Transforming organizations with the Viable System Model — with Martin Pfiffner
#61 Learn more about how the Viable System Model can be used to transform an organization. – And how this can be implemented into BPM.
In this episode, I’m talking to Dr. Martin Pfiffner about the Viable System Model (VSM). A model, which focuses on the third dimension of organizing: the communication and steering. This perspective is super interesting for us as process people and there are some interesting aspects, how we can implement the learnings into processes.
Today’s Guest:
Dr. Martin Pfiffner
Martin studied at the University of St. Gallen, where he graduated with a PhD in economics. As an assistant to Professors Peter Groß in sociology and Fredmund Malik in management, he worked his way into system-oriented management theory. Later, he studied management cybernetics in Canada and Wales with Professor Stafford Beer.
Martin is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the practical application of the Viable System Model. In the past 30 years, Martin has supported countless economic, public or private organizations from all around the world.
He built up Team Syntegrity Europe and became Senior Partner, Executive Board Member and Member of the Board of Directors of Malik Management AG.
Since 2017, he has bundled his consulting activities under the brand of mp consulting and is helping to organize and structure companies based on the theory and practice of managerial cybernetics and systems sciences.
You’ll learn:
- What the Viable System Model is
- How it can be used to transform organizations
- And what we as process people can learn from it
Resources
- Martin Pfiffner’s LinkedIn Profile
- Martin Pfiffner’s Website
- Viable System Model – Slides
- German version of the book: Die dritte Dimension des Organisierens (affiliate link)
- English version of the book: The Neurology of Business: Implementing the Viable System Model (affiliate link)
- Martin Pfiffner’s YouTube channel
- vsm-training.org
- New Process Pro
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Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Jingle: 1:41
Welcome to the New Process Podcast. Learn all the tools, methods and best practices, combined with people, emotions and a human-centric mindset, to rethink your process and push it to the next level. And here is your host, Mirko Kloppenburg.
Mirko: 2:00
Yeah, welcome to episode 61 of the New Process Podcast. Today, we’re going to explore how to transform an organization with the viable system model, so we’ll deep dive into the VSM and try to find out what it is and what we can learn from it as process people. Therefore, I’m talking to Martin Pfiffner. Martin studied at the University of St Gallen, where he graduated with a PhD in economics. As an assistant to Professor Peter Gross in sociology and Fredmund Malek in management, he worked his way into system-oriented management theory. Later, he studied management cybernetics in Canada and Wales with Professor Stafford Beer.
Mirko: 2:47
Martin is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the practical application of the viable system model. In the past 30 years, martin has supported countless economic, public or private organizations from all around the world. He built up Team Syntegrity Europe and became senior partner, executive board member and member of the board of directors of Malik Management AG. Since 2017, he has bundled his consulting activities under the brand of MP Consulting and is helping to organize and structure companies based on the theory and practice of managerial cybernetics and systems science. Martin lives in Pfeffikon, close to Zurich, and he personally likes to practice martial arts and to play the guitar in an indie rock band. So in this episode you’ll learn what the viable system model really is, how it can be used to transform organizations and what we, as process people, can learn from it. And that’s actually a lot. So enjoy the interview with Martin Pfiffner.
Jingle: 3:55
And now let’s start to rethink processes.
Mirko: 3:59
Yeah, welcome to the New Process Podcast, Martin, great to have you here today. I already read your book, I listened to your presentation twice and now we can talk about the Viable System Model. That’s super cool, so welcome, Martin.
Martin: 4:13
Thanks for having me, thanks for having me. Looking forward to this.
Mirko: 4:16
Absolutely. Let’s start with a check-in. So what do you prefer? In an aircraft aisle or window seat.
Martin: 4:23
I’d say window Window because first of all, they don’t roll the trolley into your knees at night in the echo class, and secondly, my father was actually a swiss air pilot, and so I was able as a child already to fly quite a lot and he always liked watching the changing landscapes and the sceneries yeah, oh man, that’s so cool.
Mirko: 4:45
I love flying with Swiss. What is your favorite?
Martin: 4:48
airport. Well, in Europe I’d say it was Berlin Tegel.
Mirko: 4:54
Yeah, okay.
