Introduction: The System Lens
简介: 系统镜头
Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. . . . Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.
—RUSSELL ACKOFF, 1
1 operations theorist
Early on in teaching about systems, I often bring out a Slinky. In case you grew up without one, a Slinky is a toy—a long, loose spring that can be made to bounce up and down, or pour back and forth from hand to hand, or walk itself downstairs.
在教授系统的早期，我经常拿出一个 Slinky。如果你成长过程中没有一个弹簧，那么弹簧就是一个玩具——一个长长的、松散的弹簧，可以上下跳动，或者从一只手倒到另一只手，或者自己走下楼梯。
I perch the Slinky on one upturned palm. With the fingers of the other hand, I grasp it from the top, partway down its coils. Then I pull the bottom hand away. The lower end of the Slinky drops, bounces back up again, yo-yos up and down, suspended from my fingers above.
我把弹簧狗放在一只向上的手掌上。我用另一只手的手指，从上到下抓住它。然后我把底部的手拿开。弹簧的下端下降，再次弹回来，溜溜球上上下下，悬挂在我的手指上面。
“What made the Slinky bounce up and down like that?” I ask students.
我问学生们: “是什么让 Slinky 像这样上下跳动?”。
“Your hand. You took away your hand,” they say.
“你的手，你把你的手拿开了,”他们说。
So I pick up the box the Slinky came in and hold it the same way, poised on a flattened palm, held from above by the fingers of the other hand. With as much dramatic flourish as I can muster, I pull the lower hand away.
所以我拿起弹簧狗进来的盒子，用同样的方式拿着它，平放在一只手掌上，用另一只手的手指从上面拿着。我尽可能地使出浑身解数，把另一只手抽了出来。
Nothing happens. The box just hangs there, of course.
什么也没发生，盒子当然就挂在那儿。
“Now once again. What made the Slinky bounce up and down?”
“现在再问一遍，是什么让弹簧狗上下跳动?”
The answer clearly lies within the Slinky itself. The hands that manipulate it suppress or release some behavior that is latent within the structure of the spring.
答案显然就在弹簧狗身上。操纵它的双手抑制或释放了一些潜藏在弹簧结构中的行为。
That is a central insight of systems theory.
这是系统论的核心观点。
Once we see the relationship between structure and behavior, we can begin to understand how systems work, what makes them produce poor results, and how to shift them into better behavior patterns. As our world continues to change rapidly and become more complex, systems thinking will help us manage, adapt, and see the wide range of choices we have before us. It is a way of thinking that gives us the freedom to identify root causes of problems and see new opportunities.
一旦我们看到了结构和行为之间的关系，我们就可以开始理解系统是如何工作的，是什么让它们产生糟糕的结果，以及如何将它们转换成更好的行为模式。随着我们的世界继续迅速变化并变得更加复杂，系统思维将帮助我们管理、适应并看到摆在我们面前的各种选择。它是一种思维方式，让我们能够自由地找出问题的根源，看到新的机会。
So, what is a system? A system is a set of things—people, cells, molecules, or whatever—interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. The system may be buffeted, constricted, triggered, or driven by outside forces. But the system’s response to these forces is characteristic of itself, and that response is seldom simple in the real world.
那么，什么是系统呢？一个系统是一系列事物——人、细胞、分子或其他任何东西——相互联系的方式，使它们随着时间的推移产生自己的行为模式。这个系统可能受到外部力量的冲击、压缩、触发或驱动。但是系统对这些力量的反应是它自身的特点，而这种反应在现实世界中很少是简单的。
When it comes to Slinkies, this idea is easy enough to understand. When it comes to individuals, companies, cities, or economies, it can be heretical. The system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior! An outside event may unleash that behavior, but the same outside event applied to a different system is likely to produce a different result.
说到弹簧狗，这个想法很容易理解。当涉及到个人、公司、城市或经济时，它可能是异端邪说。这个系统，在很大程度上，导致了它自己的行为！外部事件可能会释放这种行为，但同样的外部事件应用于不同的系统可能会产生不同的结果。
Think for a moment about the implications of that idea:
思考一下这个想法的含义:
• Political leaders don’t cause recessions or economic booms. Ups and downs are inherent in the structure of the market economy.
