I figured this might be be an interesting title for an article written by someone who makes their livelihood doing modeling and simulation. And yet, I have come to understand it is a most appropriate statement of truth. After having been involved in numerous modeling and simulation efforts, which produced far less than the desired results, the nagging question becomes; Why? This is the question I intend to address.
As I ponder this question, what I should understand from previous activities or engagements makes me curious as to why I repeatedly fall into the same trap. A trap of my own design. Although the trap appears different from time to time, it is in fact the same trap. The trap is one of failure by design, which seems a rather ludicrous statement. Why would anyone design a situation to fail, when failure is the thing least desired? And, even though I know this so well, it is my actions which are responsible for the failure. Truth hurts! Embracing the truth promotes progress.
From one perspective or another I have been involved in most of the management fads of the last four decades, which were most aptly labeled by McGill (1988).
Thanks to the work of Stalk & Hout (1990), Peters (1992), and Hammer & Champy (1993), we are in the midst of another decade of fads. And, the work of Senge (1990) would seem to imply that yet another one is gaining momentum. These might be appropriately labeled:
The intent of this tirade is not to berate or belittle the
developers of the foundations for these decades of fads for the
basis for potential understanding they have provided is most noteworthy.
The problem lies not in the concepts associated with the basic
disciplines which become fads, but in our less than astute application
of the disciplines.
Proponents of personal development and motivation, such as Covey (1989), Fritz
(1984), Garfield (1986), Robbins
(1986), Robbins (1991), and many
others too numerous to mention, seem to have a thread quite common
with the 6 decades of fads identified above. All accomplishment
is reduced to a formula, and if you apply the formula, you will
achieve the desired results. Oh, if it could be that life were
only so simple---it is not! And if it were, it would probably
be most boring.
And, even the formulization of a prescriptive action is not quite
the heart of the problem, even though the formulas are incomplete.
The real basis for the difficulty is in fact what we believe.
And it is not just one belief that is incorrect. There exists
a whole set of false beliefs which contribute to our continuing
failure to achieve what we set out to accomplish. And the real
annoying dimension of all this has to do with our own lack of
awareness of the beliefs and the influence they have. You might
refer to these beliefs as mental models as per Argyris
(1982) and Senge (1990) or paradigms
as per Kuhn (1962).
A partial list of the invalid beliefs in operation would seem
to be:
For the most part these are simply reworded variations of a
single false belief. That being, "It is possible to define
the actions necessary to produce a specific result." This
belief is so well ingrained within each of us that you are likely
to reject it as you read it. Yet, with considerations of the writing
of Bateson (1988), Bertalanffy
(1975), Bohm (1984), Capra
(1975), Davies (1988), Gleick
(1987), Kelly (1994), Penrose
(1989), Penrose (1994), Waldrop
(1993), Wheatley (1992), and a
host of others relating to systems and chaos, it seems rather
apparent that it is simply not possible to completely define the
starting conditions, the path of events and travel, or the final
state. Yes, most definitely we have a perception of each of these,
yet the perception is not sufficiently succinct to allow complete
explicit definition.
At this point I would expect you to be asking at least a couple
of questions. First, "What, if anything, does all this rambling
have to do with the title of this article?" and second, "If
we can't define the beginning, the actions and the path, or the
end, then how do we ever get anything done?"
Regarding the first question, what I have seen over the past twelve
to eighteen months in the arena of modeling and simulation leads
me to believe the discipline is rapidly heading the same way as
the fads of the six decades mentioned above. From attending numerous
trade shows under the rubric of business process reengineering
it seems that the majority of the companies that were hawking
data modeling and business process modeling in the IDEF fashion
have now changed their focus. If they are not currently doing
modeling and simulation they swear they will be shortly. The number
of simulation products which have shown up in the market place
over the last year is very difficult to keep up with.
The discipline of modeling and simulation is in the process of
being oversold to a most unsuspecting audience. An audience still
operating under the same misguided paradigms which have fostered
the emergence of the fads of the past and present. And I suspect
the failure rates of modeling and simulation projects will rank
right up their with the dismal results of total quality management
and business process reengineering. Modeling and simulation is
a discipline to promote a deeper more complete understanding of
how things work. If one expects the discipline to provide answers
they will tend to believe the results which a simulation provides,
and find that it leads them to all kinds of problems for the answers
are not correct, they are only indications.
There is a segment from Peck (1978)
which I refer to often as it seems to reacquaint me of the reality
of the situation we face.
Seek greater understanding, but do not expect greater detail. There are many who by virtue of their passivity, dependency, fear, and laziness, seek to be shown every inch of the way and have it demonstrated to them that each step will be safe and worth their while. This cannot be done. For the journey of spiritual growth requires courage and initiative and independence of thought and action. While the words of the prophets and the assistance of grace are available, the journey must still be traveled alone. No teacher can carry you there. There are no preset formulas. Rituals are only learning aids, they are not the learning.
I guess this gets me to the second question regarding how we
manage to get anything done when we can't define the beginning,
the action and the path, or the end. Although we cannot define
any of these in absolute terms, we do have perceptions. We have
a perception of where we are, a perception of where we want to
be, or what we want to accomplish, and a perception of the actions
or path to be taken to get from one to the other. The perception
is not an absolute, just an impression. Then, as we progress from
beginning to end we make a countless number of course corrections
along the way, most of which we are not even aware of. This reminds
me of Buddha's response when asked what he was. Buddha responded,
"I am awake." We spend our lives only partially aware
of our actions and what is happening around us. We spend much
of our lives operating on auto-pilot so to speak.
When we have succeeded in achieving a result we set out to accomplish
we go back and review the journey and identify the major components
we consider were significant in our achieving the result. From
these apparently significant components we construct our formulas.
Formulas which we believe would allow ourselves and others to
achieve the same results under similar circumstances. Yet, the
formulas do not account for the countless number of minute course
corrections made all along the journey. Minute course corrections
which, although minute, were just as responsible for the successful
result as the major components identified during the post-success
analysis.
So, is there an answer? Of course there is, otherwise why would
I have started this paper in the first place. The answer lies
in two areas. First, we must admit that we simply don't understand.
And, second, we must pursue understanding. Not answers but understanding.