Martin: 4:55
Because you had shortest distances from the plane to the taxi. But they closed it down recently, some years ago. And internationally, I just spent seven hours at Singapore Airport last Sunday, and that’s quite an recently, some years ago. And internationally, it just spent seven hours at Singapore Airport lost Sunday, and that’s quite an experience. I’d say Okay. Nothing to compare, I think, with the $30 billion airports they’re currently building in China. Have you heard about them?
Jingle: 5:19
No no.
Martin: 5:20
Must be mind-blowing.
Mirko: 5:22
Yeah, okay, that’s nice Cool. So let’s get closer to what we are going to talk about today. I’m always asking my guests to describe their relationship to processes first, so how would you describe your relationship to?
Martin: 5:37
processes. Okay, in general I’m a fan of processes. I stick very much to processes in my own work in different, different areas, but then again also, I’m not a process guy. I’m rather trying to integrate processes into a coherent steering system as a whole.
Mirko: 5:56
Yeah, okay, that’s interesting. So my listeners know that my 12 year old daughter supports me quite often with the podcast and she is super interested in what I’m doing and actually she saw me reading the book. Luckily she did not ask me to explain to her what it is all about. But how would you explain my 12-year-old daughter what the viable system model is all about, just on a high level?
Martin: 6:23
Okay. So she’s 12 years old and she has biology as a discipline in school. Yes, I would use the metaphor of the organism, actually, okay, and I would tell her look at an enterprise, whatever it is a hospital, a company, the carpenter in your village look at this as an organism. And then it has an anatomy, the structure of the organization, the org chart, so to speak. And it has also a physiology, the processes like the digestion, like breathing, and so on, so on. But it has also a neurology, and that neurology is very important because it’s the decision and communication structure of the whole thing that makes it function, so to speak, in the end. And the viable system model is a model about the neurology of an organization. So we can learn from that and we are organized like that, by ourselves actually. So the model also applies to us as human beings, to our own organism.
Martin: 7:28
Okay, quite fascinating stuff, I think, isn’t it?
Mirko: 7:32
For me it is. That’s Leah. I will ask her afterwards if she gets an idea about that. Our listeners, I would say, are quite familiar with processes and structures and so on, but I learned that you are talking a lot about the third dimension. What is it about and why do we need this third dimension?
Martin: 7:56
Well, I think one of the big problems nowadays is that our organizations and enterprises are not really functioning well. They’re using too much manpower, producing too much stress, too much failure and so on. And that is, I’m sure, about that, about that focus on structure and process as two dimensions of organization. That’s still what you learn at universities. In German we call it Aufbau und Oblauforganisation. In English it would be structure and process, and that’s it, so that third dimension of organization is neglected completely in the education system, and that’s why we have so bad decision structures in our organization. It’s not clear who is taking what decision on what level, about what? The communication behind it, because, think of it, the neurology is about decisions that are taken by the neurons. They fire or they don’t fire, and then it’s communicated. So, decision and communication structure, that’s what we’re actually talking about here, and the good news is, there is there is this model available that helps us to design it yeah, and that’s the viable system model.
Martin: 9:03
Right, exactly, okay so what does it look like? Well, first of all maybe I have to I I would like to say that the inventor of the model I was, uh, stafford beer. Yeah, so I, I learned the model from him, I learned to apply it from him and actually, you met him in person, right you?
Mirko: 9:22
worked together with, yes I him, yes, I had to pick up, that’s so cool.
Martin: 9:24
Yeah, he was a mind-blowing person. He was absolutely a genius. He knew about almost everything. He was really humiliating, but also a very, very warm-hearted person and a very interesting person, so I had the luck to work three years, to be tutored by him for three years in the application of a project, and that was really very helpful. Yeah, that was some of the best part of my professional lifetime so far yeah I can imagine yeah, wow, that’s super cool.
Mirko: 9:54
So, uh, what does the viable system model look like?
Martin: 9:58
first of all, it’s an embedded model, which means that every viable system model contains several viable system models and is itself part of a viable system model. Yeah, sounds a bit crazy.
