System Changing Itself LO6311

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 29 Mar 1996 18:21:56 +0000

Replying to LO6279 --

Julie, I like what you're pointing at. Help "from the outside"
certainly doesn't have to be a consultant. It might be someone new
coming into the company as an employee. It might be anyone going to
another company and bringing back new thinking. It might be from
reading a book (although few seem able to make this one go) and
bringing in "from the outside" some new thinking.

It might also be anyone in the company bringing some part of their
own experience, new or otherwise, into the system which they had not
thought to presence in the system before. Experience with an Ashram,
a sports team, a hobby, a discipline, religion, family - endless
possibilities begin to appear.

These endless possibilities raise the possibility of designing our
organisations so that these *are* brought into the system. We can
begin to see that we are all parts of (and are ourselves)
multi-system and at any moment we are part of "the" system and at the
same time part of many "outside" systems. The challenge of adaptive,
intelligent organisation is to be able to have the "inside" and the
"outside" be present in the same people and at the same time.

Currently, we are designed to exclude the richness of individual
human beings by defining each as "inside" and limiting participation
and contribution to specific areas that the system we are inside of
has prescribed. (And in most cases, forgotten who prescribed and
why.)

Michael McMaster : Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk
book cafe site : http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
Intelligence is the underlying organisational principle
of the universe. Heraclitus

-- 

Michael McMaster <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>