Replying to LO29864 --
Dear Organlearners,
Mark McElroy <mmcelroy@vermontel.net> writes
in reply to Don Dwiggins <d.l.dwiggins@computer.org>
>>>The underlying theory of practice is, by definition, incomplete.
>>
>>And will remain so, until it's no longer useful. (Which doesn't
>>imply that it's not a good idea to have a theory -- just be sure
>>to keep it watered and fed with nutrients from experience.
>>Once it stops growing, it won't be good for much. For even
>>better results, plant it near other theories so they can
>>cross-fertilize and give birth to vigorous hybrids.)
>
>Come on Don, what theory? I'm asking what it is, not whether
>it needs watering or is permanent. It's not incomplete, it's
>missing. Water what?
>What is it?
Greetings dear Mark and Don,
I have followed the dicussion between you two closely. Mark wants a theory
for a Learning Organisation while Don maintains that the 5Ds (five
disciplines) are sufficient to describe the practices of a LO. Mark thinks
that a practice is by definition incomplete while Don thinks that a LO
should in the first place be nurtured. Please correct me where i am wrong.
I want to present another viewpoint so that we can have a dialogue rather
than a debate. It may seem for some length that i am taking somewhat side
with Don. But eventually i will show that i also take somewhat side with
Mark. In short, what i intend to do is to go beyond "either/or" thinking
to "and/and/and/...." thinking. So please bear patience with me.
Let us think for a while of a Learning Organisation (LeO) as a Living
Organisation (LiO) like Arie de Geus did. Using the 5Ds to characterise
the LiO would be a wierd excercise since so little of these 5Ds figure in
what we know about living organisms. This means that we will have to find
another set of disciplines to characterise a LiO, disciplines much like
biochemistry, physiology, ecology, etc. Should we then try them to
characterise a LeO rather than a LiO intended for, we will again have a
wierd excercise since so little of these LiO disciplines figure in what we
know about learning humans.
The above does not mean that learning and living are incompatable. It
rather means that we know too little of both learning and living to make
sense out of what seems to be wierd descriptions knowing only the one. My
own experiences with "tacit LOs" are such that i will dare to claim that a
LeO and a LiO are one and the same thing. But let us stay with the
assumption that a LeO is a LiO. The converse may perhaps not be the case.
When i look through the window of my office, i see a lot of living
organisms -- people, trees, birds, etc. Now think of a tree. It lives
without me having a theory for it. When the rain stays away, it shed its
leaves. This is an observation and not a theory. When i give it water from
a well so that it keeps its leaves, this is a practice and not a theory.
But when i begin to study what happens to the water in a tree and why it
is needed, i begin to make use of theories which will have to be verified
empirically. Meanwhile in a drought like the one which we now have in the
northern parts of our country and the countries north of ours, we have to
try and keep the trees important to us alive with precious little water.
Theories will not keep the trees alive.
I think it is the same with a LO. Senge took what i call "tacit LOs" and
described them by way of the 5Ds. Unfortunately, "tacit LOs" are not as
abundant as we think, perhaps less than 1% in each kind of organisation.
It makes me think of the drought. A few trees of some kinds still have a
few leaves on. Their roots go deep enough into the soil to suck up a
little bit of moisture still available. They are the LOs while the rest of
the trees are OOs (Ordinary Organisations). They are not dead, but they
have stopped with their major activity, namely to produce new tissue. The
new tissue of a LO, thinking of it as a tree, is shared knowledge in a
spirit of "ubuntu" or "kharma". This spirit involves all members of the LO
as well as the rest of the world in contact with it -- live and let live
with respect.
The serious question now is:- can we make LOs more abundant by merely
applying the 5Ds as a sort of theory? I do not think so, especially when
we do not know that the emergence of an OO into a LO has to be
spontaneous! Trying to force/command/manage/entice an OO into a LO will be
a sure recipe for disaster. We rather have to encourage practices in that
OO which are characterised by the 5Ds. These practices may be far too few
and feeble, but slowly more will appear and each will become stronger.
They will be needed for the OO to emerge into a LO. But something else
have to catalyse its emergence. In terms of my own experiences with "tacit
LOs", it is an "unconditionally together hanging". Perhaps other kinds of
events will also catalyse it.