Martin: 10:12
Yes, that’s already crazy. That’s the principle of recursivity in mathematics, I think that’s the term. And we can think of it like with these Russian dolls when you open one, you find the same structure on the next lower level. So it’s some kind of a fractal, a fractal model, so to speak, which is is very helpful, because by that it’s scalable, indefinitely scalable. And then it consists of five elements. These five elements stand for the five types of decisions that need to be taken in a steering system, and that contains coordinative decisions, rules, regulation, things like that. It contains optimization, it contains adaptation, it contains a normative function about that entity, who we want to be or should we be. And then the fifth element is the one, again in the russian ball that organizes itself. So it’s about self-organization. It’s a self-organizational. So it consists of five elements.
Martin: 11:15
They are interlinked by communication channels, because in a steering system, like in a machine, if you cut the cable, the steering does not work anymore, right? So, um, it contains also the necessary communication channels. So that’s also very helpful in practice, because in 30 years of management practice I never saw an organization that would not say we have big communication problems, and typically you would address them by, by using schultz, von thun and vatslavik and other theories about communication. But we all know how communication is. That’s the interpersonal communication. That’s not what we’re talking about here, as difficult as that is. But what we’re talking about here is the interlinkage, the innovation of the organization, what channels to have to work across the different management levels so that the whole steering system is functioning.
Martin: 12:05
The last thing is it consists also of two steering axes, and these two steering axes are on a horizontal domain in the model, in the graphical depiction of the model, the self-steering, the self-responsibility of whatever is to be organized, and on the other channel, the steering axis that restricts that kind of personal autonomy to optimize the whole, so providing coherence, making sure that we’re stronger together. And these two axes are very important. We have seen this during corona times, when we struggled for individual freedom in in a country or in a village or whatever it was, and at the same time, sooner or later, it became clear that that vertical axis to provide coherence and to restrict that autonomy would be in that given situation may be necessary. So that question about how much freedom and how much restricted autonomy do we allow in an organization, that is also crucial, for example, and the model helps us to decide that.
Mirko: 13:13
I think it’s quite complex to just talk about this, so maybe we can. I remember nice slides from the presentation. Maybe we can share something via the show notes so that our listeners can have a look there to better understand what you are explaining. Maybe it’s a good idea to jump now to the show notes to open that picture up. We’ll see how this will work out. Okay, thanks for the overview. So to what kinds of organization can the model be?
Martin: 13:42
applied to Well, since it’s a viable system. Model organization. Can the model be applied to well, since it’s a viable system, or?
Martin: 13:50
a model of viable systems, basically to any viable system, anything that wants to be a viable system. In in science language we we would call it the theological machine, a machine with a purpose, with an end, so to speak. So if something has a purpose, a specific purpose, and then it should be a viable system. But then we can apply the model so that could be a process. It could be your sports club in the village, it could be your village, it could be your business unit you’re responsible for, or your team you’re responsible, the project you’re responsible for, or the department, or the whole enterprise or whatever, the whole state also. It has been applied to the design of states also, and that’s, that’s super fascinating.
Mirko: 14:32
You’re working as a consultant helping organizations to apply the viable system model. Um. Can you give an example, uh, with what kinds of organizations you’re working in? Probably? What was your favorite project, for example?
Martin: 14:46
That’s a good question. Let me think about it. I think interesting are the very big projects and the very specific projects. A specific example involves the application of the WebAssist model to a city in Germany which had to deal with 200 kitas.
Mirko: 15:06
Okay.
Martin: 15:07
So that’s quite a complex task, given the corona situation and the Ukraine situation and so on. High complexity how do you manage 200 kitas? So that was, content-wise, quite an interesting project. Size-wise, we were working for several years now with an organization with more than 200,000 employees worldwide in the automotive industry and we’re applying the model to a very wide range of organizations, by the way, also to other OEM organizations in the German automotive market. So these kind of applications are interesting because you have a big, big impact.
Mirko: 15:48
Okay, and with what kind of people do you work together? With top management or, depending on the level you’re looking at, or how do?
Martin: 15:56
you proceed Clearly top management, top management. That’s the experience I made in more than 20 years consulting. That’s the experience I made in more than 20 years consulting Meanwhile, be it in Europe, in America, in Asia that you need to work with top management if you want to really implement things, and that’s what I want to do. I want to implement things also together with top management, and they need to understand it’s a different language, it’s a different perspective at the organization.
Mirko: 16:23
Yeah, okay, that’s super interesting because just a side story there we implemented a process management role concept in our organization at Lufthansa in the past and there was I think it was more advanced, quite theoretical, and it was really hard to talk with top management to get them understand this complex system. But you are primarily working with top management and they they understand the viable system model right, absolutely I.
