Traditional Wisdom LO8933

Cherry Vanderbeke (CKV@wang.co.nz)
Wed, 7 Aug 1996 18:36:13 +1200

In LO8877 I said:

> I have a quote
> posted over my desk which says, "There are no bad people in
> companies - just good people being asked to do the wrong thing."
> (source unknown...

Robert Bacal replied:

"I agree to some extent, but the interesting thing about systems thinking
is that we must also apply it to management. So by the same logic, there
is also no such thing as bad managers, only managers that are working in
bad systems, or who are, themselves asked to do the wrong things."

I have never been totally happy with the quote I quoted either. What
makes me uncomfortable about it is the premise that people go ahead and do
"the wrong thing" just because they are "asked" to do it! Yes, there are
examples of this, I know, but in general I think we all try to do what's
right. (So what does "wrong" mean here? Ethically wrong? Criminal? Or
just not the "best" thing that could be done?)

Robert went on to say:

"If this is so, then it brings us to a very odd, and to me disconcerting
state of affairs. No bad managers, no bad employees, only bad systems.
This has some serious implications regarding issues of personal
responsibility and accountability, and has the potential for allowing
almost everyone to blame the system. Come to think of it, isn't that the
case in society in general?"

--snip --

"Focusing only on the system has its own problems. Let us not forget that
individual PEOPLE do the work...the system doesn't do the work, but acts
to structure, coordinate, etc. The system isn't accountable, people are
accountable. I think a focus on one or the other is a fast track to a
mess."

When I read this, it seemed to be saying that a system is something that's
designed by "them" for "us" to follow, that it's divorced from people.
That it is a separate entity. I guess when we think that way, we can
stand back and "blame" it. I don't think people with that view have a
good understanding of system thinking or system dynamics.

I was referring to a system as in Peter Senge's definition... in my words,
a pattern of behaviour, conditions and events which interrelate and
reinforce each other. People are intrinsically woven into such a system
and are not separate from it. To fix something that's wrong, you need to
understand the system and look for levers in the system.

Which comes back to the answering the original question - just "fixing"
the people or changing the people won't help. The people become part of
the system and are affected by it.

While I've been writing this, Mary Apodaca'a message LO8908 has just
arrived. For me, she has summed it up beautifully in her quote from the
5th Discipline in answer to her own question:

"...different people in the same structure tend to produce qualitatively
similar results...The causes of the behavior must lie beyond individuals."

Cherry
-----------------------------
Cherry Vanderbeke, Wang New Zealand Limited
Email: ckv@wang.co.nz
"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot
do"

-- 

Cherry Vanderbeke <CKV@wang.co.nz>

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