Text 5. Variety Engineering

Managers are unable to make accurate predictions either about the organizations they manage or the environments within which those organizations are situated. They are continually confronted by unexpected occurrences that they and their organizations must have the capacity to respond to if those organizations are going to be successful. They have to learn to live with probabilistic systems.

Fortunately, cyberneticians have taken an interest in probabilistic systems and can provide some understanding of the difficulties faced by managers and ways of dealing with them. Ashby takes the credit because of his invention of the key concept of variety. The variety of a system is defined here as the number of possible states it is capable of exhibiting. It is, therefore, a measure of complexity. Obviously, variety is a subjective concept depending on the observer. A football team's variety will be much greater if one is assessing it as the manager of an opposing team, compared to if one is assessing it for a draw on the football pools. Just as obviously, organizations and their environments are systems that possess massive variety from the point of view of managers.

The problem for managers, as Ashby's “law of requisite variety” has it, is that only variety can destroy variety. In order to control a system, we need to have as much variety available to us as the system itself exhibits. So, if a machine has 20 ways of breaking down, we need to be able to respond in 20 different ways to be in control of the machine. If managers are going to control their organizations and make them responsive to environmental fluctuations, they must command as much variety as these systems themselves exhibit. Sometimes exhibiting requisite variety is easy enough. If I am engaged in a game of noughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) and I am reasonably skilled, I can always exhibit enough variety to prevent my opponent from winning. But what if we are faced (like managers) with systems exhibiting apparently massive variety? How can we cope with this?

The answer is that we must either reduce the variety of the system we are confronting (variety reduction) or increase our own variety (variety amplification). This process of balancing varieties is known as “variety engineering”. Since the variety equation initially seems to place managers at a huge disadvantage, they will require all the skills of variety engineering if they are to balance varieties and (following the law of requisite variety) achieve control. And this must be done in ways appropriate to the organization being considered and its goals. For example, if I am manager of a relatively low-variety football team that is facing a high-variety football team, such as Manchester United, and I want to win, I have to engage in variety engineering. I must amplify the variety of my team, perhaps by improving their tactics or by entering the transfer market. Alternatively, I could reduce the variety of the Manchester United team by allocating a player to take their best player out of the game, or by gaining information about their pattern of play (thereby making it more predictable).

Managers have to learn how to use variety reducers, filtering out the vast complexity of operational and environmental variety and capturing only that of relevance to themselves and the organization. And they have to learn how to use variety amplifiers, amplifying their own variety vis-а-vis the operations and the organizations’ variety vis-а-vis its environment.

We now have the three most important building blocks of cybernetics – the black box technique, negative feedback and variety engineering – in place.  

The recognition that it is information flows and communication links that, more than anything else, bind organizations together represents significant progress over the management and organization theory. Cybernetic models can provide the detailed understanding necessary for the effective design of information systems to aid managerial control.

 

Exercise 35. Answer the questions on text 5.

1. Can managers make accurate predictions about the organization? 2. What are managers confronted by? 3. What have cyberneticians taken interest in? 4. Why does Ashby take the credit? 5. What is the variety of a system? 6. What is the problem for managers under the law of “requisite variety”? 7. What should managers cope with in order to command their organizations successfully? 8. What is a “variety engineering”? 9. What must managers learn to use? 10. What are the three building blocks of cybernetics? 11. What binds organizations? 12. What can cybernetic models provide?

 

Exercise 3 6 . Find English equivalents in text 5.

Точний прогноз; здатний проявлятися; вимір складності; очевидно; таким чином; команда-противник; з точки зору; руйнувати розмаїття; для того, щоб; 20 способів поламатися; гра «хрестики-нулики»; коливання середовища; справлятися з чимось; запобігати; отримувати інформацію; забезпечувати повне розуміння; допомагати менеджерам керувати; інформаційні потоки; визнання; значний прогрес; у порівнянні з; стикатися з проблемою; певна кількість станів.

Exercise 3 7 . Translate the sentences paying attention to different meanings of the word “credit”. Make up your own sentences using “credit” in different meanings.

1. Delayed payment. E.g. Most new cars are bought on credit. Some stores offer interest-free credit.

2. Praise. E.g. She deserves credit for trying her best. Credit must go to him for making sure everything ran smoothly.

3. A successfully completed part of a university or college. E.g. I don’t have enough credits to graduate.

 

Exercise 3 8 . Write out of text 5 the words that can function both as a noun and a verb. Translate them.

 

Model : process – процес; обробляти

Exercise 3 9 . Find sentences with modal verbs or their equivalents in text 5. Comment on their forms.

 

Exercise 40. Translate the following sentences into English.

1. Менеджери не в змозі робити точні прогнози щодо своєї організації. 2. Ви можете робити будь-які припущення.               3. Експериментатори мають закінчити роботу до завтра. 4. Системи могли б бути спроектовані ще вчора. 5. Науковці зможуть упоратися з оцінюванням цих результатів. 6. Точки зору спеціалістів можуть бути різними. 7. Керівникам слід прислухатися до порад менеджерів, аби запобігти ускладнень.

 

Exercise 41. Fill in the blanks with correct adverbs.

(fortunately, therefore, obviously, continually, apparently, alternatively).

1. … organizations and their environment possess massive variety. 2. Managers are … confronted by unexpected occurrences. 3. … managers must take some measures in order to cope with various occurrences. 4. …, cyberneticians have taken an interest in probabilistic system. 5. … variety can destroy variety. 6. The variety equation was used …

Exercise 42. Speak on the three building blocks of cybernetics:

1. Black Box Technique

2. Negative Feedback

3. Variety Engineering

Exercise 43. Learn the following words and word combinations.

ubiquity	– повсемісність
expose	– розкривати, виявляти
divine	– неземний, божественний
comprehension	– розуміння, осмислення
turmoil	– безлад
recur	– повторюватися, виникати знов
explore	– досліджувати, аналізувати
treat	– займатися; лікувати;
hodge-podge	– суміш
diverse manifestation	– різноманітні прояви
mere	– простий
essential realities	–основні факти
humanities	– гуманітарні науки

 

Exercise 44. Read, translate and give the gist of text 6.

 

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