Martin: 16:54
I really asked him to deal with the model itself, to learn that language because otherwise we can’t talk about it, we can’t argue with each other what is right or what is wrong, and that’s what that model exactly helps us to do. It asks us questions and we need to distinguish right from wrong in good design or bad design. Right, and if you don’t speak that language, you can’t really work with the model. On the other hand, it’s not so difficult because we’re organized like that by ourselves, so it’s the most natural thing, actually.
Mirko: 17:24
Yeah, okay, yeah, maybe that’s a big advantage of this model.
Martin: 17:28
It is, it is.
Mirko: 17:30
So how do you proceed to apply the model in an organization? Well, ideally.
Martin: 17:35
I would start with a workshop of, let’s say, one to two, three days where we’re learning the model and already start applying it together with a core team. Okay, where we’re learning the model and already start applying it together with a core team involving at least one person or one representative of top management, Ideally the CEO, maybe the whole top management team, and after that I would start working with a core team of, let’s say, five to seven people in the organization.
Martin: 18:01
Okay, including top management again, and I typically do that nowadays in teams meetings. So we have regular half a day, maybe time invest per week. We meet for two hours and they need to work and prepare or do something afterwards for two hours. So half a day per week is necessary. They work step by step. I have described the steps in my book seven steps of a VSM design. So we start at the beginning, obviously, and like they say in alice in wonderland, and then meanwhile we we have workshops where we’re presenting the results of the core team to a larger group, to a sounding board of more people. So we do a step one to seven like that, and in the end we typically do a Synth-Integration, which is also a cybernetic workshop, the communication process, the communication method, so to speak, to involve the critical mass of people that need to understand and commit to it for implementation. So that’s how I would end the project.
Mirko: 19:09
Okay. Okay, that’s interesting. And imagine you are consulting a person who is accountable for an overall process, an end-to-end process, in an organization. What would you recommend to that person on how to proceed to analyze this overall process from the vsm perspective?
Martin: 19:28
yeah, um, I think that draws the attention not into the process, but into the question how the process is embedded and what organizational entities are actually contributing to the process, and what steering system are they part of? Okay, are they part of the same steering system or part of different steering systems? That’s a typical silo problem. We’re running into organizations right when we have processes across functions, for example, or regions. Yeah, so what are the entities in which the crucial decisions are taken and how does that comply with end-to-end responsibility in the process? So that’s the the most crucial question, I think okay, yeah, that’s.
Mirko: 20:17
That’s interesting because, um, the role concept I’m using clearly defines the accountability of the process owner, which is always designing the overall process, being accountable for the process design, and then it’s always the question who is accountable for the execution of the process? And it really depends on how crazy the situation is in reality and it could be that we have different parts of the process where different people are accountable for the execution, which is not the best situation. Or the accountability for the execution comes together with the role of the process owner, so that the same person is not only accountable for the design telling the people how to do something but not only accountable for the design telling the people how to do something, but also being accountable for the execution, telling them what to do and so on, and having the budget and all these things, I’d say at least it must be clear where the responsibility for the execution is, and it should be in one hand and not in different hands across different organizational entities which optimize themselves rather than the process right.
Mirko: 21:27
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That’s super interesting that we have these parallels there. And then when I’m talking about a process, I’m always looking at something quite specific like an end-to-end process, and this process is always part of a bigger world, of a process domain, for example, and in a domain are several processes. And then there is again when we go up another domain where this domain belongs to, like a structure, a tree structure, and, if I get it right, you would also recommend to the process owner to look onto how this process is embedded into the other process domains it belongs to, right Into the structure.
Martin: 22:08
Into the structure, into the anatomy, exactly, yeah, okay.
Mirko: 22:11
Yeah, that’s cool. Thanks for clarifying.
Martin: 22:14
I mean, one of the biggest problems I typically see nowadays in organizations is exactly that the physiology is not compatible with the anatomy. Okay, because they are not looking at the communication and decision structure, so the steering system.
Martin: 22:33
The neurology, yeah, and a lot of organizations, therefore, are Frankensteins. So they have processes that are not compatible with structure and they try to innovate that in a steering system, and of course that works in the end. But the Frankenstein is not a very elegant dancer for itself, right.
