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The political cybernetics oforganisations
Maurice Yolles
 Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK 
Keywords 
Cybernetics, Systems theory
Abstract 
Viable systems theory is a development of managerial cybernetics within a critical  systems theory context. The theory not only addresses cybernetics, it also shows how politics is fundamental to it. Politics used power and power processes to shape structures, manipulateinformation, and influence the way that people behave. The concept of centripetal politics used by Ionescu in his discussion of the changes over the last century to society is applied to organisationsand their political processes. The outcome suggests the possibility of a political map that has the potential to explain organisational behaviour.
1. Viable systems theory
The legacy left to us by the sad demise of Stafford Beer in August 2002 ismanagerial cybernetics. It provides us with an appreciation of the cyberneticnature of coherent autonomous social communities, which we callorganisations. In a development of this, Yolles (1999a) proposed a theoreticalapproach that ultimately links critical systems thinking (Midgley, 2000) withthe viable system work of Eric Schwarz in 1997. This theory goes beyondBeer’s conceptualisation in 1957 that the system has associated with it ametasystem which formulates the decisions that steers the system. It proposesthat there are three domains: one that is phenomenological[1] or behaviouralnormally represented as the system; a virtual or organising domain withinwhich we generate images that we wish to experience phenomenally; and acognitive domain in which we have our worldviews/paradigms, and where wemaintain our patterns of knowledge that enable us to gain meaning for thephenomena and behaviours that what we perceive around us. Interestingly,this construction has relevance to the definition of autopoiesis (Mingers, 1995):the ability of an autonomous system to manifest its virtual imagesphenomenologically. Midgley (2000) advocates the development of criticalsystems theory through Habermas’s (1987). Yolles (2002) however, rejects thisand rather adopts a cybernetic three domain model. This centres on theHabermas’s theory of knowledge constitutive interests (which in any caseunderpins the three worlds model) that has today become a significant featureof critical theory (MacIsaacs, 1996), and this forms a basis for Yolles’ viablesystems theory (VST) (Yolles, 2000).In VST, Yolles proposes that all coherent social communities that can bemodelled in terms of the three domains also have cognitive properties (Table I).They are cognitive because they relate to human orientations that aremanifested from worldview. There are three classes of such orientation:
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Organisational patternCognitivepropertiesKinematics (throughenergetic motion)Orientation(determining trajectory)Possibilities (throughpotential development)
CognitiveinterestsTechnical Practical Critical deconstraining 
Phenomenal orbehaviouraldomain
Work
. This enablespeople to achieve goalsand generate materialwell-being. It involvestechnical ability toundertake action in theenvironment, and theability to makeprediction and establishcontrol.
 Interaction
. Thisrequires that people asindividuals and groupsin a social system gainand develop thepossibilities of anunderstanding of eachothers subjective views.It is consistent with apractical interest inmutual understandingthat can addressdisagreements, whichcan be a threat to thesocial form of life.
 Degree of emancipation
.For organisationalviability, the realising of individual potential ismost effective whenpeople: (i) liberatethemselves from theconstraints imposedby power structures,(ii) learn throughprecipitation in socialand political processesto control their owndestinies.
Cognitive purposesCybernetical Rational/appreciative Ideological/moral 
Virtual ororganisingdomain
 Intention
. This isthrough thecreation andstrategic pursuit of goals and aims that maychange over time,enables people throughcontrol andcommunicationsprocesses to redirecttheir futures
 Formative organising 
.Enables missions, goals,and aims to be definedand approachedthrough planning. Itmay involve logical,and/or relationalabilities to organisethought and action andthus to define sets of possible systematic,systemic and behaviourpossibilities. It can alsoinvolve the use of tacitstandards by whichexperience can beordered and valued, andmay involve reflection
 Manner of thinking 
. Anintellectual frameworkthrough which policymakers observe andinterpret reality. Thishas an aesthetical orpolitically correctethical orientation. Itprovides an image of the future that enablesaction throughpolitically correctstrategic policy. It givesa politically correctview of stages of historical development,in respect of interactionwith the externalenvironment( 
continued 
 )
Table I.
Cognitive propertiesand patterns of viableorganisations
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interests, properties, and influences. Taken together, this can formulate apicture of the cognitive properties of any purposeful activity system. Thisdevelops on the cognitive properties table of Yolles (2000a), including some of Vicker’s (1965) ideas on the notion of the appreciative system, and adevelopment of the organisational surfing table of Yolles (2000b) which weshall further discuss in due course. The organisational pattern that isrepresented in Table I through its columns refers to the idea that theorganisation can be explored in terms of overall patterns within theorganisation (Yolles, 2000c).Of particular interest is the notion that cognitive purposes involvecybernetic, rational/appreciative and ideological/moral attributes. This domainis fundamentally one of polity that enables the creation of order and relates tothe ability to organise (hence the organising domain). Fundamental to it is thepolitical process of the social community, a feature of organisations that isoften overlooked. The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of thepolitical processes that can occur in organisations.
2. Polity and politics
When discussing political processes we can refer to both macroscopicorganisations involving a large number of participants that have the potentialto interact with each other, or microscopic ones with relatively few participantswhose interaction potential is smaller. Based on the works of Duverger (1972),we will say that the political processes that operate in macroscopicorganisations are mediated[2] while those in microscopic organisations areunmediated or direct. This distinction is a reflection of the complexity of theorganisation: mediated politics occurs with high levels of complexity. This is
CognitiveinfluencesSocial Cultural Political 
Cognitive domain
Formation
. Enablesindividuals/groups to beinfluenced byknowledge that relate toour social environment.This has a consequencefor our social structuresand processes thatdefine our social formsthat are related to ourintentions andbehaviours
 Belief 
. Influences occurfrom knowledge thatderives from thecognitive organisation(the set of beliefs,attitudes, values) of other worldviews.It ultimately determineshow we interact andinfluences ourunderstanding of formative organising
 Freedom
. Influencesoccur from knowledgethat affect our politydetermined, in part, byhow we think about theconstraints on groupand individualfreedoms, and inconnection with this toorganise and behave.It ultimately has impacton our ideology andmorality, and our degreeof organisationalemancipation
Table I.
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