In the field of organization theory, the idea of “necessary diversity” is used as a key element in a theoretical basis. In connection with the business world as a whole, Ashby’s cyber law states that the degree of relevance of a company must be consistent with its degree of internal complexity in order to survive in a competitive market.
Cybernetics
In the field of cybernetics, Ashby formulated the law of necessary diversity in 1956. It can be explained as follows.
Let D1 and D2 be two systems, and V1 and V2 their respective manifolds. The word "variety" will be used to indicate either (i) the number of individual elements included in one system, or (ii) the number of possible states that it can accept. For example, the variety of a simple electrical system that can take on or off states is 2. The D1 system can be fully controlled by D2 only if the last variety (V2) is equal to or superior to the first variety (V1). In other words, the number of different states into which D2 can enter must be at least equal to the states of the system D1 (D2≥D1).
Three ideas
In publications that cite Ashby’s law of diversity, the following three ideas are often mentioned:
- Some of the conditions that the system may assume are undesirable. Therefore, it is necessary to control it.
- Only diversity can control, reduce, or absorb itself.
- In order to control a system whose diversity is in another system, it must be equivalent to V.
Social systems
In the structural-functional school of sociology, the law of the necessary diversity of W. R. Ashby denotes a model of social action aimed at achieving individual and collective goals. More generally, system analysis defines a system as everything that works towards completion in an active and evolving environment.
Organization theory is another area of application of Ashby's law. She explains how social systems can control complex tasks.
The organization
Ashby's Law of Essential Diversity for Good Governance defines organizations as systems that must deal with specific unforeseen circumstances that shape their structure, technology, and environment. An organization is an identifiable social entity that pursues several goals through coordinated activities and relationships between its members. Such a system is open.
Intercultural groups
Working groups are organizational units. They consist of two or more members. These are intact social systems with clear boundaries. Participants perceive themselves as a group and are recognized as such by others. They perform one or more measurable tasks, participate in several interdependent functions. Teams of specific working groups have a high degree of interdependence among members.
Intercultural groups are composed of members with different cultural backgrounds. Culture refers to socialization within a group and often comes down to ethnic or national origin. She can also relate to this phenomenon in any social group: regional, religious, professional or based on a social class. Team performance is assessed within the organizational context. The result of joint work will not be considered satisfactory if the definition of the task does not meet the requirements of the organization.
Ashby Method
Ashby used state determination systems to describe the processes of interest to him — regulation, adaptation, self-organization, etc. He wanted to deal with nominal, ordinal, interval, and cardinal variables. According to Ashby's Laws: Cybernetics does not consider things, but modes of behavior. It is essentially functional and behavioristic. Materiality does not matter. The truths of cybernetics are not caused by the fact that they are derived from some other branch of science. Cybernetics has its own foundations.
Ashby was especially talented in creating examples illustrating his theoretical points. For example, he illustrates learning as a movement toward balance, describing how a kitten finds a comfortable position near a fire or learns to catch mice. As an example of a sequence of events, he posted on the door of his office a block diagram showing the steps, including “knock”, “input”, etc.
Ashby was not interested in simple phenomena or unorganized complexity (for example, gas molecules in a container), but organized complexity, including the brain, organisms, and societies. His approach to studying organized complexity was unusual. Instead of building a more complex structure by assembling the components, the scientist decided to look for restrictions or rules of interaction that reduce the greatest possible variety to the actually observed diversity. Ashby's laws are not examples of limitations that reduce diversity from what one can imagine to what one can observe.
Theory
Ashby's theory of laws was unusual. His theories lie at the level of abstraction between laws in disciplines such as biology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and mathematics. They are very useful for scientists who are interested in knowing how knowledge in two or more areas is similar. They also help transfer ideas from one area to another. That is why these theories are of great interest to systemists and cybernetics. They are very good in being brief.