Mirko: 22:53
Yeah, would you say. It would be the goal to align processes, structures and communication flows.
Martin: 23:00
Absolutely. You must look at organization in all three dimensions.
Martin: 23:04
And that’s the main flaw. As I said, also in universities, they only look at two dimensions, not at the three dimensions, and that’s the main flaw. As I said, also in universities, they only look at two dimensions, not at the three ones.
Mirko: 23:12
So what are the typical problems you see regarding processes when diagnosing organizations? So maybe you have some interesting examples here to share.
Martin: 23:22
Well, one thing is, as I said, that they are not compatible with each other, that they’re organized and designed to optimize a process in itself and not the question about how it’s embedded in the whole organization and into the decision structures of the whole organization, and so the things are not interlinked in the right way. We have business processes, we have support processes, we have management processes, but they need to be interlinked into one coherent steering system, and typically each of these processes are designed very well, professionally done. Of course, you always can optimize things, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that these processes are not interlinked. The typical example here would be that you would have a process to develop a strategy and adopt a strategy in an organization and you have processes for operational planning and they’re not interlinked with each other. How many organizations have we seen where they have an excellent strategy but it it has nothing to do with objectives or what they’re actually doing? Yeah, and that interlinkage of strategy and planning across management levels so that the whole thing is under control and not only specific levels that’s one of the main problems also that I see in organizations. Yeah, so that’s the core of the steering, so to speak.
Martin: 24:52
Right, and if the, if that core is not done correctly, then you run into metrics problems. Who is responsible? The productions or the business units or the regions or the provisions and things like that? Yeah, okay, that can be terrible headache in organizations. See, people in organizations like that. They just end up in meetings and and are dependent on good relationships with each other, which is nice if they work, but it’s not the usual thing. Yeah, so we need to build organizations that are robust, that are built for human beings, as they are not just for for the ideal holy human being, with a lot of discipline and communication skills and team skills and everything that is required. People are not like that. We have average people. Yeah, some sociopathologic, some geniuses, but average, mostly average yeah, and organizations need to work with average people.
Mirko: 25:53
That’s important yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I remember in your presentation you had some examples of types of problems you typically experience when diagnosing an organization, not just with regards to processes, but with regards to Ah, I know what you’re referring to. Can you just give one or two examples to make it more practical for our listeners.
Martin: 26:15
Yes, it’s easy to see some typical patterns of organizational pathologies, illnesses, so to speak, and two of them I mentioned already. One is the functional organizations, where the result producing units are functions like sales and warranty in production and so on. And it’s not saying that it’s that it’s in general wrong, but it has its challenges. It has big challenges. The metrics organization is quite similar to it because there is, as I said in the example before, you might have business units that are responsible for orienteer production and you might have regions responsible for sales. So the question is who is taking the decisions, the regions or the business units? So that’s the challenge in metrics organizations. And then you have typically also other things, like organizations where one entity is dominant as opposed to the others. One business unit is five times the size of all the other business units.
Martin: 27:25
That can be also observed politically. Actually, in political organizations, the problems that arise if one region, for example, or one country is becoming too big as opposed to the others. There is a problem of lack of system to what we call in the wild system model system, to the coordinating functions. So it’s based specifically in functional organizations or matrix organizations, the coordination between all these intersections in the environment, with customers, for example, and the dependencies between operations, because they use synergies to have centralized functions, for example. That needs to be coordinated quite well and that coordination is typically done quite badly because it’s part of the neurology and you don’t see it in processes and you don’t see it in the structure of an organization.
Mirko: 28:17
Okay, I’m just wondering if it would be helpful to quickly recap the different systems again so that our listeners have this as a roundup of what the system looks like.
Martin: 28:29
Five systems interconnected with specific communication channels. The five systems are, firstly, the result producing one which must be self-organized the Russian doll, the egg in the egg, so to speak. Yeah. The second is the coordinating function. The third is the optimizing function, so optimizing these self-organizational units, like business units in an organization. To it there’s also some kind of a I would not call it an audit function because that might be misunderstood but the function that is providing real life information to management of a. I would not call it an audit function because that might be misunderstood but the function that is providing real life information to management, not being dependent on reports and statistics and things like that, but really know your business. So there’s a channel, an information communication channel, that provides you with real world information, and that’s also part of the third function. Then there’s the fourth function, which is responsible for adaptation, innovation, communication to the complete whole outside world, also questions of market intelligence and technology trends, things like that. And the fifth and last function is the normative function. Who do we want to be?
