Replying to LO26364 --
Greetings Alfred,
a warm welcome to our evolving LO.
You have explored (Jack traded? ;-) ) questions stemming from physics and
market research. I am physicist and made my career so far (38 now) from
sales through marketing to corporate strategy. So I feel compelled to
reply. I will leave the answering of your questions to you and see whether
I can add in a meaningful way for you.
Systems were not systems if not embedded in surrounding, environment,
context. I see myself as a system in a surrounding. Reality for me is the
way in which I and my surrounding interact as perceived by me. Whether
this wording is familiar or not, I think it is a quite natural perspective
to think of us as systems which try to make sense of us and our
surrounding. How do we relate? We (the systems) are looking at the
surrounding, we are experiencing it.
I think this must be very clear, as clear as our surrounding air or other
trivialities ;-) in order to be amazed about the change of perspective
which Schrodinger offered. "Not real before we look at..." is an
anthropomorphic way of saying "Not real before has been measured..." and a
measurement is a macroscopic interaction with a microscopic (quantum)
system. It is not a system "looking at" its environment anymore, it is the
environment "looking at" the system!
Alfred, you are in the lucky position of being/becoming;-) a leader within
your families company. I don't envy you for your surrounding environment.
Don't think of the market as a system on which you can make scientific
measurements - with or without quantum effects. If the analogy holds at
all, your company is the microscopic system and the market the macroscopic
environment which "measures" your company. And the market may wonder: Is
your company real? Is your company becoming more and more real? Think of
your and your companies life as constructive ways of answering to this
challenge - like each species of the rich vegetation surviving in the vast
deserts of southern Africa.
It does not suit us to treat environment as if it were a system. We should
treat ourselves as systems - by leadership. And we should treat
environment as environment - by stewardship.
Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried
P.S.: Some rambling on the difference of perceiving us as a system looking
at environment and perceiving us as environment looking at systems.
May be I can illustrate the difference by contrasting the scientific
method with scientific dogma.
The scientific method is a way in which a person as a system strives to
make sense of its environment by observing, speculating and falsifying
speculations by means of experiments as structured questions to the
environment. Thus the method is a path to grow in experience and - with
occasional creative collapses - to grow in order of complexity SELF.
Scientific dogma demand the study of either 1.) specific systems out
there, neglecting the studies role as environment, as if systems could
exist independently from the environment or 2.) system-environment
interaction, where both, system and environment are "objective" to the
study - making the scientist a god studying an universe external to him or
3.) the scientist actively shapes his role as environment to the system
under study. A god has come down to earth.
Examples in management context:
dogma 1.): scientific management - design the optimal company as a
system, optimal is independent from environment.
dogma 2.): strategic research - how to adjust companies as systems to the
contingencies of their environment.
dogma 3.): action reseach, systemic consulting... You can hear lot of
quantum mechanical analogies used here.
Examples driven by awareness of the scientific method and avoiding dogma:
Senge, Deming, Goldratt, Mewes, others? But beware consultants referring
to one of them ;-) These ideas are only effective in as far as they
inspired leaders WITHIN companies to grow with their company. The problem
is that as soon as someone has reached some insight by authentic learning,
it can be subjected to rote learning by others.
--"Dressler, Winfried" <Winfried.Dressler@Voith.com>
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