Replying to LO29561 --
Dear Organlearners,
Morty Lefkoe <morty@decisionmaker.com> writes
>I like the term "evolving" organizations. I have been
>looking for a good word for a long time.
>
>I've distinguished between three types of change:
(snip)
>An organization capable of continual third order change
>is a third order organization, or a learning organization,
>an adaptable organization, or an evolving organization.
>
>What I do in my work with organizations is to get them to
>realize there isn't any "the truth" about anything in business.
>There are only "a truths" that work at any given time, and
>they must be ready and able to create a new "a truth" as
>the environment requires. They must build the ability to evolve
>naturally and easily into the very essence of the organization.
Greetings dear Morty,
I find it most interesting that you connect evolution with truth. Thank
you for this delightful connection.
Most logicians agree that a statement is true when it expresses a fact
observed. Logic itself is the science of inferring theorems (true
statements) from a limited number of axioms and inference rules. The
ruling paradigm of logic is that all these theorems exist and that logic
has to uncover them by proof. Goedel made the discovery that some theorems
exist which cannot be proved.
However, the collection of facts concerning evolution expands as evolution
continues. This is so because evolution creates its own facts. Nobody has
succeeded up to now to present a "logic of evolution". The best we can do
is to search for those facts, observe them and describe them as clearly as
possible. But when we try to fill up the gaps between the facts with
inferences from theories, we move from solid to very slippery ground.
I agree with you that an organisation creates its own "truths" (facts
which can be expressed as true statements). Often it has to create a
"truth" which could not have been predicted by theory. It is when the
organisation tries to create "truths" strictly according to theories when
it moves into very slippery ground.
Does it mean that we cannot ever tell what an organisation can create in
future? I do not think so. Every organisation is a phenomenon so that it
can be investigated phenomenologically. It means that certain things are
essential to whatever an organisation wants to create. The task of
phenomenology is to uncover these essentials.
With care and best wishes,
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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