Michael, and Cherry before you thankyou for challenging the 'who is they'
assumptions that has tended to pervade this thread.
As you say
>It may be more productive to approach the problem as if it is the
organisation AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY rather than individuals or even
"they" as some local, specified group.>
Apologies at the outset if this sounds like more of my pet idea but I
suspect we are only beginning to realise the power of diseases transmitted
by what I [and others I hasten to add] would call memes. If you prefer
think of them as fashions, or fads, or prevailing belief sets or whatever.
An easy example of a memetically transmitted disease to grasp is
anorexia.By some estimates it now affects 20% of the teenage female
population of the south-east of England, to the extent in some case of
inflicting lasting physical disability. I have seen such cases affect
friends families, and worried lest my own daughters would catch the bug.
For this, IMO, is literally what it is: a completely mentally transmitted
'virus'.
To 'blame' many who act in accorance with an accepted organisational
pattern sometimes strikes me as about as valid as blaming someone with no
knowledge of basic hygiene for catching say cholera.
I do realise BTW that this assertion could be used to excuse almost any
kind of dysfunctional behaviour. The contrary arguments are well made in
the closing chapters of Daniel Dennet's latest book.
I am not offering an excuse for all the managerial behaviours alluded to in
earlier messages in this thread. I have suffered from some myself, and
probably acted that way too. I am agreeing strongly with Michael that until
we see the organisation -OR PERHAPS IT'S COLLECTIVE MENTAL CODES- as an
independent entity we are likely to be stuck in conversations about who is
to blame that simply go nowhere.
If Price
The Harrow Partnership
Pewley Fort Guildford UK
101701.3454@compuserve.com
--Dr Ilfryn Price <101701.3454@compuserve.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>