Re: Wheatley List

ValdisK@aol.com
Thu, 19 Jan 1995 22:41:44 -0500

> To list members: How can executives and managers (- who have risen
through
> a heirarchcal bureaucracy using a more mechanistic- cause /effect model -)

> discover how to let go of the familiar approaches. Does the sense that
they
> are faced with precieved catostrphic changes in funding, mission, and
> employee expectations etc. help in their discovery or does it reinforce old

> paradigms?

The only companies that I have seen take Change seriously are those where the
'wolf is at the door'. Without this intrusion into their 'equilibrium'(or
fantasy of it), there is strong attachment to the old ways that once lead to
success. People/Groups have to try the old behaviors and see that they no
longer produce the same results(feedback from the environment). Next,
depending on a lot of factors, they will either try to fine tune the old
behaviors("This used to work so well...Hmmm...there must be something
broken...I know -- I'll fix it!) [Sound like reengineering? ;-) ] or drop
the old behaviors and try something new. The latter will be more adaptive.

Reminds me of a story:

The difference between mice and man...
A laboratory mouse was put in a box with 6 'rooms'. It soon learned that
cheese was always found in Room 3. Therefore it always ran directly to Room
3 upon being put in the box. Once day the scientist put the cheese in Room
5. Upon enetering the box the mouse ran directly to Room 3. "Hmmm...no
cheese." He looked around and left, he tried Room 4, no cheese, tried Room
5..."Ah-ha! Cheese!".

What would a human have done? He/She would have continued to return to Room
3 again and again and again -- expecting and then demanding their cheese.
"Where is my cheese!? This is where it has always been. It's supposed to
be here! I want it NOW--GIVE ME MY CHEESE!!!...I have rights you
know...blah, blah, blah." And so the complaining and resistence was heard
through the night in the now dark laboratory. Meanwhile...the cheese was
sitting in Room 5.

So what is the difference between mice and man???
Mice get their cheese.

Valdis Krebs
Krebs & Associates
Los Angeles, CA

ValdisK@aol.com