"Tectology" 100 years ago explained how to manage complex systems

Why do strong teams and technologies alone not guarantee results? How do systemic constraints affect business efficiency? And why does digital transformation begin with understanding processes, not with choosing tools? Read more in our article.

Asem Bolatjan, city — Almaty, Director of Women in Tech Kazakhstan, Advisor to the Minister of AI and Digital Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan

Everything can be viewed as a system

A company, a team, a state, an organism — these are all different, but they are systems. Bogdanov was interested not so much in the elements themselves, but in how they connect and interact. Today, this is largely called systems thinking.

Strong elements do not yet make a strong system

You can assemble the best people, implement the best technologies, and create an excellent product. But if processes and the connections between them work poorly, a strong system will still not be achieved.

This is a familiar problem of digital transformation: technologies exist, but there is no systemic effect. There are many people, but the result does not “take off.”

A system is limited by its weakest link

You can have strong IT, an excellent product, and a huge marketing budget. But one weak element — data, API, logistics, process, or competence — can limit the result of the entire system. Therefore, the manager’s task is not only to strengthen what is strong but also to constantly search for systemic constraints.

Technology does not fix poor organization

CRM will not fix a poor sales process. AI will not fix poor data. Automation will not make an unnecessary process meaningful. On the contrary, technology can simply scale existing chaos. Therefore, digital transformation begins not with choosing a tool, but with understanding how the system is structured.

Not “who is to blame?”, but “why does the system allow this?”

If the same mistake keeps repeating, perhaps it is no longer about a specific person. It is worth looking at the process and at what allows these scenarios to repeat: motivation and its absence, data, communications, and distribution of responsibility. I like this shift: from searching for someone to blame to searching for the cause within the system.

Local success is not yet the success of the entire company

Product, IT, Marketing, and Operations can perform their KPIs perfectly. But if everyone optimizes only their own area, the company as a whole may lose. A familiar situation where everything works for everyone, but together it does not yield results.

Modern management is increasingly about managing not individual functions, but the interdependencies between them.

An organization is not a static structure

The external environment changes, imbalances arise, the system is forced to restructure, and a new equilibrium appears. Therefore, it is impossible to create an “ideal organization” once and never change it again.

In the world of AI, this thought sounds especially relevant: the ability to restructure becomes more important than the ability to maintain stability.

The more digital, the more important the organization

APIs, data, AI agents, platforms, employees, partners, regulators — a modern company is becoming an increasingly complex network. And the leader’s task is gradually changing: it is impossible to manually control every element of it.

You need to design a system in which elements interact with each other correctly. A familiar situation where, in order to organize, you have to create a chat.

Main conclusion

Digital management is not only managing technologies for business and not only managing people. It is managing the system of connections: people, processes, data, technologies, goals, and necessarily the external environment.

And surprisingly, many ideas that seem very modern today were formulated by Bogdanov more than a century ago. And back then, not everyone understood him.