Learning by Training

By Arend van Campen

A SCIENCE OF REALITY

Recently, I was invited to pitch my innovative research and ideas on management of complex systems (marine storage terminals) at the OpslagTanks conference in Spijkenisse, Holland. I was allowed 10 minutes in which to explain 9 years of research findings and to corroborate the conclusion that complex systems cannot be regulated from the outside with for example the PGS 29.

The results of my research by using systems science and cybernetics are that complexity is simply too large to be contained and described by regulatory standards, laws or compliance rules. After about 7 minutes, I started noticing the audience of about 100 people working in this industry looked lost, perhaps overwhelmed by the too technical explanations and abbreviations such as non-linearity, causality or my own definition of the limits of reality, coined Realimiteit.

Despite that I saw that few had understood, I was not approached by them to perhaps ask for an explanation, but was mostly met with silence. “What happened?” I asked myself. Did I explain this too fast, did I use too many difficult new expressions or definitions? Did I meet indifference, misunderstanding or did I discover that a reductionistic educated and trained audience was not yet able to understand a holistic vision? Were people in the audience suffering from psychological biases such as cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias?

I could not tell and the 10 minutes were just not enough time to show them the value of maximally controlled complexity. Back to the drawing board?

I did feel like Cassandra whose story I told to the audience as an introduction so they’d understand that someone who was able to predict the future would never be believed. And, dear reader, that is exactly what happened. My story about an overlooked science called cybernetics was not yet really believed.

Steering with information, knowledge and through conversation would change mechanistic terminals into self-regulating, autodidact and autopoietic, but complex living and social systems of communication. But no one asked if I could explain these statements, so I felt quite alone as someone shouting in an empty desert.

But it is true; we can predict sustainability, longevity and prosperity of organisations because we have the sciences to do so. We can design viable systems which will be flexible learning systems, always open for change and not ignoring negative, corrective feedback. I mentioned that a badly designed system cannot be regulated into a well designed system. No, it needs to be redesigned.

Thousands of years of creating laws to prevent invasive behaviour have not led to the erasure of crime. Thousands of rules about Health, Safety and Environment have not yet led to a total erasure of accidents. More is needed. So when I tried to explain the Law of Requisite Variety, I felt I lost my audience all together. I regretted that despite my creative and concerned intentions, I was not able to warn them for an unavoidable entropy that lies ahead in the not too far future. They could not believe me.

This is the latest in a series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com. Those interested in responding personally can contact him directly at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com.