[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# The New Normal: DSRP Systems Thinking

## Details

**Authors** Gibson, Hise O.

**Year** 2021

**Publisher** Medium (self-published; originally published at blog.cabreraresearch.org)

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Kind of engagement** public

**Applied** false

[Read it](https://hise-gibson.medium.com/the-new-normal-dsrp-systems-thinking-62a729534d8f)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

Gibson argues that the office closures of 2020 were a natural experiment whose lessons organizations should consolidate rather than discard, and that systems thinking is the means of consolidating them.

### How they did it (methods)

A short argumentative essay in sections — past, the natural experiment, the implications, the categories, the bridge. The historical case is General Motors, with corporate offices in Detroit and manufacturing in Indiana, used to show that office and factory work never had to share a location. The contemporary case is the rapid move to near-fully-remote work at firms including Facebook. A figure shows a relationship-distinction converted into a relationship-distinction system.

### What they found (results)

Gibson sorts organizational responses into three. Fully remote, which he doubts most organizations can sustain, because people need in-person interaction and the psychological side of virtual work is under-studied. 'Back to the Future', which returns immediately to pre-2020 operations, treats the pandemic as a black swan, and in his view ignores the workforce these organizations want to attract. Innovative hybrid, which combines past and new experience and which he favors. He notes a split workforce, with newer employees wanting flexibility and senior employees wanting predictability. He argues that organizations should take a tactical pause to compare how they operate now with December 2019, create a 'Tradespace' in which strategic decisions can be made while tactical execution continues, and use the DSRP model to reach what he calls the innovative middle, citing Cabrera for the claim that innovation occurs in the interfaces, interactions and connections and that relationship-distinction systems are an algorithm for innovation.

## Commentary

### In short

Gibson's use of DSRP is narrow and deliberate. He takes one construct, the conversion of a relationship into a system with an identity of its own, and applies it to the space between office work and remote work. Hybrid work on his account is not a compromise between two locations but a relationship that has become a thing in its own right, with parts and an inside, and can therefore be designed and inspected. That is the RDS move used as the theory defines it, and the conclusion he draws from it — that a firm should be able to say what its RDS looks like — follows. The post does not teach the four patterns and does not try to; it points readers to the four simple rules for that and spends its length on the application. Perspectives go unused, and that is the gap in it, because the argument turns on two points of view on one system: newer employees who want flexibility and senior employees who want predictability. The piece names that split and then reasons about the system without taking either vantage.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R

Shows it makes a difference

**Added** 2026-10-09

**How to cite this** Gibson, Hise O. (2021). The New Normal: DSRP Systems Thinking. Medium (self-published; originally published at blog.cabreraresearch.org).