>Expecting a butterfly flapping to produce a particular desired
>effect on the weather is like expecting a 0.00005% change in
>orders from your smallest customer to generate a transformed
>organisation.
But isn't it true, that in large complex open systems, we don't know what
the actual consequences will be of a small change- especially one driven by
values and affecting people. Thus the little flap tests the invisible
attributes of the system. But I agree, it is not a building block for a
particular change.
This is action research. The observed (if any) effects are then fed back
into the system, and another step is taken. Subsequent interventions
resonate with the attractor, being already within its boundaries, or are
dampened and disappear. This is one argument against large scale system
wide training efforts imported from outside. Is the designed outcome inside
the n-space defined by the attractor?
>...The good old snowball rolling down the hill may
>seem a bit dated as a metaphor, but at least it fits the idea
>of big organisational change having small and deliberate
>beginnings.
Really big snowballs are likely to hurt people when they roll over them.
>...In fact, any well-conceived attempt to improve the
>organisation's behaviour will have to focus on changing the
>attractor
Organization culture is the attractor - a field, influencing everything
within it - what is possible is determined by it ... changes in state must
be derivative of the culture. And culture evolves. Evolution in the living
world may be the greatest learning organization available to us, the only
problem is, we don't enjoy its slow manner of speaking!
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|
It takes creativity to get a
plane to fly.
It takes rigor to keep it in the
air.
-o-o-
Phillipe Starke
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Meridian Group Fax 510-848-4257
1827A Fifth Street 800-3MERIDIAN (800-363-7426)
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