[snipped the story, here's the punchline:]
> After the meeting was over, an older executive from company G approached
> the speaker from company F and said: "that fellow was wrong, of course.
> We definitely have a vision. We just don't communicate it to people at
> his level!"
Ah, classic. Vintage. Ripe. One for the archives.
My wife read some Robertson Davies a couple of years ago. I didn't, so we
had some good conversations where in order to comment on a passage she had
first to read it to me. Somewhere in the middle of "Manticore" I began to
get interested in how a _story_ (which presumably is a singular event or
sequence of events) could communicate _knowledge_, _information_, even
_wisdom_; all of these latter are popularly supposed to be best expressed
in general propositions.
This group has already a rich history of anecdotes and stories; the best
of them, collected, would represent a considerable part of our tribal lore.
What can our commentary add? (That's a real question, not a rhetorical way
of implying that commentary is superfluous.)
But is it possible that everything we are trying to accomplish here can be
expressed in stories rather than theories? And if that turned out to be
true, then what do theories express that stories don't?
Regards
jamzen@world.std.com
-----------------------------------------------------^---------------------
. . . . . . . . . . Actions speak louder than words . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . but not as clearly . . . . . . . . . .
> On Thu, 13 Apr 1995, Keith Cowan wrote:
>
> > I had an opportunity to consult with an IBM communications executive and
> > an outside communications consultant. I was there as a personal associate
> > of the IBM executive. It was clear that there was significant legacy of
> > the 3 beliefs BUT the executive would not promote the OLD values as this
> > was not politically correct! Although he was sold, he knew he could not
> > sell the current management who were looking for the new and improved
> > program du jour!
>
> [...quote of previous msg trimmed by your host...]
>
> Replying to L0772--
>
> Here is a true story that may be of interest to persons with interest in
> vision. In Michigan, a few months back, where two large companies are
> sharing some information with government approval, a speaker from company
> F was invited to talk to company G about corporate vision. After the
> speaker from company F had finished his remarks, a young employee of
> company G said: "are you really allowed to have visions? we don't have
> any [in company G]. Momentarily stunned, the speaker from company F said
> "yes, of course, we consider it very important in our business."
>
>
> Ta ta,
>
> JOHN N. WARFIELD
> JWarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu
>
>