Diagnosing the System for Organizations

This book is concerned with the organization of enterprises in terms of underlying structure. Is it conceivable that if we were to design an enterprise today, knowing its contemporary purpose, knowing also the managerial technology available through computers and other electronic means, the enterprise would bear any resemblance to the organization we observe? It is not conceivable, because we should not begin with limitations and happenstances that our predecessors were compelled to handle; nor should we be encumbered with the solutions to problems that they involved within the managerial compass of their day. It is in this sense, the book says that our organization charts have been 'frozen out of history'. Even brand new enterprises are usually structured on the models with which we grew up and are familiar. There is an alternative approach, not only to the design of new enterprises but to the diagnosis of faults in existing ones that can be corrected. It is based on the scientific analysis of Viable Systems. By viability we mean those that are capable of independent existence; in a word, surviving.
So this book will show you how to design (or redesign) an enterprise in conformity with the laws of viability, and therefore it will help you to diagnose faults in the organizational structure that you have. It will not solve your financial problems, your personnel problems or other managerial dilemmas. It is not concerned with spotting major trends, nor in searching out slogans that might embody excellence. Those matters are peripheral to the business of thinking out the real, the fundamental, problem of management - how to cope with complexity itself. It is with this problem that this book deals, in the form of a handbook or manager's guide.