The intriguing question of why we come together as we are wont to do in
organizations leads me to offer my own observation, subject as always to
future revision and critique.
We come together because "we" are only one "I". We, as individuals, come
to others in order to reflect what we feel, or know, or have learned, or
been taught in the subtle times of our private lives. We seek to reflect
whether or not what we (I) pretend to know is actually "real"; is it
confirmed or rejected, re-inforced or shattered by "them". It is a search
for a semblance of truth in an atmosphere of uncertainty, and we can
nourish or destroy our "selves" only by reflecting off the mirror of
others. I believe that it will be shown that THIS is the reason why we:
1. come together, and 2. come together in groups we refer to as
organizations.
It's been said that our own view of reality is based solely on what we
want or choose to "see"; that there is no real world out there...it's all
of the mind's creation. I can't speak to that, but perhaps all of us have
experienced what a long time without human contact can do when one returns
to human interaction; it is a dis-concerting event which goes away with
time.
One interesting sidelight is the history of the British experiment with
total sensory deprivation, lack of physical effects due to the total
environmental control of heat, light, temperature, weightlessness etc.;
this was known later on as the "mind-bender" experiment, and was later
turned into a film. It shows the need for cognition and sensory
stimulation, both of which are used in human interaction with other
humans; in lieu of humans, people turn to animals for conversation or, no
surprise, talk to themselves. There is still much more to be learned at
this point from the physical, social and various metaphysical arenas, but
for now suffice to say people come together out of need, just as this list
indicates.
Sincerely,
--John Constantine Rainbird Management Consulting PO Box 23554 Santa Fe, NM 87502-3554 Rainbird@Trail.Com http:\\www.trail.com\~rainbird
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>