A move towards a systems approach to organization and community design is viewed by many these days as the only way to create sustainable solutions for the social, economic and environmental issues we are facing today. A systems approach means choosing to understand organizations and communities as being more like living organisms than like mechanical objects. As such they are a system of

• Interdependent parts that form a unified whole . . .
  • In constant and mutual relationship with the changing environment (within and without the organization) . . .
  • With subsystems that include
    • technical systems (the tools, steps, methods for creating a service or product)
    • social systems (the people, their interactions and all the management systems and policies and structures that influence them).

A design process grounded in this perspective is Sociotechnical Systems. The STS Roundtable hosted a 3-part webinar exploring the history and application of STS recently. According to Bernard Mohr and Barry Bateman, presenters in the series, STS is a collaborative process for consciously rethinking and implementing the choices that make up an entire organizational system—including business/work processes; jobs and organization structure; management practices, beliefs, and assumptions; and technology—to achieve significant breakthroughs in performance, involvement, and quality of work life.

What sets STS apart from many systems approaches is the attention paid to the social systems in an organization or community. Change management approaches to improving production and innovation have typically focused on technical systems improvement, overlooking the dynamics and needs of those involved in the work. Total Quality Management, Kaizen, Six Sigma, and Continuous Improvement have all proven highly effective in supporting organizational outcomes, and they are examples of attention to the technical systems. STS points out the equally important need to attend to the social system and to intentionally design for the needs of human beings. Imagine the possibilities if your organization intentionally designed for both!

According to Mohr and Bateman, the goal is to design organizations to be effective in both human and economic terms. The core ideas of STS are:

• Treat organizations as systems (the relationships among the parts are as important as the parts themselves)
• The environmental, social, and technical subsystems must fit together so that they

compliment one another.

• This fit must be the key consideration guiding organizational and technological choice.
• Organization effectiveness is achieved by joint optimization, not by maximizing the

performance of one at the expense of the other.

• Quality of working life is an explicit design criterion.

Read more about STS or join the STS Roundtable.

Are you redesigning your organization or community to achieve sustainable outcomes?  How are you addressing the social systems? Technical systems? How is or might STS support your efforts? Contact us to find out more.