Yet More Useful Maxims
This is my fourth group of the many short principles that help clarify reasoning, decision-making, or analysis. I am featuring some of them in a series of posts, expositing a few of them each time. Many of them are rule-of-thumb approaches that either avoid nonsense or reveal inner workings.
10. Gall’s Law was coined by John Gall in his 1975 book Systemantics.
It tells us to start small because complex systems are built up from simpler working systems. The attempt to construct a complex system directly rarely succeeds. Gall’s Law teaches us to start with a simple system that works, and build from there by stages into a more complex system.
Its message is that complex systems evolve, rather than being created from scratch. Complexity is built up gradually from simplicity. The term ’iterative’ is often used to describe this process of repeating what works. Negative feedback can eliminate the errors in simple systems before they are built upon to create complex ones.
Complex systems that are not built up from simpler ones often fail because of unanticipated factors. Trial and error, the basis of my own philosophy, enables us to debug and improve the simpler systems before we build them up into complex ones.
11. The Law of Unintended Consequences has led many times to ruin.
It tells us that human actions often produce unforeseen and often undesirable outcomes. It arises from the complexity and interconnectedness of our actions. Moves to achieve one result can often trigger effects that cause it to fail, or in some cases bring about the opposite result to the one intended.
Banning the sale of alcohol in America’s 1920s Prohibition was intended to cut crime, but it led to the growth of organized crime, gang wars, and Al Capone. Rent controls, designed to bring about cheaper housing, have led to reductions in the quantity and quality of rental units, and to seemingly interminable waiting lists for them.
The law applies because we cannot foresee all the future effects of our actions. In seeking to address short-term problems, we may be building up secondary or tertiary effects farther down the road. The law is particularly relevant in politics, where legislators look to the next election rather than the next generation, and frequently build up problems other than the ones they hoped to resolve.
12. The Abilene Paradox explains why group decisions can run counter to what most of the members want.
It involves a breakdown in communication, where the action that a group decides upon might not be what the individuals want, but where they act in the belief that others favour it.
It was named after an anecdote told by Jerry B Harvey in a 1974 article. A whole family embarks on an arduous and pointless trip to Abilene because each of them thinks the others want to. In organizations such as businesses, people might be reluctant to express contrary opinions, not wanting to rock the boat or to stand out as dissenters.
It arises from group pressure and the desire to avoid being thought of as ‘not a team player.’ It is alleged that the disaster to the Challenger space shuttle happened because individuals who had misgivings about the boosters’ O-rings becoming hardened by very low temperatures were each individually reluctant to diverge from what they thought was a go-ahead that everyone wanted.
The way to combat the paradox is thought to be by encouraging open dissent and using anonymous registration of real, as opposed to perceived, opinions.
Madsen Pirie
