From: William Bonnell
Mgt.Services Div., Eastman Kodak Company
Bldg. 56-4, KP, Rochester, NY 14652-4530
Subject:
"Although I agree that it is more useful to think of organizations as
phenomena, I have come to adopt the view that they are both process
(emergent) and product (structure, culture, etc.). I find it more useful
to hold both of these viewpoints - when I can - simultaneously, in the
same way I think of rivers; that is, they are water moving from some place
upstream to some place downstream, but they are also the flow of water
past this place here...
--
Jack Hirschfeld I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?"
In LO102
So we can think of organizations as stocks and flows, accumulations and
rates of change. This is good because now we can begin to quantify them.
We can think of product flowing (production) and accumulating in inventory
and work in process. We can think of people flowing (hires and turnover)
and accumulating in _people being trained_ or _productive workforce_ or
_retires_. We can think of the state of culture and the flows which
change culture. How about $ flowing in and out and accumulating in
receivables, payables and cash.
Thanks to Jay Forrester for a powerful way of looking at the world - the
paradigm of system dynamics.
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Bill Bonnell (716) 477-7874 For the things we have to learn
bonnell@kodak.com before we can do them,
73323.2112@compuserve.com We learn by doing them -- Aristotle