I'm responding to the whole post, but particulary:
"4 link the individual and the systemic factors and look for the
patterns"
"5 develop plans which change the system and support change in
individuals"
I've been action-learning the last few weeks in terms of complexity
theory. This has tempted me into some spectacular errors but also
surprising successes. My strategy has been to judge where the group is
in relation to the edge of chaos, then take only those actions that will
efficiently move the group toward the edge. This is very different from
my conventional practice.
I normally don't vary my actions a great deal. Looking back, I think
that my normal strategy has been to work at (or argue for) the edge and
hope that others would join. But this means that I was relying on other
people to compensate for poor group tuning, and they weren't doing it
any better than I was. (Many people are practiced at reading the
energy of the group', but are they reading the chaos, and do they know
where to take it?)
The other difference is that I have cut down actions and made them
matter in terms of process. I'm not worried about the content; I'm not
speaking when I have the urge; I refuse to be irritated or hope that
anybody likes my ideas.
There's more to tell, but in keeping with the strategy, I'll stop. You
have put the problem nicely and I hope others see this it is one of
the big problems that LO can do something about.
Kent Myers
Alexandria, VA
--Kent Myers <myersk@us.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>