Re: Boring firms `are killing creativity' in the workplace

Roland Foerster (foerster@dial.eunet.ch)
Sat, 10 Dec 94 15:28:53 +0100

Stephen

> > The question is maybe: how do you tell such a firm that *it is

> > boring*???
>
> What's the context? Are you a consultant called in to help an
> organization change? [If not, telling them is probably a waste of
> time and energy.]

I guess you're completely right, I put out this question without
giving you any kind of hints on what the context is. Email is very
fast, so are the messages written ;-)

I think there are two major aspects to this question for me:

1. I am working as a consultant and typically in large firms I often
find the organization boring, may it be the whole company (not
necessary) or some parts like departments, divisions etc. To be
concise, it is easy to *tell* them they are boring but can they
really take it?? This goes along with my second point.

2. Systems theory (as far as I know it) and research on perception
(eg. Manturana and Varela) are telling us (as far as I understand
it), that perception is determined by the structure of the system.
Some kind of selective perception determined by the structure of the
system. As an example of this I often find in organizations that they
don't know what the customer's needs really are, because they haven't
implemented the structure to get to know it.

Purely logically thought, this would mean you would have to change
the structure first (on organizational level this is ok, but what to
do on individual level) before people in the firm can actually
perceive what others are perceiving.

So here's the context, what do you think about this questions? Am I
on an understandable path there or is it too far out?

Yours

Roland Foerster

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Dr. Roland E. Foerster, HumanConsult
Management Consulting & Development
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