I've been on for only three days but have learned much and enjoyed the
'soak time' after reading very much. In my work over the past five years
in LO, the dynamic balance seems to be between "design' and "action"
perspectives. Structure should no longer be seen as following from formal
design principles but also driven by the imperatives of action. These
change flexibily and organically based upon the initiatives of the people
(workers) as they create and 'exploit' opportunities.
Systems no longer follow a sequential logic of plan-do-check-act.
Instead, it seems that systems become *recursive and self-reflective*
(Norhria and Berkley)---joining conception and execution, creating a
common and shared information architecture, and tightly linking outcomes
to processes. A deeper understanding of these issues came to me in a
disseratation by Eric Leifer, DEpt of Sociology, Harvard, 1991.
In studying the grand chess masters, Leiffer found that what distinguished
them from the brilliant novices was not their ability to think through
many more subsequent moves (as was commonly thought). Instead, he found
that at each move they *acted robustly* by trying to keep their degrees of
freedom as open as possible while still taking steps to win. For more
information, see Eric M. Leifer,* Actors as observers: A theory of skill
in Social Relationships, NYC: Garland, 1991. I will close for now. Look
forward to our continuing concept-o-logue.
Frank Voehl, Strategy Associates.
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>