Martin: 29:50
and how do we want to be so. These five functions together are necessary and sufficient, as you would say in mathematics. So they’re necessary in the sense that you can’t neglect one, you’re gonna run into problems over time. And they’re sufficient. There’s no sixth element needed. Yeah.
Mirko: 30:11
Okay, and when you now go into an organization, it’s not a real blueprint that you just take and you tell the people you have to do it like this and that, but you make sure that all the different systems are established in a specific way that fulfills your requirements, right?
Mirko: 30:30
I can just say, okay, I want to use this model and this is it, but I have to check how do I implement system. I don’t know, three in my organization and so on. It’s always specific depending on the organization.
Martin: 30:43
You’re really ending up with a customized organization. Okay, yeah, and the measure for that customization is complexity. So neurology, complexities belongs together, and um, so you, you, you’re not just copying organizations. That’s what managers like to do, right? They ask themselves, well, how is our competitor organized? But that’s the worst thing you can do, actually, because this is saying that structure follows strategy, right? So you need the structure that helps you to implement your strategy, raymond Chandler, and if you’re copying the organization of your biggest competitor, then if he has done a good job, you’re copying his strategy and you’re not going to win with that strategy. You can’t beat your competitor where they are strong by themselves, and if they have done a bad job in organizing the organization, then you shouldn’t copy it in the first place, right?
Martin: 31:39
It’s a model you comply to any organization. It’s asking questions, but you need to come up with the answers, given your, your specific situation.
Mirko: 31:47
Okay that’s cool and I think it’s obvious that there is kind of complexity to understand this, and this is often the problem for process people as well. To explain how the BPM framework looks like to the organization, and what are your learnings from explaining the VSM to your customers, especially to the different levels? So you said you’re working a lot with top management. They have to understand it, but what about the employees? Do they also need to understand the model or do they just have to live with the results? What are your learnings there with regards to communication?
Martin: 32:27
They have to live with the results. Or what are your learnings there with regards to communication? They have to live with the results. I’d say Not everybody needs to understand that language.
Martin: 32:35
In the end, step number seven in my design process comes up with an explanation about the new organization in words that everybody understands. So you again are going to have organization charts or functional diagrams, racics, job descriptions and things people know and they need just to know what is in there. They need to understand that and that’s easy to implement, so to speak. But what it’s in there, that’s a question of design, that’s a crucial question. So the ones who are designing the organization need to know the model. That can be organizational experts, of course, but I think it should be, um, the management itself dealing with that kind of language and being knowledgeable about it.
Martin: 33:35
So it’s like in the in, with the double and triple peeping right with low complexity in doing business, it was not necessary at all and then, with a certain complexity, was necessary to deal with it before it was easy, and then suddenly you have to do everything twice in very complicated ways, at least for beginners, and not everybody needs to know that the ones responsible for the job they need to deal with it, and they need to deal with that kind of language, they need to be ready for it. But on the other hand, again, it’s not so difficult. Once you dive into it, then it’s becoming easy because it’s, as I said, the most natural thing on earth.
Mirko: 34:16
Yeah, okay. So for the regular employee, it could be that, as a result of your activities, the employee will experience changes in processes. Right, yes, exactly, the person is working in or changes in processes.
Mirko: 34:28
The person is working in or changes in the structures of the organization, and maybe a process owner will be invited to another meeting to talk about what is going on in the process, and so on.Martin: 34:40
Yes, yes, exactly yes. So typically people still do the same job that they did before. What changes, is the question who is taking a decision? In all the decision notes in the steering system, and how are these decisions communicated?
Mirko: 34:53
Yeah.
Martin: 34:54
So the jobs of people is not necessarily changing. They’re doing what they did before. Yeah, okay.
Mirko: 35:00
That’s super interesting. Wow, okay, that’s a lot of food for thought. I think it’s a good idea for our listeners to maybe have a look at your book as well. But before we wrap that up, I’m always asking my guests about what is your key message? Your key message to rethink?
