{"id":9347,"date":"2025-07-16T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9347"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:42:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T22:42:17","slug":"posiwid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9347","title":{"rendered":"POSIWID"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

POSIWID?! Bob, is that a typo? No, please recall that I promised yesterday<\/a> a way to think about what our focus actually is, not what we say it is. POSIWID is a term introduced by Stafford Beer in the early 2000s:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not what we say it does or what we hope it does but what it actually does. Beer wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. <\/em>– Wikipedia: The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you observed a church over several weeks, what would you say its purpose is? The church might have a mission statement tucked away in a drawer somewhere, but what would your observations about the church’s activities lead you to believe its mission is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I posed that question to a leader in a Christian mission, and his immediate response was something like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get as many people to attend the Sunday morning performance as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. What about the average American Christian? Or you and I? Do we live that differently from our neighbors? Another formulation of POSIWID is the familiar adage:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.<\/em> – Wikipedia, DuckTest<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to focus. What’s yours? What’s mine? Maybe we need to look at our behavior to find out. Jesus said it first:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep\u2019s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. <\/em>You will recognize them by their fruits<\/em><\/strong>. (Matthew 7.15, 16, ESV, emphasis mine)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POSIWID?! Bob, is that a typo? No, please recall that I promised yesterday a way to think about what our focus actually is, not what we say it is. POSIWID is a term introduced by Stafford Beer in the early 2000s: The Purpose Of a System Is What It Does (POSIWID). Not what we say … Continue reading POSIWID<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s8X9bo-posiwid","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9347"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9351,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9347\/revisions\/9351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}