In an appendix to The Fifth Discipline Senge describes in a rather
telegraphic style how eleven essences occur in the 5Ds. Perhaps it is a
good thing that Senge did not focus too much on these essences. People
usually confuse essences with theoretical entities. They are not. Husserl
actually developed phenomenology with its essences to extend our systems
thinking where theory/application fail to bring any understanding. To make
a theory out of a tree en then to apply it to get a tree is senseless. But
to determine the essences of a tree can help us to understand its
behaviour.
The same with learning. Dozens of theories for the learning of individuals
have been proposed. But up to this day not one has been verified
completely, nor can one of them be used to explain all facets of an
individual's learning. Thus the theory/application route for managing the
learning individual has to be extended into something else. Husserl's
phenomenology helps us to some extent. Should we not expect that it will
be the same for a LO?
Let us contemplate the topic once again. Is the LO a lost paradise? How do
people consider the organisations to which they belong -- paradises or
chambers of horrors? Look, for example, at the letters section of a daily
newspaper. Letters appear regularly in which readers complain about an
organisation in some walk of life. It may very well be that some readers
have a negative outlook on life. But it also may be that many readers long
for positive actions in such organisations. Why do they have such a
longing?
I think they have had experiences of "fleeting LO practices" in the past
or perhaps even belonged to a "tacit LO" for some time. It is these
experiences which make them long for a better dispensation in their
organisations -- or to put it stronger, to become liberated from their
chambers of horrors. Will theory/application do it? I do not think so. The
complexity of a LO is too much for most to be managed by the
theory/application route. It may very well become self a chamber of
horrors from which they want to be liberated.
Allow me a simple example. A chemist who really wants to be a "wizard"
with chemistry, has to have a profound knowlegde on chemical
thermodynamics. Chemical thermodynamics is perhaps the most complex
discipline in all natural sciences. However, for almost all chemistry
students the course(s) on chemical thermodynamics is nothing but a chamber
of horrors.
Why is chemical thermodynamics so complex? Because it is study of how LEC
(Law of Energy Conservation) and LEP (Law of Entropy Production) pervade
every facet of chemistry. Why this pervasion? Because LEC and LEP are the
only two phenomenological laws among all the many laws of nature uncovered
so far. There is not a natural phenomenon in which LEC and LEP do not
operate. They are essential to all natural phenomena. It is Nobel prize
winner Ilya Prigogine's thesis that they are even necessary for natual
phenomena to emerge, expand and sustain themselves.
Although LEC and LEP are laws, tracing their action through all phenomena
of nature becomes a theory which has to be verified empirically. This
theory is called Irreversible Self-Organisation (ISO) where
"irreversible"="entropy production". ISO is such a complex theory that few
are able to comprehend it and apply it effectively. It takes many years to
master and requires a thorough knowledge of many subjects like
mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology and biology. But it can be done
as a handful of scientists have shown. Think of the beautiful book The
Self-Organising Universe by Erich Jantch.
The problem with applying ISO to human learning is that although it is a
natural phenomenon involving the human body, it also has an abstract,
cultural dimension which involves the human mind. Thus we will have to
show empirically that LEC and LEP also apply to abstract systems. This is
far more complex than most people's wildest guesses as i myself have
discovered by accident. But knowing theoretically how LEC and LEP operate
in the abstract world and acting accordingly have benefited me immensely.
I have been able to help people caught up in their chambers of horrors for
whom others have given up all hope. But i also had failures, each new one
making me more cautious than before.
Perhaps LEC and LEP is not the core of the theory which we search for. But
i strongly suspect that whatever that theory will be, it has to have
evolution in itself by developing towards the TOE (Theory Of Everything).
It will also have to accomodate phenomenology. When i think of all things
which have been learned by all humans so far since time immemorial, then
the theory which we search for so as to apply it in managing Learning
Individuals and Learning Organisations ought not to fell much short from
the TOE.
What is it which makes humankind so unique among all living species, so
much so that humans often consider themselves superior and separate from
the rest of life? Is it the ability to perceive and contemplate phenomena
or to think theoretically and act accordingly? Think of the globe. It has
continents and oseans on it and a molten core inside it. But when we want
to map its surface and whatever is upon or below it, we need two poles on
it opposite to each other. For me the two poles of human nature will
always be creativity and love. Between it fits everything of human nature.
It is when we lose sight of one or both these two poles when our maps get
so distorted that we become a shame to the rest of all living species. It
is for me the same with organisations. In every LO these two poles are
needed in order not to get lost and so lose that LO.
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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