Planning Organizations in Relation to Their Purposes

Abstract

At one of the early founding meetings of what would become the International Society for the Systems Sciences, the noted anthropologist Margaret Mead suggested that the society apply general systems theory to the society itself. This intervention, according to Mead, had little impact at the time. Nevertheless, Mead’s challenge has been returned to several times, by Mead and by others, and has gone on to exert a significant influence. In this paper, I return once again to Mead’s story, reviewing some of the ways in which it has been reinterpreted, while also investigating Mead’s indication that her proposal was related to earlier correspondence between her and Gregory Bateson. I emphasize how Mead’s story has moved through generations and between discourses, carrying with it a capacity to challenge conventions and prompt new responses and new stories in turn.