Replying to LO24777 --
Dear Organlearners,
John Zavacki <systhinc@email.msn.com> writes:
>What then of At's "Essentialities" or Complexity theory?
>Or the dynamics of a trout stream as I understand it?
>These are, for me, all a part of my personal mastery, of
>the system of profound knowledge. The notion of entropy
>production will not help me to teach an operator on the
>shop floor how better to communicate with a curmudgeon
>of a supervisor, but it may help me to explain it to a Physics
>professor.
Greetings John,
In a recent contribution "Our LO Dialogue Here (LO24775)" you
write the following interersting comment:
A little of that, if designed to aid the learning process,
can create enough creative conflict to make things work.
Too much of it is oppressive.
What is this "creative conflict"? How much has it to do with
what Peter Senge calls the "creative tension"?
I have explained many times that in traditional physics the focus is to
reduce "entropy production" so as to make the energy conversion more
reversible -- an one-to-one-mapping which will increase the efficiency of
the conversion. Few professors in physics know anything about irreversible
thermodynamics and thus HOW entropy is produced rather than merely THAT it
gets produced.
Entropy is produced by force-flux pairs. The entropic force is a tension
or field created by the difference in a quality. The entropic flux is a
change in corresponding property extensive to that quality. Both the
force and flux have to act before the force-flux pair can contribute to a
change in the organisation of any system as will be refelcted by in
increase in its entropy.
Perhaps the inner details of what you call the "creative conflict" or what
Senge calls the "creative tension" can be described in terms of the
pattern for entropic foce-flux pairs. This pattern has helped me many
times to get a deeper insight into these "creative tensions". However, I
am fully aware that what makes sense to me will not and need not make
sense to you.
Your sentence "Too much of it is oppressive." has most important
ramifications for me in terms of "entropy production". Should the tension
(force) of a certain entropic force-flux pair be increased while its
corresponing flux be suppressed, then in any complex system sooner or
later it will induce a cascade of secondary force-flux pairs by means of
the Onsager reciprocal relationships. In fact, the appearance of secondary
force-flux pairs are a sure sign that the system is complex rather than
simple.
Is it not remarkable in human systems that as soon as a particular
"creative conflict" become too oppressive, the system "explodes" into
many different conflicting retaliations? Is this one-to-many-mapping of
conflicts not a sign of Onsager dynamics operating underneath? Count them
during any BBC or CNN news hour -- you will be surprised at how many there
are.
>At and Andrew, as well as they write, both write from
>personal mastery, not team learning perspectives. Many
>of those of us who are actively pursuing LOs spend most
>of our time hear responding to the personal masters, not
>dialoguing team learning, not sharing visions and values.
Yes, Team Learning (TL) is most important to any LO. But TL does not
merely involve one paradigm. TL also involves occasionaly the shift from
one paradigm X to another paradigm Y. However, such a shift cannot ever be
forced. It has to emerge spontaneously. This spontaneous emergence
depends on conditions within the system AND conditions in its environment.
Members from a team already working in paradigm Y ought to help
reorganising these conditions spontaneously so as to facilitate the
paradigm shift, should the LO consider any timely shift to a latent new
paradigm as part of its Shared Vision. As I understand it, a Shared Vision
of any LO which does involve a new latent paradigm is incapable of
sustaining itself persistently, nor is it capable of a timely renaissance.
Because of the abyss between the two paradigms, the TL of members already
working with paradigm Y will not appear coherent and consistent to members
of the LO still working with only paradigm X. This apparent incoherency
and inconsistency during a paradigm shift should receive thorough
attention in the Systems Thinking of that LO. In particular it should be
noted that the negative spirit in "incohency" and :inconsistency" can
become a serious demotivator for shifting self the paradigm by means of
Personal Mastery. Thus members of the LO working with only paradigm X also
have a responsibility to participate constructively in that particular TL
intended to facilitate the paradigm shift.
Obviously, the hot question then is: What are the guidelines for
"constructive participation" in Team Learning, even in such a profound
change as a paradigm shift? If the seven essentialties of creativity are
useless, then what else is useful?
>I'd like to hear both sides (success and failure) of the
>organizational learning piece.
Yes, this is very important. Paradigm shifts are much rarer than the
transformation of Mental Models. This scarcity can be explained by viewing
the prevailing paradigm of a LO as involving at least one Mental Model
common to ALL members of that LO. Because of this scarcity, documenting
information on paradigm shifts should be encouraged. To be able to provide
such information requires in my opinion a high level of Personal Mastery.
>An issue which sometimes bothers me is the assumption that
>the list itself is the subject matter. Are we a learning
>organization,
>a community of practice? Is this a forum for self-analysis?
When a LO emerges on promoting the "art of the LO", it can easily fall in
the narcistic syndrome -- the dog chasing its own tail -- the vicious
circle of B Russel. Is this "vicious circle" natural so that it should be
encouraged, or is it detrimental so that ways have to be sought to escape
it? I believe it is case of both so that LEM (Law of Excluded Middle)
cannot be applied here. Negative feedback (exclude anything not standard
to the conventional LO) along this circle will encourage it to become a
fixed feature. On the other hand, positive feedback (include anything
which may shed new light on the LO) will step up the entropy production
and thus promote in content (but not yet in form) emergences. This may
lead to deeper or more profound knowledge on the "art of the LO". The
creative tension between the negative and positive feedback loops are
paramount to creating this more profound knowledge.
