This quiet pool may at first seem to represent a deficit in an organization and a source of resistance and consternation for those seeking to improve and adapt the organization for a changing world. We must recognize, however, that a quiet pool is the primary source of nutrition for the stream—and that in a comparable manner the quiet pool in an organization is the primary source of its distinctive character, traditions and culture.
Without this core patterning, the organization will fall apart. It will lose its integrative glue and its sense of abiding values and purposes. In the VUCA-Plus world of health care where boundaries are often falling away, the quiet pool in an organization contributes in a profound way to its clarity regarding organizational intentions and to its sense of continuity and commitment. Alternatively, these organizations may operate in heavily regulated settings. Many modern health care systems are increasingly fitting into this category,
This environment that we have identified as stable tends to decline in size or magnitude as the stream increasingly is dominated by the other three subsystem —or it will become more isolated from the other subsystem. While reduction in the size of this subsystem might initially seem to be a positive outcome, we find that this is not always the case–for the third subsystem is often a source of stability for any system (especially a human system)—providing Parsons’ latent pattern maintenance.
Furthermore, nutrients in a natural system (such as a mountain stream) reside primarily in the so-called “stagnant” portion of the stream. This is where leaves eventually end up and where they sink to rot (convert into new forms of nutrition for other living beings in this stream). We might find that this same nutritional function is being served in human health care systems. But simply, this third subsystem is just as important as the other three. Overly rapid change damages everything in a system and makes this system hard to manage. We need some form of a stable environment in our life and work.
Chaotic Environment: There is finally a fourth type of subsystem in the stream. This is the subsystem that resides on the boundaries between the three other subsystems. When looking at a stream, one sees this type of subsystem in the area that exists between the rapidly flowing section of the stream (subsystem one) and the stagnant pool (subsystem three) or between the whirlpool (subsystem two) and either the rapidly flowing or stagnant water. Unpredictability is endemic to this fourth type of subsystem.
A leaf that floats into this subsystem begins to move in a highly erratic manner. One cannot predict from moment to moment where the leaf will be. It bobs and weaves, darting from one point to another in a seemingly random manner. Eventually the leaf will end up in the stagnant pool, the whirlpool or the fast lane (subsystem one). Meanwhile (to borrow from the movie All About Eve) it is in for “a bumpy ride!”
The fourth subsystem is common in contemporary health care organizations that are filled with uncertainty resulting from the complex and unpredictable dynamics inherent in this subsystem. Typically, the participants in these turbulences not only have differing priorities, they also move at a different pace from each other and in different directions. This is at the heart of the complex conditions in which many contemporary health care leaders find their life inside an organization.
