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One of the most important books of the last decade of the 20th century is "The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. It delves into "systems thinking," "pattern mastery," and how to create "systems thinkers" and "learning organizations." In "Learning" corporations may have their most powerful and truly their only unique competitive weapon and advantage. Senge and many leaders since have certainly made this argument resonate. In my work, I often use these "patterns" and associated "mental models" to assist clients to diagnose their current situation. Another important contribution of the work at MIT, another tool that we can use to step back and see the whole, is "simulation games." There are two marvelous games, I have seen and use. One of the most entertaining and instructive games available is The Beer Distribution Game. Literally thousands of teams from across multiple industries and the private sector have played, and usually lost, this “production/distribution” game, since it was developed in the 1960’s at MIT. the other is "the fish banks simulation." These games are set up as “laboratory replicas” of a real setting, and the framers have been able to isolate “the disabilities and their causes more sharply than in real organizations.” Learning from these simulations allows us to step-back and see issues and problems as well as to design wholistic solutions.
The major premise of this learning is that “it reveals that the problems originate in basic ways of thinking and interacting, more than in peculiarities of organization structure and policy.”
Stepping back, examining our preconceptions and mental models, and creating a future solution is one of the leadership challenges each of us face. Individuals who make a habit of this are known as “systems thinkers.” Now, while that may sound like some esoteric academic pursuit it really isn’t. Simply put it means stepping back and seeing patterns that are intuitive and easy to grasp. Stepping back and seeing these patterns in our everyday businesses and especially against our strategy for the future can allow us to make decisions to ensure our corporate profitable, longevity and sustainability.
Two of the more familiar patterns are called “The tragedy of the commons” and “shifting-the-burden.”By analogue, the channel, our distribution partners, can be viewed as "the commons."
"The Commons" usually refers to a shared resource. individuals hoping to maximize their own individual gain end up diminishing the benefits for everyone involved: the result of what originally was a great idea can become " a collective nightmare for all."
Two great illustrations of the structural problem are: 1. common grazing land or, 2. the neighborhood swimming hole The tragedy of the commons can be best described as a situation in which it makes sense for each "player" in this "drama" to pursue their own best interests. In the case of the swimming pool, so long as the activity involves only a small number of people relative " to the amount of the commons" (the pool space) available, each individual will continue to enjoy some benefit. If the the number of people grows too large for the pool space, our quality of experience goes down. Those evenings when we drive to the swimming hole and find out that all of our neighbors are there, our quality of experience diminishes to nearly zero. In the simulation game for grazing land, when that "commons" becomes depleted, herds shrink, land no longer can bear the grazing and everyone suffers?
In other words, there are underlying limits. If the players in these games fail to step back and understand the larger system of which their company is only a single player, they lose sight of the end game: "business-as-usual" can easily end up causing everyone to lose.
So my question is:
How well do you think this analogue applies to the challenge of crafting a future distribution and channel model to best serve our customers, our channel partners, our stakeholders? I'd really like your comments.
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