Re: Virtual Learning Organisations LO1501

JOHN N. WARFIELD (jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu)
Fri, 2 Jun 1995 07:19:31 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO1467 --

On Thu, 1 Jun 1995, John Wolfenden wrote:

> I am PhD research into how policies to achieve sustainable development
> might best be identified and implemented. The case study for this study
> will be the New South Wales Beef Feedlot Industry.
>
> I propose to use a combined systems dynamics/learning organisation
> approach of the type described in Morecroft and Sternman 1994, "Modeling
> for Learning Organisations".
>
> The main stakeholders involved in the policy process have been tentatively
> identified as: Politician(s) responsible for environmental policy, the
> policy implementation and enforcement agency (the New South Wales
> Environment Protection Authority), environmentalists (perhaps represented
> by an established group such as the Australian Conservation Foundation),
> and producers (probably represented for modelling purposes by some
> hypothetical production unit or units).
>
> I am toying with the idea of examining the processes and interactions
> involved by assuming that these stakeholders behave like a virtual
> organisation which produces "goods" (beef products, nutrients, votes for
> the politician) and "bads" (nutrients, other pollutants, odour).
> Nutrients can be undesirable if they occur in the wrong place (e.g.
> phosphates in the waterways), and beneficial if used as fertiliser.
>
> By involving the stakeholders in the modelling process, their
> understanding of the processes and interactions would be increased, and
> the possibility of developing shared vision exists. Thus, some basic
> foundations of learning organisations exist.
>
> Does anyone have useful insights into this? Is a virtual organisation
> approach valid? How else might I investigate this from the perspective of
> LO theory/practice? Is anyone doing similar research?
>
> Thank you in anticipation of some helpful responses.
>

Re L01467,

John, it may be useful for you to know that the books you mention present
one picture of systems thinking, and do not give many clues to other works
that relate to systems thinking. You could consider a variety of
possibilities, and I will only mention my own, but then I only have a
modest amount of space to work with.

In 1976, I published a book called SOCIETAL SYSTEMS: PLANNING, POLICY,
AND COMPLEXITY. In this book, I introduced a computer-assisted modeling
system called Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). The purpose of ISM
was to provide several kinds of assistance to groups:

o Learning process management
o Development of visual maps of complex sets of relationships among
members of a previously-generated set of elements
o Computer-assisted topical sequencing for group dialog
o Inference to maintain consistency of thinking
o Visual oversight of collective group wisdom

etc., etc.

Somehow the literature of groups, management, groupware, learning
organizations, etc., has largely missed out on this process. In spite of
that, there is a worldwide network of organizations/individuals who use
this process extensively, with excellent results.

In 1994, Iowa State University Press published two more books which I
authored or co-authored:

o A SCIENCE OF GENERIC DESIGN (2nd Edition)
o A HANDBOOK OF INTERACTIVE MANAGEMENT (2nd Edition)

These books identify many organizations and practitioners, and describe
the valuable results achieved, in a wide variety of applications.

The primary limiting factor in these books is that they are all intended
to deal only with complex situations. Consequently, virtually all the
published work that does not have this particular goal in mind, tends to
ignore the existence of this work.

In spite of the fact that the design science I have created has been very
well accepted wherever it has been used, the U. S. government has
continued to finance unproductive organizations who say they are going to
create a science of design.

The design science and the Interactive Management system go together.
The first book answers the question "Why are certain things necessary?"
and the second one answers the question "How are these things done?"

As far as the virtual organization is concerned, it is a valuable
concept, requiring only sound brokerage to bring the people together in
the Interactive Management type of setting.

One of the things I think is really important in all organizational
change activities is to keep this in mind:

o Publications that emanate from American business colleges or from OD
type consultants are almost always not linked to science. Instead they
are typically American in that they reflect the spirit of invention made
so famous by people like Edison, Bell, etc. That spirit, in turn,
reflects the disdain or neglect of philosophy and science. This disdain
or neglect, in being inventive, is very often appropriate, as history shows.

Unfortunately, there is a domain where this spirit can be very harmful,
and dysfunctional. That domain is the domain of complexity. The very
nature of complexity is that it is beyond human grasp using the very
methods that were so prominent in U. S. development. Because of this,
the subjects taught in business and engineering schools today reflects an
obsolete perspective as it relates to complexity. It is as though people
accustomed to working with "ordinary" systems believe that it is a simple
matter of extrapolation of past practice to enable them to deal with
"complex situations". This one mistaken believe is likely to be the
source of massive difficulty in the future, as it has been in the recent
past.

My books strive to provide a "shields up and load the phasers" approach
to correct a bad situation which is being propagated widely and is now
starting to permeate organizations.

--
JOHN N WARFIELD 
"JOHN N. WARFIELD" <jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu>