreneurial management thought is associated with the integration of systems approaches into studying and applying its theories. Systematic analysis and categorization processes in the sciences and social sciences (like management), is now recognized as being the foundation of learning and decision making. For the field of entrepreneurial study, this means conceptualizing and labeling finer aspects and relationships associated with entrepreneurship as an emergent management orientation; and then combining concepts and interrelationships at alternate levels to triangulate and explain why and how entrepreneurship always seems to emerge from life’s unresolved conditions that surround us and are within us, to become the basis of human progress. The constant emergence of systematic freshness in entrepreneurship is very important to conceive and understand, because the assumption of freshness demands that entrepreneurship must be defined holistically in relation to material, but also time. Fresh conditions of management are highly vigilant and intellectual. Such a manager posture reflects a Hegelian view of the management task; whereby the management intellect recognizes that solving contradictions through synthesis only tends to uncover further, deeper contradiction. Thus, continuous and escalating performance is ultimately needed in the entrepreneurs that wish to work at the emerging cutting-edge (the gazelle); and systematic definitions and theories must reflect this reality.

A major contribution to the field of management in the early 1980’s was the book, In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982). This book had a tremendous impact on the field of management in the 1980’s because it uncovered subtle truths about organized success on a grand scale, in modern market systems that are more global and more holistically connected by abstract concepts and world-orders. Softer concepts like culture, vision and commitment, which were previously seen as not that important, were identified as essential to performance and success. Long-term, holistic perspectives were vital, and such vision came from an intellect immersed in evolving systems thought (Peters and Waterman worked for the prestigious McKinsey company and collaborated with colleagues who were involved in the burgeoning systems approaches blooming at universities like Harvard, MIT and Babson in the Boston area, and with the most progressive thinking managers from companies across America, Europe and the world). Excellence in organizations has since come to mean the development of visionary and futuristic strategies that fit with the larger needs of the whole system; the customer, the employees, the eco-system and the larger communities and constituencies of the world. In other words, strategies are good when they are coherent and are founded on open systems perspectives. Such systems orientations are no longer a fad; they are becoming the standard in organizations.

Hegel contended that the motives for thinking more deeply and logically never end, because there are always new contradictions and problems to solve. It’s a humbling realization for a manager to admit that they are not all-knowing, that all thinking inside or outside the box is imperfect, and that today’s decisions will in all likelihood precipitate tomorrow’s problems. The job is never done, and the contest never won. Thus, all modern managers need to be entrepreneurial to some extent. Modern entrepreneurial managers need this especially sharp sense of tension to truly manage the future. That sense that we never arrive, and must thus stay fresh, so to speak, is vital to the personal mastery necessary to be confident, competent and willful in the face of global networks arranged in an infinitely interconnected and lethal world community. Furthermore, the idea of infinitely interconnected and dangerous subsystems is evolving even faster each day as the Internet, the information age and the weapons of mass destruction teeter on implosion and explosion. It is hard to imagine where all this electronic, wireless and devastating connectivity will eventually take us. As the world is iteratively developing scientific and other valid knowledge about our material, our planet and us, managers must be ever more capable of reconciling this contradictory knowledge in organizations. Modern management is not simply an iterative process of learning to keep up with knowledge, so that you don’t get too far behind. It is the full realization that subsystems never fit perfectly, and managers will fail; and yet the great leader is motivated by the abstract challenge to understand and know when and how to change.

Think about how MIT started simulating world resource usage and production with high-powered computer models in the early 70’s. Their macro models of world resources (inputs) and their utilization (outputs) had thousands of variables, parameters and assumptions, which over the years have resulted in some highly publicized projections of doom and gloom regarding very definite limits to population and economic growth. These early models were found wanting however, with their assumptions, variables and consequently the predictions being flat-out wrong. The numbers going into the model were wrong, so the predicted numbers coming out were wrong. More oil, minerals and so forth were found, we had amazing productivity, we learned how to conserve more, we built better systems and we solved problems that seemed unsolvable. The human race and their management advanced, making the sophisticated MIT’s computer models erroneous. The models have subsequently been expanded to be more holistic and to incorporate more and better variables, parameters and interrelationships, which are producing a new generation of better modeling capability. These new models are now projecting their own new catastrophes, which seem inevitable based on current knowledge and management intellect. Could it be that these new projections will miss the mark again because they can’t foresee the evolution that will occur in management learning and the possibilities in minds of yet unborn entrepreneurs? As long as we learn and imagine how to learn better, we stand a chance of creating a better life, one that defies the current facts; and the management dreamers that lead the way out of this doom and gloom are the most evolutionary system thinkers – the entrepreneurs.

Management theorists and practicing managers are beginning to coalesce their thinking around the idea that our systems of ecology, markets, careers, organizations, information and other subsystems interrelate in a patterned nature, that there is nothing that does not interrelate and show interrelationship. Especially a society’s top leaders and managers must account for the whole universe of solved and unsolved issues to progress evermore complex organizations with evermore effective management theories and practices. Entrepreneurial management, which is particularly astute, holistic, open and above all fresh, is central to guiding and changing massive systems. Unfortunately, we seem doomed to have but a partial definition of exactly what this unique style is. Serious work is constantly needed to develop a system-oriented perspective, if not a definition of the uniqueness of entrepreneurship (perhaps a set of definitions) that is useful and appropriate in modern social environments where entrepreneurs and organizations are evolving more rapidly all the time. The pace and array of uncertainties are more and more complex and are changing constantly, labor is fickle and expensive, laws and regulations are more restrictive, terrorists abound; yet, information about all of it is rich and abundant, as we watch closer from above and all around with wireless devices. Entrepreneurial astuteness, vision and tactical managerial behaviors must ratchet to higher levels, tit-for-tat, or growth will turn to collapse in the aspiring enterprise. Peter Senge develops an archetype he calls “limits to growth.” This archetype suggests that organizations, which are growing can encounter unanticipated “limits” that slow, stop or even reverse the growth process because limits are so surprising, insidious or virile - crap happens. We don’t handle growth well because we don’t anticipate limits, nor do we manage them well when we inevitably face them.