Replying to Julie:
Julie said
>In what way is it a 'fact' that resources are finite - I might think of it
>as more of a mental model than a fact - or at least if I did, it might
>open up more options to me.
I think this is taking openess a bit far - in my universe it is very real
to me that resources are finite - I mean time and shareholders' patience
primarily.
>What assumptions are you making about
>* the reasons why someone might fundamentally disagree with a
>chosen path
>* the extent to which the 'organisation' has chosen the path or a
>group of people with a certain set of strategic information have
>selected it
>My sense is, that if particular views are systematically excluded
>from the equation then, the path may have some important strategic
>information missing
Someone will always disagree with a chosen path because there is no one
right path in any given situation. The only reason is that people are
different.
Every path has some important information missing, and yes, policy is only
being decided by a few with the input of many, but once that policy has
been decided, the important thing is to act on a Ready, Fire, Aim basis -
we plan, do and then alter the plan according to the results,rather than
thinking that by planning we can foresee every eventuality.
>My first and immediate reaction here is that everyone can be involved in
>creating it (an Oil Company I am working with in New Orleans put 1000
>people into the Louisiana Superdome last year to do just that sort of
>thing and continue to put a lot of energy into inclusion and listening to
>those with diverse views)
But to achieve consistency of purpose, the Vision can only be created
once, or maybe once every fifty years, otherwise we just get an
organisation continually asking what its purpose is, rather than being its
purpose. This means that most peple who join an organisation cannot take
part in developing the Vision, because it has already been developed.
They can only chose their role in implementing it.
>The other thing I am struggling with here is that the only way the 'right
>to disagree' seems to be able to be excercised in this model of
>organisations is in leaving which somehow sounds very coercive.
As I said before,large organisations can tolerate experiments at the
margins, in fact need them, so that leaving is not the only option, and
people can be very creative at the margins. I do think you have to
honestly recognise that maybe you want to work at the margins for a while.
I don't believe small organisations can cope with this, which is where
leaving becomes the least destructive option.
I hope this answersd some of Julie's questions about my mental models (
but they are only my mental models).
Malcolm Jones
prodeuro@atlas.co.uk
--prodeuro@atlas.co.uk (Malcolm Jones)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>