>Replying to LO7836 --
>
>Dr Ilfryn Price Tue, 11 Jun 1996 16:24 said:
>
>> "When the unwritten rules get talked about at all
>> it is in the informal conversations of the company, the corridor
>> encounters, the chats over lunch, or the gossip in the pub after work. To
>> reveal the rules those conversations must be brought out into the open. If
>> you are really serious there is no substitute for a series of interviews
>> in which you sympathetically and empathetically encourage a representative
>> group of individuals to talk about the reality of life in their particular
>> organisation. One amazing fact is how quickly a pattern of consistent
>> answers emerges. Another amazing fact is that an external consultant is
>> almost always essential. People in the pattern have trouble seeing it. A
>> third amazing fact is that most unwritten rule situations end up
>> manifesting one or more systems archetypes [I think in fact I have seen
>> every archetype I know in one situation or another]"
>
>[added the ">" to set off the quotation]
>
>If,
> Do you have a breakdown on the source or sources of the
>unwritten rules and is there a cross system set of elements that
>make up the archetypes?
>
On piece of work we have used to have peole make these unwritten
rules more explicit is to have them imagine their nephew or neice
is coming to work for the organisation - what are the unwritten
rules you would let them know/warn them about before they started
- then have them identify which ones of these will be +ve drivers
for the future (thsi is ususally done post vision/strategy work)
and which -ve than have each table call out a -ve they are ready
to work to eliminate....
Julie Beedon
VISTA Consulting - for a better future
julie@vistabee.win-uk.net
--Julie Beedon <julie@vistabee.win-uk.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>