 In our previous article on management cybernetics we promised to tell about a scientist who made the most prominent input to this field of knowledge: Stafford beer. We keep our promise with the help of Andrey Sergeev (university of Sunderland, Uk) – one of the few Russian specialists who study professionally the heritage of the great thinker.
Stafford Beer – who was he?
Stafford Beer, who died aged 73 in 2003, was an outstanding contributor to management theory. He was the first to use the newly postulated cybernetic principles in management. Although he initially had no academic training as his university studies were disrupted by the war. During his career, Beer consulted for many trans-national companies and governments in more than 20 countries. His lifework consists of more than 200 articles and 11 books. His works are translated into 13 languages including Russian. He held several Honorary professorships and the award of Doctor of Science from the University of Sunderland of which he was extremely proud. In the final years of his life Beer headed the «Cybernetics and Applied System Thinking (CAST) Centre» at Sunderland University and supervised several projects initiated in the Centre.
VSM – Viable System Model
Many educational courses on organisational management today include Stafford Beer’s books as desired reading. However, not many academicians, and even fewer practitioners, have fully mastered the Viable Systems approach. Seemingly unsophisticated, the model presents a set of scientific discoveries in various areas of knowledge such as biology, information theory and cybernetics.
Beer, strongly criticizing standard approaches in management, proposed a fundamentally new biological paradigm of a firm’s organisation. The first thorough description of the model was attempted in the book «Brain of the Firm» (translated into Russian). In this book a neuro-cybernetic model of a firm as a viable system was proposed. The prototype model of the VSM replicates the structure and mechanisms of a human nervous system which predetermine a minimal but sufficient set of essential functions needed for the efficient autonomous existence of a social organisation such as a firm. Five basic subsystems guarantee implementation of these functions. All subsystems continuously communicate in order to guarantee overall systemic integrity. The systemic integrity (or unity) is preserved when all key parameters of any subsystem are being in Homeostasis (when their dynamics do not lead to the disintegration of other subsystems). When all subsystems of a firm are kept in a homeostatic balance, then, from a cybernetic viewpoint, the system is regarded as being under control. It is important to note that «the capability to control the system» is derived from the internal characteristics of the system itself. Therefore, the viability of any social system is predetermined by the dynamics of its internal structure which continuously learns, adapts and evolves. Simultaneously with Beer’s findings, Chilean biologists H. Maturana and F. Varela formulated a universal conception of the definition of living systems and functioning mechanisms (autopoeisis) that substantiated theoretically the fundamental principles which lay at the core of Viable System Modelling.
The book «Brain of the Firm» received various responses: from rapturous to sceptic comments. Sceptics blamed that this book is more a treatise on neurophysiology than about management. As a response Beer wrote «The Heart of Enterprise» where he based the efficiency of his model on cybernetic principles such as Ashby Law and the Theory of Constraints. Beer showed that, first and foremost, any viable system survives by solving the problem of complexity management in a constantly changing environment. Profit maximisation is only a secondary task which is totally dependent on the results of complexity management and the ability to adapt in a timely fashion. The second book develops a new way of analysing the structural traits of firms’ organisation and resembles the first one only at the end when it postulates the same result – the Viable System Model.
The Practice of VSM
Over the thirty year history of the VSM, there have been a variety of practical applications. Perhaps the most famous was the project «CyberSyn» (abbreviation from Cybernetics and Synergy) lunched in 1971 in Chile in accordance with an agreement signed between Beer and the Chilean president Salvador Allende. This project intended to completely reorganise the state control of the Chilean economy. Unfortunately, in 1973 coup d’etat stopped the final stage of this project being realised. Today, there are several consulting companies which have been working with Beer at a corporate level: Syncho Ltd. and Fractal Ltd. (UK), Team Syntegrity Inc. (Canada), Malik Management Zentrum St. Galen (Switzerland). There are also several scientific centres which work on the theory and accompany practical applications of VSM.
PostScript.
The lag between discovery of Vitamin C and its official recognition took more than two centuries. The principles of Viable System Modelling have been discovered for thirty years. Only time will show how they will affect managerial practice in the future. | 
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