In response to LO9030, Robert Bacal writes:
" I am just banging my head trying to figure out to make my point clearer.
The SYSTEM is a construct and is our human way of describing what we see
as inter-relationships, structure, etc. The SYSTEM does not work, people
do. The SYSTEM does not make decision, people do.
" Focusing energy ONLY on a construct and not on the people is nonsensical
to me.
" Reifying a system is frought with danger."
I am particularly sympathetic to Robert's concern, especially as expressed
in the statement that "the system does not work, people do." Potentially
costly errors in thinking are bound to occur when abstractions are treated
as material objects (reifying), or when human qualities are attributed to
non-human entities (anthropomorphizing).
However, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, or so the gestalt
psychologists have taught us for many years now. A system is more than a
collection of elements and an organization is more than a collection of
people. Roles and relationships do come into play and interactions do
figure into the performance equation.
So, just as to focus only on "the system" is inappropriate and
unproductive, a focus on people to the exclusion of all other factors is
inappropriate and unproductive too. (And no, Robert, I'm not saying you
said people should be the exclusive focus -- I'm simply pointing out that
they shouldn't be.)
To focus on the system, then, as Deming and others have advocated, is not
to exclude people but is simply to recognize that, chances are,
difficulties in performance will be traced not to people but to the roles,
relationships, responsibilities, tasks, duties, procedures, schedules,
interactions, machines, methods, materials and all the other arrangements
in which people are caught up as a result of being "parts" in a system or
organization (usually of someone else's design).
It is, then, not so much the treating of abstractions as things that
causes grief in the workplace. It is treating people as things that
brings misfortune down around us.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>