Arthur says,
> We're talking about memes here. We can't easily control 'em ,
> they're selfish and they replicate. They will mutate, inevitably
> [mutate=distort] AND , yes, they turn into fads, or rather they are fads,
> and they 'catch' us so they can infect us so they can replicate. Just like
> the 'system' of the 'corporation' is a thing and not anything under the
> control of the people inside it. In the jargon a company is a meme
> complex. As Michael himself says [I paraphrase] 'organisations are
> constructed in language', and memetics tells us they ARE language...
> The task is to try to shape memes that at least set out [sensitivity to
> initial conditions] in vaguely the right direction in possibility space,
> before they mutate...
Arthur lately I've been studying memes and I just finished Mike McMaster's book The
Intelligence Advantage. I think one of the most powerful memes is theory, and I think
Mike did a wonderful job explaining this.
I think a good many people in organizations do not realize the impact the "business
theory" has on the work they do, how they do it, and what work they'll do in the
future.
If any one thing has contributed to the incredible success of Microsoft, IMO, is their
keen awareness of the underlying theories, and how those theories shape their
work and their future; and, most importantly, their willingness to challenge and
change their theories. They do it incredibly well.
I've come to believe that the more we make our theories explicit the more control we
have over our memes. A change in theory usually implies a change in language,
which, as you point out, changes the organization.
I'd agree that in the past memes replicate because they can, and regardless of how
they may impact the health of an organization. This process, IMO, gives birth to all the
crazy stuff we see in organizations.
By understanding and influencing the theories behind what we do, I think we can
harness the power of memetics, a sort of "memetic engineering" which will give us
incredible power over the destiny of our organizations.
--Benjamin B. Compton ("Ben") | email: bcompton@novell.com Novell, GroupWare Support Quality Manager | fax: (801) 222-6991
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>