Success to the successful archetype represents two reinforcing structures which may be in a delicate balance though as soon as one gains a small advantage the resource allocation favors the more successful and the result is then rapidly skewed in the direction of the more successful. See also Archetypes.
To this point the Situation, Behavior, Model, Stakeholder and Boundary aspects of this situation have been investigated. It is now appropriate to consider the assumptions that have been made to this point and ensure we are on a solid foundation before proceeding to the Leverage and Strategy aspects are considered.
The limits to growth structure is based on the basic growth structure. And, as should be obvious, nothing grows forever as growth requires resources. Those required resources become a limits to growth.
Developing a strategy for dealing with a situation begins with a description of the situation and the preferred state for today, not in some distant future, and the perceived implications of not doing anything.
OK, we have a problem. Yet, do we really know what the problem is? More often than not we look at the symptoms, consider them the problem and attempt to fix them. This actually dooms us to failure because they're only symptoms.
An escalation structure results from two or more competing entities with the competition taking them to somewhere none of them want to be. See also Archetypes.
While understanding the interacting components responsible for the situation is important it is even more important to understand the stakeholders as they are the ones responsible for the interacting components being the way they are.
A shifting the burden structure occurs when there are different ways to address a situation. With one approach being easier, faster, and requiring fewer resources, which do you think gets pursued? The problem is that taking the easier path ensures one will have to take the easier path repeatedly, and makes it harder to pursue the long-term better solution.
A Growth and Underinvestment structure is simply an elaborated Limits to Growth structure where the growth inhibitor is part of another Balancing Loop with an external standard and some delay. The real nasty thing about this structure is that the two Balancing Loops form a single Reinforcing Loop which inhibits growth.
It's relatively well understood that you can't be all things to all people. Somewhere one has to make choices. An Attractiveness Principle Systems Archetype is essentially a Limits to Growth Systems Archetype with multiple limits, all of which can not be addressed equally. See also Archetypes.
Now that we have some context for the situation it's appropriate to begin to investigate, though possibly not where you might think. And the investigation is actually a bit hindered because management fired the accounts receivables department. What I'm really interested in is trends as to how things have evolved over time.
Eroding Goals shares a basic similarity with Shifting the Burden - the dynamic tension between a symptomatic solution and a fundamental one. In the case of Eroding Goals, managers are faced with performance that fails to meet a stated goal.
This is a summary version of the theWay model which presents the essence of the overall model though not all the detailed pieces. It was created as a way to get a quick sense of all the pieces at once.
The limits to results structure endeavors to bring a balance between a current state and a desired state though more often than not the action is limited by some constraint. See also Archetypes.
The Accidental Adversaries structure represents a situation where two interacting entities which should produce growth unwittingly limit the growth of each other because of their actions to promote their own growth. See also Archetypes.
A shifting the burden structure occurs when there are different ways to address a situation. With one approach being easier, faster, and requiring fewer resources, which do you think gets pursued? The problem is that taking the easier path ensures one will have to take the easier path repeatedly, and makes it harder to pursue the long-term better solution.
An indecision structure results whenever there are two interacting goal-seeking structures which provide goals for each other. There is the potential of creating oscillations because of the inherent delays in the structure.
An introduction to what seems to be our typical approach to dealing with problems that arise unexpectedly when we're focused on dealing with other immediate issues.
We often set out to solve a problem or accomplish some particular result and things seem to go as planned. As time progresses it seems that progress becomes more and more difficult, if not impossible, and things may actually become worse than when we started. When this happens it is typically a Fixes that Fail structure that's operating.
