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316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
All over the world, in great metropolitan centers as well as in the remotest rural backwaters, in sophisticated electronics laboratories, and in dingy clerical offices, people everywhere are struggling with a Problem: Things Aren't Working Very Well.
Whereas before there was only the problem to deal with, there is now - in addition - the solution.
Because Trillium has clearly stated his Goals and Objectives, it is now possible to deduce with rigorous logic how he should spend his waking and working hours in order to achieve them most efficiently. No more pottering around pursuing spontaneous impulses and temporary enthusiasms!
A complex system that works is invariably found to hav eevolved from a simple system that worked. [Also:] A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.
New problems are created by its very existence.
Once set up, it won't go away, it gorws and encroaches.
It begins to do strange and wonderful things.
Breaks down in ways you never thought possible.
It kicks back, gets in the way, and opposed its own proper funciton.
Your own perspective becomes distorted by being in the system.
You become anxious and push on it to make it work.
Eventually you come to believe that the misbegotten product it so grudginly delivers is what you really wnated all the time.
At that point encoachment has become complete.
You have become absorbed. You are now a systems-person.
The work of change agents is made enormously more delicate and uncertain by the fact that the mere presence of a change agent (recognizable as such) has about the same effect on an organization as an efficiency expert seen strolling across the factory floor with stopwatch in hand: it promptly induces bizarre and unpredictable alterations in the behaviour of hte system.