Our societal settings are mostly composed of organizations with a complex systemic structure, and this same structure determine the pattern of behaviour of our organizations. Therefore, rather than to follow an open loop thinking approach to find solutions to our problem, we must turn our attention to the study of the pattern of behavior of our organizations and this approach is known as system thinking.

As a consequence of a system thinking approach to find solutions to our problems, we require the modelling of the organizational structures which originate the problematic behaviour. Saskatchewan Health, the Health Services Utilization and Research Commission (HSURC) and the University of Saskatchewan must stop their open loop thinking approach to fix health care. Health care is not a machine to be fixed, but it is a social organization. In this respect I want to provide the following quotation by Edward B. Roberts:

If hypothesis, data, and analysis lead to proof and new knowledge in science, shouldn't similar processes lead to change in organizations? The answer is obvious-NO! Organizational changes (or decisions or policies) do not instantly flow from evidence, deductive logic, and mathematical optimization(1).

I am getting tired to hear the word evidence all over the place as a basic ingredient to decision making while our challenges rest with the transformational changes of our organizations and while our problems rest with our open loop thinking leadership.

References/endnotes

Relevant political and economics articles http://www.ftlcomm.com/ensign

Example of an article identifying the open loop thinking of our leadership: HSURC Commission: Another Study, Another Dump, by Mario deSantis, October 31, 2000

1. BUSINESS DYNAMICS, by John D. Sterman, Irwin McGraw-Hill, 2000. Chapter 3, The Modeling Process, Edward Roberts' quote is on page 83. Edward Roberts is the author of the work "Strategies for effective implementation of complex corporate models (1977)"