Fred asks what I mean by the statement that the whole is just different than the
sum of its parts, not necessarily more.
What I mean to say is that the whole can be more, or it can be less than the sum
of its parts. I have seen groups of people who were far _less_ capable of doing
effective work than any one of its members was, or than some its members were in
other groupings.
We tend to filter out the failures when we think of the old saw about the whole
being more than the sum of its parts. The reality is that frequently enough,
the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts. think about the comments
here recently about dysfunctional organizations consisting entirely of
good-hearted, well-intentioned people. It may be that only occasionally is the
whole more than the sum of its parts. Whenever it is, it is very gratifying to
see.
--Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc. 76234.3636@compuserve.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>