Replying to LO25170 --
At wrote:
> The reason why it is so interesting for me, is that the four categories
> they propose seem to concur with what I perceive as the four phases of
> "entropy production" during the evolution of any creative system. The
Since you seemed interested in the categorization, you might be interested
in the 3x3 description of the "St. Gallen integrated management model"
(St. Gallen, from the Hochschule St. Gallen, in Switzerland, where it was
developed). While I've found it a useful way to look at organizations, I
haven't seen it translated into English (although I think the authors did
present at some US conference a few years ago). Here's my rough
translation of St. Gallen model:
Organization Activities Behaviors,
& Structure Conduct
___________________________________________________________
|
Normative | The charter Organizational Organizational
| of the politics & culture
| organization mission
|
|
|
Strategic | Organizational Programs Problem-solving
| structure processes
|
| Management
| systems
|
|
|
Operative | Organizational Jobs, tasks, Behaviors which
| processes assignments create results
| & encourage
| Planning cooperation
| systems
|
Internal External Internal/External
The normative level deals with the development of goals, principles and
standards and is focused on the general survivability and evolution of the
organization. The strategic level deals with the creation, care and
exploitation of the success factors of the organization. The operative
level translates the results of the first two levels into actual economic
and social processes.
Seen another way (courtesy of Puempin & Prange), the normative layer has
as its measure of success the legitimacy of the organization--is the
organization fulfilling its whole purpose? The goal is ensuring the
ability of the organization to survive and develop or evolve.
The strategic layer is concerned with competitiveness--is the company
doing the right thing in the market? Its goal is the existence of current
and future organizational success factors.
The operative layer of management deals with efficiency--doing things
well. It's concerned with profit and liquidity.
One key point that stuck with me is their claim that the normative,
strategic, and operative duties aren't stratified by organizational layer
but should be distributed over all of the organization.
AFAIK, the standard book on the model is Knut Bleicher's _Das Konzept
Integriertes Management_ (I have the 1991 edition, but I think there's a
later revision--see
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3593361949/o/qid=967128957/sr=2-1/028-8365181-1485306).
The Puempin book talks about how each of those cells should be treated in
each of the 4 phases.
> "growth" and "maturity" categories are encountered on the path of
> decreasing "entropy production" towwards equilibrium. The "transition"
> and "pioneer" categories are encountered on the path of increasing
> "entropy production" towads the edge of chaos. The "transition" entails
> what I call a "creative collapse" (Heidegger -- "Abbau") while the
> "pioneer" entails somethings which has been recently often discussed, the
> "bifurcation".
I think Puempin & Prange would place many transition stage organizations
in what you term an immergence.
> An organisation which gets fixed into one of these four categories, i.e.
> stop "becoming" from the one to the other, will be issueing its own death
> certificate when explicating its "being".
True, but it would seem that external dynamics have somewhat more to do
with transitioning out of the first two, while internal constraints have
more to do with leaving maturity and transition. That is, growth could
just happen (although there are many examples where organizations have
failed to stimulate growth or, perhaps worse, respond well to it).
Maturity often just happens, too, as markets saturate.
Okay, I guess financial duress can force a company from maturity to
transition.
Is it true that moving forward through the four is more externally
imposed, while cycling back is more of a choice?
> >By the time a few cycles have passed, different parts of
> >the company will be scattered in different parts of the cycle,
> >necessitating a culture that supports the presence of all types
> >at once.
>
> I got the shivers when reading this sentence. What kind of culture is
> needed? One that is sensitive and responsive to what we may call "deep
> evolution". There is nothing in the articulation of a Learning
> Organisation as Peter Senge dit it to prevent the LO from adapting is
> Systems Thinking towards an "evolution friendly" version.
I think this is where your sort of approach becomes very valuable, even if
the managers don't understand (or even read) all of the explanation. If
managers are very focused on what _and_ how work is to be done, it's hard
IMHO to allow that diversity. If managers are focused on the outcomes and
sensitive to the environment, then they're more likely to allow the
requisite diversity in approaches (and to recognize the difference between
that diversity and merely sloppy thinking).
Comments?
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.