I am not the "Turbo-replying-type" Mostly I need some time to formulate an
answer. But here it is.
>Your insight is even more important than whatever I was missing. Thank you.
>Now I have a new question: How can we know when a systemic intervention is
>helpful and when it isn't?
One cannot KNOW when a systemic intervention is going to be helpfull or.
But most of the time, you get a kind of hunch, or instinctively you know
that this or that has to be said or done here and now. I.M.O. this has a
little bit to do with knowing but has much more to do with FEELING. I look
at humans as a threefold entity: A purely spritual part that lives
according to spiritual laws and a physical part that lives according
fysical laws.
To let these to part be able to communicate with eachother we need a third
part, a mediator. If our abillity to THINK belongs to the spiritual part
of us, than the abillity to WANT belongs to the physical part. In between
stands our abillity to FEEL things.
I know that it is very uncommen to make a distingtion between thinking and
feeling. But to really understand what we are and how we operate this
distingtion is unavoidable.
I don't know if I have mentioned it already but on my homepage you can
find an article in which the importance of feeling is explained. You'd do
me a great pleasure if you'd print it out, read it and give me your
comments on it. It can be found through my homepage:
<http://www.universal.nl/users/winfried/default.htm> From there you'll
find a link with the name "Dynamic Judgment Building". It isn't an easy
reader because of the "dutchy" type of english that it is written in. If
it doesn't appear right in your browser, please notify me.
>I'm wondering about your use of "at the best." I see understanding the past
>(whatever led to the present situation), as extraordinarily important in
>designing interventions. Do you have a different view?
Yes, I more or less do have also a different view here. I agree that the
past is important. Because you can only learn from the past, from the
things that you've done. About 6 months ago I finished a book from a Dutch
professor called Cees Zwart. I have followed some of his colleges. He has
written a book with the title : The strategy of hope".
In this book he describes - among other things- three possible futeres:
1. a projected future,
2. a programmed future
3. a dreamed future.
sub 1. In his view a projected future projects the past into the future.
You hear people than say: Why change things. We've done it 20 years like
this! Why change? Conservatists and fundamentalists.
sub 2. In a programmed future rules the law of "the hard appointments and
deals". Here you hear people say: "This is what I decided and this is what
I'm gonna do, no mather what....!" Yuppies and die hards.
sub 3. In a dreamed future you forget the past totally and you just
fantasice. This is when people say:"Shouldn't it be wonderfull
if........". The optima forma Idealist talks here.
Nowadays you find very little people that reguraly daydream about the
future. In this I absolutely agree with Cees Zwart that daydreaming should
be re-invented and re-introduced in Management Development. Most managers
are too afraid for their jobs, bosses, loans, etc. that they only want to
make decisions that insure and secure their position. So for reasons of
security they project the past onto the future, or they just follow orders
without taking notice of their contiousness. The consequences are: Old
wine in new sacks!
If we (as consultants and trainers) are able to losen up our pictures,
assumptions etc about the past more than we do today we'll be much more
capable of letting the here-and-now situation show us what intervention is
the right one. The future itself knows best what is necessary to be
done.The most important thing we have to design and develop is awareness
for "hunches" ore "the inner voice" or in Senge's view: Personal Mastery.
Greetings from blue sky holland
Winfried
--Winfried M. Deijmann Deijmann & Partners tel.: +31 (0)575-522076 Human Relations and Communications Consultancy fax.: +31 (0)575-527310 Het Zwanevlot 37 NL 7206 CB Zutphen Netherlands Email: winfried@universal.nl Homepage: <http://www.universal.nl/users/winfried/default.htm>
"An educated mind is useless without a focussed will and dangerous without a loving heart" (unknown source)
--winfried@universal.nl (W.M. Deijmann)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>