Explaining Zeitgeist (Z)

Methods - CATDOG(Z)
Documentation
Soft Systems Methodology
CATWOE
CATDOG.Z
Author

F. Patel

Published

April 15, 2025

Introducing Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist:

A word of German origin (Zeit meaning time and Geist meaning spirit), is the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. 1

The zeitgeist (Z) provides a good framing anchor for worldviews, a cursor on shared values. Remember the first tenet, which is that SSM is a tool for the management process. (?@fig-anchored-zeitgeist). We find alignment with modern trends in management thinking that promote the management function as a facilitator. Due to this pairing, any practices running counter to the relationship to the zeitgeist flags risk.

For this exercise, we encourage guardrails to exclude the polarising effects of the owner or external pressure groups. Stakeholder analysis for Owners’ fits O, and for other external stakeholders, it sits within C-A-T-O observations, respectively. Note that the study emphasises SME micro-organisations; for example, a venture capitalist might relax this rule.

Footnotes

  1. (Definition of ZEITGEIST, 2025)↩︎