• Competitors rarely cause a company to lose market share. They may be there to scoop up the advantage, but the losing company creates its losses at least in part through its own business policies.
• The oil-exporting nations are not solely responsible for oil price rises. Their actions alone could not trigger global price rises and economic chaos if the oil consumption, pricing, and investment policies of the oil-importing nations had not built economies that are vulnerable to supply interruptions.
• The flu virus does not attack you; you set up the conditions for it to flourish within you.
• Drug addiction is not the failing of an individual and no one person, no matter how tough, no matter how loving, can cure a drug addict—not even the addict. It is only through understanding addiction as part of a larger set of influences and societal issues that one can begin to address it.
Something about statements like these is deeply unsettling. Something else is purest common sense. I submit that those two somethings—a resistance to and a recognition of systems principles—come from two kinds of human experience, both of which are familiar to everyone.
这样的声明令人深感不安。还有一些是最纯粹的常识。我认为，这两种东西——对系统原则的抵制和对系统原则的承认——来自两种人类经验，这两种经验对每个人来说都是熟悉的。
On the one hand, we have been taught to analyze, to use our rational ability, to trace direct paths from cause to effect, to look at things in small and understandable pieces, to solve problems by acting on or controlling the world around us. That training, the source of much personal and societal power, leads us to see presidents and competitors, OPEC and the flu and drugs as the causes of our problems.
一方面，我们被教导去分析，去运用我们的理性能力，去追踪从因果关系到结果的直接路径，去看一些小的和可以理解的事情，去通过行动或控制我们周围的世界来解决问题。这种培训是个人和社会力量的源泉，它使我们看到总统和竞争对手、欧佩克、流感和毒品是我们问题的根源。
On the other hand, long before we were educated in rational analysis, we all dealt with complex systems. We are complex systems—our own bodies are magnificent examples of integrated, interconnected, self-maintaining complexity. Every person we encounter, every organization, every animal, garden, tree, and forest is a complex system. We have built up intuitively, without analysis, often without words, a practical understanding of how these systems work, and how to work with them.
另一方面，早在我们接受理性分析的教育之前，我们都在处理复杂的系统。我们是复杂的系统——我们自己的身体是集成的、相互关联的、自我维持的复杂性的杰出例子。我们遇到的每个人，每个组织，每个动物，花园，树木和森林都是一个复杂的系统。我们凭直觉，没有分析，常常没有语言，建立了一个对这些系统如何工作，以及如何与它们一起工作的实际理解。
Modern systems theory, bound up with computers and equations, hides the fact that it traffics in truths known at some level by everyone. It is often possible, therefore, to make a direct translation from systems jargon to traditional wisdom.
现代系统理论，与计算机和方程式结合在一起，隐藏了这样一个事实: 它在某种程度上传递着每个人都知道的真理。因此，从系统术语直接翻译成传统智慧通常是可能的。
Because of feedback delays within complex systems, by the time a problem becomes apparent it may be unnecessarily difficult to solve.
— A stitch in time saves nine.
According to the competitive exclusion principle, if a reinforcing feedback loop rewards the winner of a competition with the means to win further competitions, the result will be the elimination of all but a few competitors.
— For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath (Mark 4:25) or
—The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
A diverse system with multiple pathways and redundancies is more stable and less vulnerable to external shock than a uniform system with little diversity.
— Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, Western society has benefited from science, logic, and reductionism over intuition and holism. Psychologically and politically we would much rather assume that the cause of a problem is “out there,” rather than “in here.” It’s almost irresistible to blame something or someone else, to shift responsibility away from ourselves, and to look for the control knob, the product, the pill, the technical fix that will make a problem go away.
自工业革命以来，西方社会一直受益于科学、逻辑和还原论，而不是直觉和整体论。从心理上和政治上来说，我们更愿意认为问题的根源在“外面”，而不是“在这里”我们几乎无法抗拒去责备某事或某人，把责任从我们自己身上转移开，去寻找控制旋钮，产品，药片，技术上的解决方案，这些都会让问题消失。
Serious problems have been solved by focusing on external agents—preventing smallpox, increasing food production, moving large weights and many people rapidly over long distances. Because they are embedded in larger systems, however, some of our “solutions” have created further problems. And some problems, those most rooted in the internal structure of complex systems, the real messes, have refused to go away.
