Theatrical Metaphor
To understand what a "role" is, let's turn to the theater. Everyone knows the phrase, "All the world's a stage, and people are merely actors." This phrase is not just a philosophical observation—it is also useful in systems thinking.
The theatrical metaphor helps explain the difference between an action and the performer of that action, or between a role and the performer of the role[1]. In the theater, there is a distinction between the performer Vladimir Vysotsky[2] and the role he plays. Even young children understand this. Yet adults sometimes fail to realize that they themselves play the roles of "manager" or "engineer."
In the theater, the same actor can play different roles, and any person's actions can be viewed through the lens of the "role" concept. You could say that everyone plays roles in their personal life or in work projects. It's just that not everyone thinks about it.
We consciously pay attention to our actions only when we want to improve our behavior. If we don't need to change anything in our thinking or work practices, then there is no need to consider roles. However, if we want to change the way an individual or an entire team operates, the best way to do so today is to use the concept of "role," along with other related concepts such as "method (practice)" and "work artifact."
In the theater, the actions required by a role are clearly defined by the script, while the performers can change regularly. Life is much the same: different people can play the role of a surgeon. But any surgeon acts according to a specific medical practice learned in medical school. The concept of "role" is inseparable from the concept of "method (practice)": as soon as we start considering roles, we must also discuss role-based practices[3].
So, a role[4] is a culturally established name: surgeon, soccer player, driver, hammer[5] or car, and so on. A role is performed by a specific agent, whom we call the performer of the role. Moving from the theatrical metaphor and the human actor, we arrive at a more fundamental perspective, where performers of roles can include not only people, but also other agents (such as artificial intelligence, a team, or an entire enterprise) or even any inanimate object (even a stone).
The actions of an agent in a role are role-based behaviors, carried out according to certain rules or using a specific method (practice). Performers of roles use practices to create work artifacts. Let's look more closely at the following points:
- the concept of role is not limited to people, even though we began exploring it through the theatrical metaphor;
- roles do not belong to a person; rather, a person participates in some activity (process) or is part of a system in a role;
- the performer of a role does not have to be a person, so we will refer to an agent as the performer of a role, or even an inanimate object;
- agents can be people or inanimate systems;
- the success of a system depends on roles and their interests;
- roles carry out practices and create work artifacts.
At the same time, you shouldn't think that the self is simply a collection of roles. The self is the performer of a specific role in a particular situation or project. However, I also possess the mastery to play many different roles. ↩︎
The role of Hamlet can be played by John Doe, whose performance pales in comparison to the talent of Vysotsky. However, both performers are still playing the role of Hamlet, even though they have different qualifications. That is why we will discuss roles and performers separately. The role remains the same, but the performers can be different. ↩︎
As well as work artifacts, systems, and much more. Systems thinking introduces certain concepts and shows how they are interconnected. ↩︎
The concept of "role" has synonyms—role-based or functional object. ↩︎
Recall the discussion of the "hammer" from the previous section. ↩︎