mackeyp@Pwc-Tpc.ca
Paul Mackey
Advisor to ADM Human Resources
Public Works and Government Services Canada,
A230 Tupper Bldg. Ottawa, Ont. Canada, K1A 0M2
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Host's Note:
I'm not aware of a mailing list or news group specifically discussing
Meg Wheatley's excellent book, so let's discuss it here in learning-org!
Meg has spoken at the last two Systems Thinking in Action conferences and
Pegasus Communications can provide audio (video??) tapes of her talks. I
found them very stimulating. (contact pegasus@world.std.com for info and
I suggest you provide them a US Mail address).
At the last STIA Conference, Nov. 94, in San Francisco, Meg said
(approximately):
"We have taken so much from the idea that the world is a machine; but that
is just a metaphor, no one really meant it. We have projected it onto
humans, that they are mechanistic, that they can be controlled, like
machines.
"We have our assumptions about what business is and project from that what
life is.
"Why have we taken from that image of what the world is and projected it
onto human beings? I would have thought we'd have taken our image of what
people are and projected *that* onto the world, instead of vice versa.
"From our experience is seeing people in large organizations (built in a
certain way) we have drawn attitudes about what people are fundamentally
like. About the fundamental nature of people. Drawn from observations
about how people behave in inhumane mechanistic organizations:
"That people have a natural predisposition to resist change.
That people don't work well together in groups.
The people don't want to work.
"We created bad work and then gave people a bad reputation."
-- Rick Karash, rkarash@world.std.com, host for learning-org