Michael McMaster wrote:
>[Murray Gell-Mann] was excited by this. The term he used, where I used
>>"attractors" was "selection criteria". That is, we have something to
>say
> about what is selected or paid attention to and what is ignored. And
>that has > influence - but not control in any detailed sense.
There's very interesting research by Prof. Jane Dutton on *strategic
agenda building* i.e. the process by which organizations (self?) select a
set of issues that consumes top decision-makers'attention at any one time.
There's good evidence that *organizational identity* is a critical
component of the organizational context that affects strategic agenda
building. The organization identity is described by what its members
perceive as enduring, central, and unique about their organization (is
there a conection here to the *institution* issue discussed in Dee Hock's
thread?). This perception may be purposefully shaped by the founders or
leaders of the organization (Peter Drucker might say that they are the
proponents of the *theory of the business*, I guess). Nevertheless, this
perception may also be shaped by *frozen accidents* resulting from
*selection pressures* from the environment. Those *frozen accidents*
become *encrusted* or locked in by the subsystems, forming what Brian
Arthur might call *solution structures*. It seems that either way there's
much design activity going on, perhaps with different flavors of
purposefulness or intentionality. Even though identity/theory of the
business/*simple laws* can give birth to great potential complexity (due
to branching, interconnections, etc.) it seems to be natural and adequate
to make predictions (and they may be quite accurate depending on the
predictor) as well as to try to control the future course of an
organization (with the caveat that they are indeed *crude* and should be
open to *accidents*). I guess what I am trying to say is: (1) yes, we
should be worried about how the *complexity stuff* has been applied by
consultants et al. to management; and (2) even from a *pure emergence*
perspective there seems to be a lot of room for design, prediction,
intervention, and influence.
Sorry about the lenght of the reply and hope it doesn't bring in more
confusion.
Best,
Marco Pellegatti
Amana-Key Desenvolvimento & Educacao
Av. Maria Coelho Aguiar, 215 G/2
Sao Paulo SP 05805-000 Brazil
Tel. 55-11-3741-3696
Fax 55-11-3741-5619
e-mail: mpellega@mandic.com.br
--mpellega@mandic.com.br (Marco Pellegatti)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>