> An organisation isn't "composed of individual belief systems" and
> won't be, in this area at least, "the sum of its parts". The belief
> system may have emerged from a founder or early group of leaders. It
> is more likely to have emerged from the interplay of the individual
> beliefs systems and those of the larger culture from which it all
> emerged. But it won't be a "sum" of anything.
> I also maintain that "belief systems" are rather sloppy ways of
> referring to organisational values, practices, structures - even
> culture - which leads to trouble because it implies something that
> isn't there. Dealing with belief systems is not the same as dealing
> with values, models, practices or the many other facets of human
> immaterial worlds.
In our work with clients, we make a sharp distinction between the
"belief systems" of individuals (which, I agree, is a rather sloppy
characterization) and the *presuppositions* that inform and infect
the utterances and acts of that individual within the organization.
This allows for individuality, while characterizing the patterns
of undercurrents by which people are judged in that environment.
I may personally believe that I owe my employer the hours he's paid
for...but, in this company, if putting in additional long hours of
uncompensated labor is the presupposition behind acts of promotion
and enhanced reward, it is that presupposition by which my behavior
will be judged, and I'll be rewarded (or not) on how well (or not)
I comply with that shared presupposition.
Because they're often hidden, presuppositions can be hard to ferret
out. I would encourage anyone who works with organizations to be-
come adept at distinguishing beliefs from shared presuppositions,
and adept at identifying and building taxonomies of them. That
become the "map" of the territory of the organization as a whole,
in our mind, and it is focused on "as it is," rather than illusory
"as we *think* it is" or "as we wish it were."
--
Carol Anne Ogdin "If we fixed a hangnail the way our
Deep Woods Technology, Inc. government fixed the economy, we'd
CAOgdin @ DeepWoods.com slam a car door on it."
--Cullen Hightower