Ashby's laws explain a large number of phenomena using several statements. Although they were criticized for being tautological. It is noteworthy that the scientist was able to formulate laws that work in many areas. Ashby's general laws are becoming a tool for developing more specific, operationalizable theories in specific disciplines.
Epistemology
One interesting feature of Ashby's work is that it is compatible with second-order cybernetics. To understand his epistemology, it is important to know the terms and definitions that he used. What was observed, Ashby called the "machine." For him, the "system" is the internal concept of the "machine." This is a set of variables selected by the observer. Ashby does not directly discuss the role of the observer in science or the observer as a participant in the social system.
Regulation
As a person interested in the successful functioning of the brain, Ashby was interested in the general phenomenon of regulation. He divided all possible results into a subset of goals. The task of the regulator is to act in the presence of disturbances so that all the results lie within a subset of the goals. This is precisely the difference between his theory and Kahneman's theory. Ashby's laws can be potentially defined in organisms, organizations, nations, or any other object of interest.
There are various types of regulators. Error control can be very simple, such as a thermostat. A cause-driven controller requires a model of how the machine will respond to disturbance. One of the consequences of the scientist’s view on regulation is the theorem of Conant and Ashby: "every good regulator of a system must be a model of this system." Von Foerster once said that Ashby suggested this idea to him when he began his research in cybernetics.
Training
For Ashby, training included adopting a coping model with survival. The scientist distinguished him from genetic changes. Genes directly determine behavior, and genetically controlled behavior changes slowly. Training, on the other hand, is an indirect method of regulation. In organisms capable of it, genes do not directly determine behavior. They simply create a universal brain, which is able to acquire a model of behavior during the life of an organism. As an example, Ashby noted that wasp genes tell her how to catch their prey, but the kitten learns to catch mice by chasing them. Consequently, in more developed organisms, genes delegate part of their control over the organism to the environment. Ashby’s automatic self-strategizer is both a blind machine that goes into the stable state in which it is held, and a player who learns from his surroundings until he defeats him.
Adaptation
As a psychiatrist and director of a psychiatric hospital, Ashby was primarily interested in the problem of adaptation. In his theory, in order for a machine to be considered adaptive, two feedback loops are needed. The first feedback loop works often and makes small adjustments. The second cycle works infrequently and changes the structure of the system when the “essential variables” go beyond the limits necessary for survival. Ashby suggested autopilot as an example. A conventional autopilot simply maintains the stability of the aircraft. But what if a mechanic incorrectly sets up an autopilot? This can lead to an airplane crash. On the other hand, a “super-stable” autopilot will detect that the main variables have gone beyond its limits and will begin to rebuild until stability returns or the plane crashes. Depending on what happens sooner.
The first feedback loop allows the body or organization to adopt a behavior model appropriate to a particular environment. The second loop allows the body to perceive that the environment has changed and that a new model of behavior is required.
Value
The effectiveness of Ashby's laws is illustrated by the great success of quality management practices. Probably not a single set of managerial ideas in recent years has had a greater impact on the relative success of firms and the competitiveness of countries. This success is evidenced by the international recognition of the ISO 9000 standard as the minimum international management model and the creation of quality improvement awards in Japan, the USA, Europe and Russia to identify the best companies to follow. The main idea of improving quality is that the organization can be considered as a set of processes. People who work in every process should also work on it to improve it.
Mental capacity
Ashby defined "intelligence" as appropriate selection. He asked the question: “Can a mechanical chess player outplay his constructor?” And he answered him, saying that a machine can surpass its creator if it can learn from the environment. In addition, intelligence can be enhanced through a hierarchical arrangement of regulators. Lower level regulators perform specific tasks for a long time. Higher level regulators decide which rules lower level regulators should use. Bureaucracy is an example. Gregory Bateson said that cybernetics is a substitute for activities for little boys, because in the old days they were given the task of throwing another log into the fire, turning an hourglass, etc. Such simple regulatory tasks are now usually carried out by machines that are designed using ideas cybernetics.