Donald Schon said that social systems resist change with an energy which is roughly proportional to the radicalness of the change that is being threatened
Last March (2019) the UK Government declared a national lockdown (Covid-19) and my workplace closed with immediate effect. In fact from the internal announcement to the office being emptied only took a couple of hours. There was no resistance - only a desire to get out and get home as quickly as possible. So an extremely radical change happened (in effect) instantaneously with no resistance from the social system impacted.
Which could disprove what Donald Schon said. But ...
- change wasn't 'threatened' so was it that the system didn't have time to react? (ie there wasn't time for a feedback loop from the 'change' to the 'system') - which would mean Schon's statement hold
- or did what happened break the social system? - which would mean Schon's statement holds
Thoughts?
From my perspective I think you might want to define how you are looking at the change in relation to the social system it is within.
ReplyDeleteIf it is about a system existing on group concensus and shared values,then there may not have a been a radical change. Everyone agreed a best course of action for the system of people (boundary decision) was to ensure they were safe and well and undertook that action. In this scenario was there a radical change in place of delievry, yes. Was there a radical change against the system... Maybe not.