Replying to LO24002 --
Dear Organlearners,
Scott Simmerman <scottsimmerman@home.com> writes:
>Thus, the student waited until the first rain.
>
>And it came.
>
>And it was only then, with the help of the rain, that the master
>builder knew EXACTLY where to locate the drainage needs of
>this new road and how he could construct it so that it would
>last for decades.
>
>It wasn't about predicting where the rain might fall as much
>as observing what the rain actually did that gave this master
>builder the information he needed.
Greetings Scott,
Thank you for the poweful metaphor.
One of my friends in the world of succulents is Basjan Crous who is now a
retired civil engineer. He worked for a road consulting firm.
Basjan did it slightly different. A plan of the new road emerge according
to theory based on zillions of data on zens of parameters. For any other
consulting firm that plan would be sufficient. Not for Basjan's firm. They
gave him the plan and he did the final test.
He walked the whole course of the road, carefully imagining the road
according to plan. Then he imagined all sorts of becomings to that road
linked to the landscape as he observed it while walking the course of the
road.
By the time he has completed the course, the plan looked like a christmas
tree with all the modifications suggested to it. Those who drew up the
plan did not like it, but they knew how much it saved their firm on future
lawsuits.
I envied Basjan because it gave him so much opportunity to discover
geophytes. Geophytes are plants with their succulence in the root system.
When he retired, the firm soon collapsed afterwards.
>How often is this the case in our organizations. We can
>certainly plan for eventualities, but it is also useful to
>observe what is and has happened in order to better
>understand what to do for the future.
Walk through the entire organisation and imagine a "diversity of
becomings" (=chaos=one-to-many-mapping) all along the course.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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