通过关注外部因素——预防天花、增加粮食产量、大量搬运重物和许多人迅速长途跋涉——已经解决了严重的问题。然而，由于它们被嵌入到更大的系统中，我们的一些“解决方案”产生了进一步的问题。还有一些问题，那些根植于复杂系统内部结构的问题，那些真正的混乱，一直不肯消失。
Hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, economic instability, unemployment, chronic disease, drug addiction, and war, for example, persist in spite of the analytical ability and technical brilliance that have been directed toward eradicating them. No one deliberately creates those problems, no one wants them to persist, but they persist nonetheless. That is because they are intrinsically systems problems—undesirable behaviors characteristic of the system structures that produce them. They will yield only as we reclaim our intuition, stop casting blame, see the system as the source of its own problems, and find the courage and wisdom to restructure it.
例如，饥饿、贫穷、环境退化、经济不稳定、失业、慢性疾病、吸毒和战争等问题，尽管人们的分析能力和技术才能一直被用于消除这些生物可分解添加物。没有人故意制造这些问题，也没有人希望它们持续存在，但它们仍然存在。这是因为它们本质上是系统问题——产生这些问题的系统结构所特有的不良行为。只有当我们重拾我们的直觉，停止指责，把这个系统看作它自身问题的根源，并且找到重建它的勇气和智慧时，它们才会屈服。
Obvious. Yet subversive. An old way of seeing. Yet somehow new. Comforting, in that the solutions are in our hands. Disturbing, because we must do things, or at least see things and think about things, in a different way.
显而易见。然而具有颠覆性。一种古老的观察方式。然而不知何故是新的。令人欣慰的是，解决方案就在我们手中。令人不安，因为我们必须以不同的方式去做事，或者至少去看待和思考事情。
This book is about that different way of seeing and thinking. It is intended for people who may be wary of the word “systems” and the field of systems analysis, even though they may have been doing systems thinking all their lives. I have kept the discussion nontechnical because I want to show what a long way you can go toward understanding systems without turning to mathematics or computers.
这本书是关于不同的看待和思考的方式。它是为那些可能对“系统”这个词和系统分析领域持谨慎态度的人而设计的，即使他们可能一生都在从事系统思考。我把这个讨论保持在非技术性的状态，因为我想展示的是，在不求助于数学或计算机的情况下，你在理解系统方面能走多远。
I have made liberal use of diagrams and time graphs in this book because there is a problem in discussing systems only with words. Words and sentences must, by necessity, come only one at a time in linear, logical order. Systems happen all at once. They are connected not just in one direction, but in many directions simultaneously. To discuss them properly, it is necessary somehow to use a language that shares some of the same properties as the phenomena under discussion.
我在这本书中大量使用了图表和时间图表，因为只用文字讨论系统有一个问题。词语和句子必须按照线性、逻辑顺序一次只能出现一个。系统同时发生。它们不仅在一个方向上相连，而且在许多方向上同时相连。为了正确地讨论它们，有必要以某种方式使用一种与正在讨论的现象具有相同属性的语言。
Pictures work for this language better than words, because you can see all the parts of a picture at once. I will build up systems pictures gradually, starting with very simple ones. I think you’ll find that you can understand this graphical language easily.
图片比文字更适合这种语言，因为你可以同时看到图片的所有部分。我将逐步构建系统图片，从非常简单的图片开始。我想你会发现你可以很容易地理解这个图形语言。
I start with the basics: the definition of a system and a dissection of its parts (in a reductionist, unholistic way). Then I put the parts back together to show how they interconnect to make the basic operating unit of a system: the feedback loop.
我从基础开始: 系统的定义和对其各部分的剖析(以一种简化论的、非整体的方式)。然后我把这些部分重新组合在一起，展示它们是如何相互连接成为一个系统的基本操作单元: 反馈回路。
Next I will introduce you to a systems zoo—a collection of some common and interesting types of systems. You’ll see how a few of these creatures behave and why and where they can be found. You’ll recognize them; they’re all around you and even within you.
