Problem People in Organizations LO8006

Malcolm Burson (mooney@MAINE.MAINE.EDU)
Thu, 20 Jun 1996 18:35:42 -0500

Replying to LO7887 --

Replying to LO7887 and following, on "Problem People in
Organizations:"

Having followed this thread for a week or so, I'm rather surprised
that none of this fellowship has replied in the spirit of what I
understood to be a foundation of the LO approach, and which I try to
teach in my organization every day: that most issues traditionally
perceived as "people problems" can better be understood as a system
incapacity to allow/foster their success. I'd be the last to deny
that there aren't sometimes individuals who defy every attempt to
include them in the processes and changes that we think are vital to
organizational success, but IMHO we ought still to ask in the first
instance, "what is it about our system that's making it difficult for
that person to be successful?" And until we are completely satisfied
that our mental models and system structures are as supportive of
that individual's learning and change as we can make them, it's tough
(for me at least) to support my friend Rol's apparent "ignore them,
cut them out of the loop, or get rid of them" (and here I'm wickedly
caricaturing what I believe him to have said) approach.
If I'm missing something here, or can't see my own assumptions
clearly, I'd welcome your responses.

Malcolm Burson<mooney@maine.maine.edu
Community Health and Counseling
Bangor, Maine

-- 

"Malcolm Burson" <mooney@MAINE.MAINE.EDU>

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