Life in Organizations LO9668

Julie Beedon (julie@vistabee.win-uk.net)
Sun, 01 Sep 1996 16:10:52

Replying to LO9642 --

Rol notices
> Most of my
>experience -- more than 70% -- with dysfunctional systems was with systems that
>at one time worked fine and did exactly what they were supposed to do, until the
>environment changed. Is this other peoples' experience, or is this unusual?

I think I understand what you are talking about here - then I
wonder about the three ways we can look at the systems around us:

1 - we can *uphold* them as being the best we can do given the
circumstances
2 - we can *condemn* (blame) them totally for the extent to which
they inhibit learning and people's 'self-actualization'
3 - we can seek to *transform* them into something more supportive
etc...

yet we seem to be able to continue to create them in ways we
eventually fall short of our ideals...

I suspect that we cycle through the above views and in any sysstem
we will find people with all three perspectives... and how people
see systems changes through time and the environmental changes you
describe.

Yet to the extent that systems hold things together for us - we
need them...

The number of times I observe the balancing power of systems
inspires me to consider the possibility that the three
perspectives I outlined above might all simultaneously be true and
at any one time we should be able to pull out the things they were
created to achieve (when and if they ever worked 'fine' as you
say) the areas in which they fall short and are failing us and the
elements which clearly can and should be developed/changed to take
account of new internal or external realities (or things which
were missing in the original design) ..............

Not quite the same as you said Rol - but I am heading in a simlar
direction as your thinking??


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/>