接下来，我将向你介绍一个系统动物园——一些常见而有趣的系统类型的集合。你会看到一些这样的生物是如何行为的，为什么会这样以及在哪里可以找到它们。你会认出它们; 它们无处不在，甚至在你的身体里。
With a few of the zoo “animals”—a set of specific examples—as a foundation, I’ll step back and talk about how and why systems work so beautifully and the reasons why they so often surprise and confound us. I’ll talk about why everyone or everything in a system can act dutifully and rationally, yet all these well-meaning actions too often add up to a perfectly terrible result. And why things so often happen much faster or slower than everyone thinks they will. And why you can be doing something that has always worked and suddenly discover, to your great disappointment, that your action no longer works. And why a system might suddenly, and without warning, jump into a kind of behavior you’ve never seen before.
以一些动物园的“动物”——一组具体的例子——作为基础，我将退后一步，谈谈系统如何以及为什么运行得如此完美，以及为什么它们经常让我们感到惊讶和困惑。我将谈论为什么一个系统中的每个人或每件事都可以尽职尽责、理性地行事，然而所有这些善意的行为往往会导致一个非常糟糕的结果。以及为什么事情总是发生得比每个人想象的要快或要慢。以及为什么你可以做一些一直有效的事情，突然发现，你的行动不再有效，这让你非常失望。为什么一个系统可能会突然，毫无预兆地，跳入一种你从未见过的行为。
That discussion will lead to us to look at the common problems that the systems-thinking community has stumbled upon over and over again through working in corporations and governments, economies and ecosystems, physiology and psychology. “There’s another case of the tragedy of the commons,” we find ourselves saying as we look at an allocation system for sharing water resource among communities or financial resources among schools. Or we identify “eroding goals” as we study the business rules and incentives that help or hinder the development of new technologies. Or we see “policy resistance” as we examine decision-making power and the nature of relationships in a family, a community, or a nation. Or we witness “addiction”—which can be caused by many more agents than caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and narcotics.
这种讨论将使我们看到系统思维团体通过在公司和政府、经济和生态系统、生理和心理学方面的工作一次又一次地碰到的共同问题。“这是公地悲剧的另一个例子,”我们发现自己在看社区之间共享水资源或学校之间共享财政资源的分配系统时说。或者，当我们研究帮助或阻碍新技术发展的商业规则和激励机制时，我们确定了“侵蚀性目标”。或者，当我们考察一个家庭、一个社区或一个国家的决策权和人际关系的性质时，我们看到了“政策阻力”。或者我们见证了“成瘾”——这可能是由比咖啡因、酒精、尼古丁和麻醉剂更多的因素造成的。
Systems thinkers call these common structures that produce characteristic behaviors “archetypes.” When I first planned this book, I called them “system traps.” Then I added the words “and opportunities,” because these archetypes, which are responsible for some of the most intransigent and potentially dangerous problems, also can be transformed, with a little systems understanding, to produce much more desirable behaviors.
系统思想家称这些产生特征行为的常见结构为“原型”当我第一次计划写这本书的时候，我称之为“系统陷阱”然后我添加了“和机会”这个词，因为这些原型，负责一些最顽固的和潜在的危险的问题，也可以转换，与一些系统的理解，产生更多的理想的行为。
From this understanding I move into what you and I can do about restructuring the systems we live within. We can learn how to look for leverage points for change.
从这种理解出发，我将探讨你和我可以做些什么来重组我们所生活的系统。我们可以学习如何寻找变革的杠杆点。
I conclude with the largest lessons of all, the ones derived from the wisdom shared by most systems thinkers I know. For those who want to explore systems thinking further, the Appendix provides ways to dig deeper into the subject with a glossary, a bibliography of systems thinking resources, a summary list of systems principles, and equations for the models described in Part One.
我总结了所有教训中最重要的一条，这些教训来自于我认识的大多数系统思想家所共享的智慧。对于那些想要进一步探索系统思维的人来说，附录提供了通过术语表、系统思维资源书目、系统原理摘要列表以及第一部分中描述的模型方程式来深入研究这个主题的方法。
When our small research group moved from MIT to Dartmouth College years ago, one of the Dartmouth engineering professors watched us in seminars for a while, and then dropped by our offices. “You people are different,” he said. “You ask different kinds of questions. You see things I don’t see. Somehow you come at the world in a different way. How? Why?”
