Ben writes:
>Why is it that there are always a few "talkers" in a group and so many
>people who are essentially silent?... Can anyone help me explain these
>dynamics?
Years ago I attended a briefing given by the U.S. Forest Service which
detailed a decade long cultural change initiative. One of the points that
stuck with me was a statistical breakdown of general receptivity to
cultural change that they had seen over and over again in their
sub-divisions. Between 10% and 15% of the people intuitively understood
the issues and embraced improvement. About 60% sat on their hands until
they could find a good reason to change, and about 25% cound not or would
not change for any reason.
I have seen these same approximate figures present in many different
formal and informal organizations since. Whether these are genetic
variables in the general population or the result of some organizational
factor I can't say, but it has been my experience that people who
constitute the intuitive 15% in one organization are always the intuitive
15% in any other organization to which they also belong.
--Lon Badgett lonbadgett@aol.com
"Ultimately every shred of new knowledge brings us to the "water crisis", when we say to ourselves, "What'r we going to do about it?" Emil Gobersneke
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>