Replying to LO26140 --
>From: "Winfried und Kirstin Dressler" <KiWiDressler@t-online.de>
>I think that this means something like simplicity and complexity have
>their roles to play, but I am not interested in simplicity but in
>complexity. But this must not allow me to judge simplicity as negative,
>but I have to remember in how far I rely on it...
Hopefully, learning organizations will learn to do something. The results
of the learning are codified in the symbols, rules, stories, processes etc
that guide the organization's behavior. With continued success, the
organization's learning becomes more focused, the symbols more
differentiated, the rules more specific, stories crisper, processes more
finely honed, M&P's more detailed, wasted motion banished. The external
focus is on those facets of enviroment that past learning indicates are
critical, distractions are ignored.
In a stable enviroment, to do otherwise invites loss to the more
efficient. The dilemma is this quest for efficiency makes it difficult to
sustain effectiveness. The same success that provides the feedback that
enables the increased efficiency, can also impede the organization's
ability to recognize when the environment has changed.
In his book, "Lila: An Inquiry Into Morals", Robert Pirsig writes
(something like) "pitty the poor Priest who finds a Saint in is parish".
The priest represents what Pirsig calls "Static Quality" and the Saint
represents "Dynamic Quality". Static quality is the codification of what
has been learned; Dynamic quality the process of learning new. The
tension between the Priest and the Saint is ongoing tension is between the
Static and Dynamic.
This Static-Dynamic tension is not unlike that which Schumpeter calls
destructive competition, where new ways of doing business destroy
established players. The challenge of management is to be today's
efficient competitor and, at the same time, to nurture destructive
competition inside the firm.
Of course, it would be easy if we always knew the Saints. Unfortunately,
we only know the Saints with twenty-twenty hindsight. Today's would be
Saints are all Heretics. Only a few Heretics could prove to be tomorrow's
Saints. Most of these Heretics, if permitted, will squandor resources,
fragment efforts and cause distractions.
The management challenge caused by Priests-Heretics-Saints is not at the
individual level of the system. The problem is not for Saints to learn to
be more Saintly or for Heretics to learn to more quickly recognize and
abandon their heresy.
Doug Merchant
--"Doug Merchant" <dougm@eclipse.net>
[Host's Note: in assoc w/Amazon.com...
Lila : An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553299611/learningorg
..Rick]
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