Sustainable Learning LO11723

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@CompuServe.COM)
08 Jan 97 00:02:32 EST

Replying to LO11700 --

Ben,

I sense a lot of frustration in your message.

I may not help, but let me add something to ponder.

Tom Peters says "incrementalism is innovations worst enemy," but I think
he is wrong. Innovation's worst enemy is the last innovation that turned
into an expensive failure -- read disaster. Hence, the focus on
incrementalism can be very good. You can, for example,

= Test assumptions which may or may not be correct.

= Carry out small scale "perturbations" to see where the system goes. One
thing we know clearly from systems thinking and chaos theory is that the
impact of any change is actually unpredictable.

Remember, betting the company is not something we do often. There is a
saying in probability theory that the odds you will lose are always 50-50.
You will either win or lose, one or the other. A corollary by Murphy is
that the odds are really against you all the time.

A voice for experiment.

--

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/>