几年前，当我们的小型研究团队从麻省理工学院搬到达特茅斯学院时，达特茅斯的一位工程学教授在研讨会上观察了我们一会儿，然后来到我们的办公室。他说: “你们是与众不同的。”。你们问不同的问题。你能看到我看不到的东西。不知怎么的，你以一种不同的方式看待这个世界。怎么会呢？为什么?”
That’s what I hope to get across throughout this book, but especially in its conclusion. I don’t think the systems way of seeing is better than the reductionist way of thinking. I think it’s complementary, and therefore revealing. You can see some things through the lens of the human eye, other things through the lens of a microscope, others through the lens of a telescope, and still others through the lens of systems theory. Everything seen through each kind of lens is actually there. Each way of seeing allows our knowledge of the wondrous world in which we live to become a little more complete.
这就是我希望通过这本书，但特别是在它的结论。我不认为系统的观点比还原论的思维方式更好。我认为它是互补的，因此具有启发性。你可以通过人眼的透镜看到一些东西，通过显微镜的透镜看到一些东西，通过望远镜的透镜看到一些东西，还有一些通过系统论的透镜看到。通过各种镜头看到的一切都是真实存在的。每一种观察方式都让我们对我们生活的奇妙世界的认识变得更加完整。
At a time when the world is more messy, more crowded, more interconnected, more interdependent, and more rapidly changing than ever before, the more ways of seeing, the better. The systems-thinking lens allows us to reclaim our intuition about whole systems and
在这个世界比以往任何时候都更混乱、更拥挤、更相互关联、更相互依存、更迅速变化的时代，看问题的方式越多越好。系统思考的镜头让我们重新获得对整个系统的直觉
• hone our abilities to understand parts,
• see interconnections,
• ask “what-if ” questions about possible future behaviors, and
• be creative and courageous about system redesign.
Then we can use our insights to make a difference in ourselves and our world.
然后我们可以运用我们的洞察力来改变我们自己和我们的世界。
INTERLUDE
• The Blind Men and the Matter of the Elephant
插曲
•盲人与大象问题
Beyond Ghor, there was a city. All its inhabitants were blind. A king with his entourage arrived nearby; he brought his army and camped in the desert. He had a mighty elephant, which he used to increase the people’s awe.
在 Ghor 之外，有一座城市。所有的居民都是盲人。一个国王带着他的随从来到这附近，带着他的军队在旷野安营。他有一头强壮的大象，用来增加人们的敬畏。
The populace became anxious to see the elephant, and some sightless from among this blind community ran like fools to find it.
人们开始急于想看到大象，这个盲人社区里的一些盲人像傻瓜一样跑去寻找大象。
As they did not even know the form or shape of the elephant, they groped sightlessly, gathering information by touching some part of it.
由于他们甚至不知道大象的形状，他们盲目地摸索着，通过触摸大象的一部分来收集信息。
Each thought that he knew something, because he could feel a part. . . .
每个人都以为自己知道些什么，因为他能感觉到..。
The man whose hand had reached an ear . . . said: “It is a large, rough thing, wide and broad, like a rug.”
那个手伸进耳朵的人说: “这是一个又大又粗糙的东西，又宽又大，就像一块地毯。”
And the one who had felt the trunk said: “I have the real facts about it. It is like a straight and hollow pipe, awful and destructive.”
那个摸过箱子的人说: “我有关于箱子的真实情况。它就像一根直而空洞的管子，可怕而具有破坏性。”
The one who had felt its feet and legs said: “It is mighty and firm, like a pillar.”
摸过它的脚和腿的人说: “它强大而坚固，就像一根柱子。”
Each had felt one part out of many. Each had perceived it wrongly. . . .2
每个人都觉得自己是众多事物中的一部分，但每个人都错误地认识到了这一点
This ancient Sufi story was told to teach a simple lesson but one that we often ignore: The behavior of a system cannot be known just by knowing the elements of which the system is made.
这个古老的苏菲故事告诉我们一个简单的教训，但是我们常常忽略了: 一个系统的行为不能仅仅通过知道系统的构成要素来了解。