#SystemsThinkingDay1 – Deconstructing Complex Systems – Hierarchy
There were two watchmakers – Hora and Tempus. They both made fine watches and soon people were visiting their stores more often, and the orders for new watches were increasing in both stores.
However, Horas’ business prospered over the years, but Tempus became poorer and poorer, eventually went bankrupt.
Why was one craftsman successful but the other not?
When they both had fewer orders, they could spend hours improving the design and it didn’t matter. As the demand for watches increased, so the phone calls and people in their shops.
At that time, Tempus was making watches in the way —all parts needed to be assembled together at once. If he had to serve the customer in the middle of his work, he put the unfinished watch down – and it often fell to pieces. When he returned to work, he usually needed to start from the beginning.
But the way Hora assembled a watch was different. Hora was building watches by stable blocks – one block at a time. As a result, when Hora had to put down a partly completed watch – to see the customer – he lost only a tiny part of his work. He made his watches much faster and more efficiently than did Tempus.
Complex systems can evolve from simple systems only if they have stable intermediate forms – a characteristic called #1Hierarchy
This is from one of the most useful books I have ever read – Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright
******************************************************
#day1 – Hierarchy. Stay tuned for more on the series
#SystemsThinking
#reviewswithranjani