Simon Buckingham wrote
>Structure is evil- it causes all of the problems of
>social exclusion we see in society and all of the problems within
>organizations such as politics and so on because it prevents or
>significantly hinders the ability for an individual to learn,
>collaborate,
>interact and share. These later things are the instincts, to varying
>degrees, of all of us.
Aren't we are talking here about degrees of structure?. Do we create
organisations simply because we need some kind of structure in our lives
to just make sense of it?
At one end of the continuum there is rigid structure, with no movement,
fossilised and unchanging where everything "knows" its place, and at the
other fluidity, complete random continuous chaos where nothing is anywhere
for very long!. At both ends there is no learning because the benefits of
change is not captured.
I remember reading something on Artificial Life theory about the subtle
region between structure and chaos that creates the conditions for Life
(organisational health?) emerging. In this context, the right amount of
structure under the right external conditions creates something which I
would not consider evil. Intervention to removing structure under the
wrong conditions (e.g when individuals do not have the skills or support
to cope with less structure) would indeed be an evil act.
Isn't the "trick" developing the organisational and individual skills and
capabilities to disintegrate and re-assemble organisational structure, and
probably our mental models, when needed, to respond and adapt to
environmental forces in the systems of which we are a part.
I suppose an organisation made up of "projects" on which teams work for
varying timescales may be part of a model for this? Do these already
exist, do they work, and under what conditions of structure?
If we do have the instincts for learning, collaboration, interaction and
sharing we also need to learn to develop the right level of structures
(both physical, organisational, social and psychological) that allow the
capabilities and culture to emerge for individuals to cope with the
necessary transitions between different degrees of structure.
Being thrown in at the deep end when you can't swim is murder!
Regards
Martin
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>