Martin: 35:23
processes. I think the key message is look at the whole, look at anatomy, physiology and neurology, look at structure, process and the decision communication structure, the steering system, and only if you have all three things together then you have a functioning organization. That’s my key message.
Mirko: 35:43
Okay, so I already said, you wrote a book. Um, I’m not sure, is this already available in english? It is.
Martin: 35:52
Yeah, it is, it’s called the neurology of business implementing the bible system model. That’s the english title. It’s the same book actually as the german one, so if you don’t need to buy both um. The german one has a different title, though. It’s called the third dimension of organizing, the third dimension of organizing. The German one has a different title, though. It’s called Die dritte Dimension des Organisierens, steuerung und Kommunikation, the third dimension of organizing, steering and communication.
Mirko: 36:14
Yeah, cool, I’ll put the links into the show notes so it’s easy to reach. But, beyond the book and I said I read the book, it was super interesting and I watched your presentation, which was even more enlightening thing, and I watched your presentation, which was even more enlightening. Um, are there other ways to learn more about what you are doing, about the system to get in contact for trainings, whatever?
Martin: 36:34
yeah, yeah, you can have a look at at at these uh presentations, the one that you saw, for example. I have a youtube channel. It’s called bible system model. Okay, so there’s one, currently only one english video and one German video, just the introduction into the model, like the, one that you saw in Munich, it was, I think.
Martin: 36:55
And then we are doing trainings. We’re doing three-day trainings. You can find information on vsm-trainingorg. Yeah, that’s the website where you can see where the trainings are happening. Perfect, I’ll put the links into the show notes so it’s easy to org.
Mirko: 37:06
yeah, that’s the website where you can see where the trainings are happening. Perfect, I’ll put the links into the show notes so it’s easy to get there. Wow, martin. Um, another question, uh, and I’m super curious, because you work with so many genius people um, which topic, tool, expert, whatever would you recommend to me, as well as to our listeners, to have a look at, to get new ideas on rethink processes, to get new input?
Martin: 37:35
I would recommend dealing with the works of Stafford Beer with managerial cybernetics. Cybernetics is the science for management, as Stafford Beer said. That idea was actually taken on at the University of St Gallen in the 70s, bringing up the St Gallen management model, the system-oriented management model, and dealing with that question of what is necessary for things to function, for organizations to function. That’s a very interesting question and Stafford Beer was a rare combination of a very good scientist with an experienced practical man. So he was a manager in different organizations and he implemented things also. That combination is fantastic, I think.
Mirko: 38:25
Okay, is there a specific book or paper or something he published you would recommend?Martin: 38:30
um, the most easiest entry into his work is probably a little book called designing freedom by, I think, an easy publishing or something like that it’s a very little uh paper and from there you can go wherever you like it. But it’s quite the tough stuff sometimes, so maybe it’s also a good idea to start with secondary literature.
Mirko: 39:00
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Your book is absolutely a good introduction to the topic, gives a great overview. So maybe that’s a better point of entry there, but definitely finally, after I think 10, 12 years, after the colleague mentioned, you have to have a look at the work of Stafford Beer. I’m going to do it now.
Jingle: 39:21
That’s great.
Mirko: 39:23
I really love this conversation. I think you could experience that I’m still learning. I would love this conversation. I think you could experience that I’m still learning. I would love to learn more how this really works and how we, as process guys, can benefit from that. Before we leave this episode, before we leave this flight today, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners?
Martin: 39:45
Yeah, maybe one thought we’re having difficult times in front of us, I believe and that might sound a bit pathetic perhaps, but my message will be the one that I try to remind myself every day, which is be tolerant and respectful with others, fight fear with love and try and practice discrimination, for example, distinguish the new from the useful or focusing on the essential things like that, yeah yeah, thank you very much.
Mirko: 40:18
So finally, how would you describe your flight experience in this episode in just three words?
Martin: 40:24
it’s three words. Uh, yeah, entertaining. I didn’t have the urge to sleep or to eat or to watch a video. No, it was very nice talking to you. Little turbulence and nourishing perhaps.
Mirko: 40:38
Well, wow, I learned so much and I’m still learning. Martin, thank you so much for being my guest in the new podcast.
Martin: 40:44
Thank you, mirko, it was a pleasure.
