Replying to LO26072 --
Dear OrganLearners,
(Or LOites -loiters :-)?),
I have just decided to try and become more active on this List and
actually try to respond to some of the items - kindly inspired by my dear
colleague Louise van Rhyn, also somewhere on this List I understand).
Allow me to briefly introduce myself:
Name: Frank Smits
Country of Birth: Netherlands
Live in: UK
Work for: Partners for Change, Ltd (www.pforc.com)
Specialise in: Complexity and Business Change (this is a paradoc, all right)
Doing a degree in: Complexity, Chaos and Creativity (University of Western Sydney Hawkesbury, see http://www.uws.edu.au/vip/dimitrov/MAchaos.htm
Interest in learning organisation: From book from countryman Arie de Geus and from Tom Petzinger's referals to this list
Now to business:
Barry Mallis, you write:
--- begin quote ---
In managing business complexity, a key "module" is managing organizational
complexity, were the pressures of re-organization meet up with the
proliferation of opportunities. In considering this intersection, we
define an integrated causal loop diagram, one loop of which is
"Demonstrate Integrity." The key factors around this loop (where the
letter "O" means opposite, and "S" means same) are:
1. Shared concern articulation---S--->
2. Psychological safety---S--->
3. Trust---O--->
4. Organizational defenses---O--->
5. Debate openness---S--->
6. Diverse perspective consideration---S---> back to #1
--- end of quote ---
Somehow I have difficulty to work with this loop in the context of a
complex business environment. This MUST have to do with my natural
aversity against things that claim some form of 'causality'. Allow me to
dwell on this. To me this loop suggest that there is a predictability
between the steps, following from the causality in its premise. In complex
organisation, IMHO by definition, this causality does not exist. Meaning
that '1S2S3O4O5S6S1 ' (you get my notation) is only one potential option.
I would not dare to claim that it can act as an organisation's
'attractor', since that depends too much on the whole value system that
somehow exist in the organisation as a whole and in the people that make
the organisation up (as wholes).
I hope that you don't mind me challenging this systems thinking view from
my complexity thinking back ground!
Regards,
Frank Smits
Home Page: http://website.lineone.net/~frank.smits
--"Frank Smits" <frank.smits@lineone.net>
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