To Lilly Evans, with a thought about what we can do on this list to build.
I have a radical suggestion, perhaps never tried before in this specific
context. I offer this suggestion to everyone, of course, and I am
thinking as I type (so beware!)
Suppose, Lilly, that along with the observations in dialog which comprise
the current learning-org list, we also maintained a "common" learning-org
story to which anyone might contribute a paragraph of (short) chapter?
The fable of this never-ending story might be the living of two women and
two men, who work in 2 organizations in the same community. One
organization is a manufacturing business, the other a purely service group
of some kind, perhaps a consultative organization hired to assist the
other under a year-long contract.
While this exercise I propose is fraught with complexity in how it
actually works, it may provide use with a unique forum tool. Under no
circumstances would I want to deflect the list from its current pursuits,
and I will gladly stand down from this suggestion at the slightest hint
from our hosts, who view it as outrageously intricate. But...
We could, perhaps, come up with an identification schema wherein any of us
might write about the four (or two or six) principle characters, let the
fable blossom many ways in many spaces at the same time, and still achieve
the goal of the group story: to express the ways in which we think people
do and could react. This would be based upon a combination of our own
realpolitik plus dreams of a better and better place in which to live and
work.
Some or many on this list might first view this suggestion with
trepidation, thinking "I can't write about people. I have barely enough
skill to make myself feel I'm being understood when I post to this list of
doctoral candidates, CEO's, cyber-heads and Fools of God. Let's just
stick with the facts, nothing but the facts. This story-telling idea is
way too mushy." I'll accept that. These thoughts are a response to
Lilly. Story-telling is a powerful tool which I think might help us
build.
-- Happy days, Barry bmallis@markem.com