At the end of a long and valuable post Ben Compton asked some interesting
questions that I deal with in client after client.
>What is an organizations "sensory system" that allows it to detect
>environmental changes?
The people at the interfaces are the sensory organs. The customer
representatives, accounts receivable and payable clerks, sales people,
accountants answering investor questions, HR folk dealing with employees.
The processes by which they store and share the information (data and
'feelings') about their experiences. The key is the sharing part of this
system. There must be opportunity for other people to find connections
among experiences. A customer concerned about support for a product five
years from now and an investor concerned about company competitiveness
five years from now may indicate a fundamental change in environment.
>What is an organizations "nervous system" that it can adjust, in
>real-time, and evolve over a long period of time, to new conditions?
I think that the nervous system is the 'information infrastructure'. It
is Peter Kean's Information Technical Platform plus those applications and
databases (information bases) that encourages sharing all information.
This is more than computers and communication systems. The ability to
meet and communicate, not only randomly but 'by accident' or coincidental.
One of the artifacts that should be available is a list, or lists such as
this one. Another artifact is the work space in which people can meet or
have aloneness.
Can this adapt and evolve -- done thoroughly the information
infrastructure is the stuff of change. It can almost instantly warn the
organization of the need to react (to pull your hand back from a hot pot
handle), and then respond (use a pot holder) and finally to change (use
wooden handled pots).
>How can the entire organization adapt to new conditions in unison?
Why would you want to? Large organizations should probably be different
in different environments. They may adapt to changing environments
differently and all the variety of solutions be correct. Look at the
variety of birds living in the same locality.
--"William J. Hobler, Jr" <bhobler@worldnet.att.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>