>What are our expectations of this forum?
As for me, not merely learning the "art of the LO", but especially
discovering more profound knowledge on the "art of the LO". Learning
merely the "art of the LO" may easily get stuck in rote learning which is
deadly to Personal Mastery and Team Learning.
John, our Bible study group for working people in our local parish has now
been operating as a LO for more than three years now. It has been
operating as an "ordinary organisation" rather than specifically a LO
since I have attended it first in 1976. It was then twice as large as now,
but few got any pleasure in attending it. Members then used to attend it
out of duty or tradition rather because they wanted to.
None of the other members know anything of the "art of a LO" nor of its
five disciplines. A few weeks ago I asked them why we are working in such
a profound fashion which pleases everyone of us. One by one they gave
their answers -- each and every answer pointed to one or more of the five
disciplines. Would the most common answer among them surprise you? It was
nothing else than "our commitment to learning together" -- i.e. commitment
to TL.
By the way, I take care not to tell any fellow members of our study group
anything formally about a LO. I have two main reasons. Firstly, I think
that much of the information in the Bible on how people should work
together, corresponds with the "art of the LO". Secondly, I want to
observe our study group closely as a practising LO with tacit knowledge on
the LO rather than driven by any formal knowledge on it so as to make
observations independant from current LO literature.
By the way, I try to avoid saying anything on "deep creativity" such as
the "form and content of entropy production" so as not to introduce
unnecessary complexity to our studies and to remain being focussed on the
Bible. However, sometimes I do ask a "crazy question" or make a
"provocative opinion" to keep up the constructive dance of our studies. I
do it whenever I observe that the "deep creativity" of the group is
diminishing. Should I miss merely one session, all the rest will complain
next week -- "We missed you getting our minds running last week". From
that I infer that my inputs in terms of "deep creativity", but not on
"deep creativity" itself, does have an important function.
As I said earlier, the study group is only half the size as it was ten
years ago when definitely not operating as a LO. The few members (five)
who left the group since then other than for moving out of the boundaries
of our parish and thus who are still with us, have been invited several
times to rejoin the group. Guess what are their reasons for not rejoining
the study group? Our learning goes too deep into each verse with the whole
of the rest of the Bible as its context. They say that our search for
profound knowledge is too taxing, too slow and unnecessary. Furthermore,
our group does not conform to the formally worked out study courses
officially compounded by the theologists contracted by the overarching
church to which our parish belongs. They say that we might be become
dissenters by relying on our own authentic learning, even though we make
use of all other possible sources like commentaries, concordances and
other courses when they do exist.
The worst problem is to get the rest of our parish, not active in one of
the eight study groups, active in one of them and not necessarily in our
own. They are roughly ten times more than those involved in all of the
eight Bible study groups. They attend irregularly the regular services on
Sunday, they seldom attend other special meetings, they complain easily
even on trivialities, they often incite arguments by sometimes favouring
outright heresies, they seldom support the parish by work and other means,
they self demand extensive support in the slightest mishap and last, but
not least, they care little, if anything, for learning. They usually hold
one person like the pastor or an elder responsible for their lack of
learning.
It seems as if they reckon that by "being" a member of the parish will be
sufficient for them and that it definitely does not have anything to do
with their "becoming". But actually, in moving though many wards as an
elder and through carefull questioning in open dialogue, I have
established that the majority of them believe that by becoming a member of
the parish, this membership or "being" will automatically promote their
"becoming". Their negative behaviour ensue when they discover that the
"being" does not automatically result in the "becoming" which they have
expected. Since I have made sure that the vast majority of them deep down
do want to live constructively creative, it almost seems to be a
contradiction. What actually is their problem, is their Mental Model that
membership of any organisation will automatically causes behaviour typical
to that organisation.
I am of opinion that this roughly 10:1 ratio is typical of many other
organisations on all walks of life here in South Africa. It means that the
Mental Model
"organisational being causes organisational becoming"
is very common here. Thus the worst problem in our parish do have a much
wider context. I suspect that the abundance of this Mental Model in South
Africa precipitates as this "worst problem" of our parish. It is
definitely part of our history, but I suspect that it goes wider than even
our own country.
I would love to hear the opinion of fellow learners on this particular
Mental Model and the immense inertia which it causes in many
organisations. I think that people are awaiting the Renaissance of
Learning Organisations, but confuse ordinary organisations with LOs and
thus get disappointed when their expectations do not become manifested.
Since every Renaissance seems to have been preceded by a period of
prepration for it, I think that the "LO Renaissance" need this prepartion
too. In other words, more and more people have to be told how a LO emerge
and what then happens in a LO. But I believe most importantly, that more
and more people have to experience life within in a LO. This experience is
essential to understand any talking on LOs.
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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