Mirko: 40:46
I’m looking forward to more interactions with you, but for now, have a great day. Bye-bye, thank you very much. Ciao, ciao.
Jingle: 40:53
Let’s recap today’s new process inspiration.
Mirko: 40:57
Oh yeah, you see, I’m still learning more about the viable system model and I already see a lot of ways to integrate this into BPM. But first I have to share a shout out to my former colleague and office roommate, christian. As I mentioned previously in the interview, I finally started to understand what you were talking about 15 years ago when we began to roll out the BPM role concept at Lufthansa. I’m so sorry that I did not understand it at that time, and now I’m curious if what I’m going to recap here is what you already had in mind back then in our tiny little office on the fifth floor. So let’s quickly recap my learnings.
Mirko: 41:39
I think we are all, as process guys, quite familiar with structures and processes. So the first two dimensions of an organization, based on what Martin told us, what is new based on the VSM, is the third dimension, which is about steering of and communication within an organization. I really like this holistic approach of the VSM and I’d like to offer you an idea on how to integrate this third dimension into our world of processes. So we already have the process of process management, the BPM process itself. On the meta level, in my case, I’m fighting for the application of a human-centric BPM process called the new process lifecycle, which you can also find on newprocesslabcom. So if your viable system is a business process, the system one of the VSM, then the new process lifecycle already covers parts of system four and five of the VSM within the purpose, the strategy, and also the steering phase, and system two and three for coordination and feedback or auditing and so on can be found in the communication flows and actually this is a topic I do not talk about that much, but I’ll briefly explain what I have in mind. So you might be aware of the new process role concept, with roles such as the process owner, process architect and so on. We not only have these roles defined but also five or even six, as my former boss, harold would say five or six so-called communication flows between the different roles, so between the process owner, the architect, process managers, for example.
Mirko: 43:37
We talk about process operations as communication flow or process strategy as another process flow between the process owner and the lower level line managers were responsible for the execution, just to give you two examples of these communication flows. So these communication flows steer the process operations and strategic direction can be used to take decisions on the right level, for example, where where the knowledge is there to take the respective decision, and they also ensure the communication between the design responsibility on the one hand side, with the core role of the process owner, and the execution responsibility or accountability of the other side, with the line manager. And I think this is a nice way how to bring in the VSM model in a process-based approach and this is also an important aspect of my BPM roadmap to build a process-driven organization where you have to make sure to set up a management platform to get and ensure access to senior management. That’s a critical factor for the success of BPM and I realized that several times already in the past that if this platform is missing and you do not have access to senior management, then you will not be successful with your BPM initiative. Okay, but I don’t want to make it too complicated here. I’m planning to add exactly this to the New Process Pro toolbox in the near future, so if you are not yet a member of New Process Pro, you can sign up for free at newprocesslabcom slash pro.
Mirko: 45:26
If you would like to learn more about the viable system model, I definitely recommend Martin’s book. It’s written in a quite entertaining way and it’s super cool to read for a business topic like this. As Martin said, there are two videos explaining the VSM on his YouTube channel I’ll put the links into the show notes as well and on the channel there is also a recording of one of the presentations I enjoyed live, and this one is in German language, so if you prefer German language, then watch this video. It also contains both, also the English one. Nice slides explaining the different systems and so on, so this is really helpful if you want to deep dive into the topic.
Mirko: 46:14
In the next episode, we’ll wrap it up with the state of new process 2025 to give you an overview of where we are with rethinking processes and how to build a process-driven organization right now. So, based on all the learnings of the past years and I’ll put in a lot of, or I’ll put in all my BPM expertise into that episode to share my experiences with you and the next episode will also be a little experiment I will not only record the episode In English, but also in German, so let’s see how this will work out. For now, thank you very much for listening. Have a fantastic day. Bye, bye, auf Wiedersehen.
Jingle: 47:04
You’ve been listening to the new Process Podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode for more tools, methods and best practices to rethink your process and push it to the next level. Thank you for listening.
Mirko: 47:19
Before you leave. As you might know, I’m doing a lot of research on how to rethink processes and how to get people excited about processes, so that’s an important part of the roadmap to a process-driven organization. And if you would like to find out more about how to rethink your own process, you can download my free new process checklist, which provides a lot of impulses on how to push your process to the next level. To download it, just go to NewProcessLab.com/checklist. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
