Michael -
Thanks for sharing the techniques you use to create a field for learning
at Boeing. At Ford, the engineering, design and marketing divisions -
prior to implementing Deming principles - described their relationships as
"throwing over the wall." Design would "throw something over the wall."
Engineering had to fit an engine in it - creating absurdities like spark
plugs which could not be reached (personal experience with a 66 T-Bird 390
engine) and marketing then had to sell whatever. No feedback.
In dealing with regional cooperation as I do, I have likewise found it
important to use graphics to visualize relationships - regional maps plus
time series charts & graphs to demonstrate growth and change in
relationships for local officals, state officals, citzens, business
people. Like your engineers (I also deal with engineers) they can see the
relationships they'd not considered even to exist.
The ability to help others visualize relationships may be important to
vision itself, and to the evolution of a greater vision, or from a greater
vision, to reverse-engineer the steps to implement it.
When I took a drawing course years ago at the Community College, the
instructor used Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain."
The thesis was that to draw you must first learn to see. Most drawing that
people do is stuck in 8-9 year old symbolic drawing - stick people, round
suns with lines streaming out of them, etc. When we try to draw the real
world, logic interferes. We know the doors, windows and walls are
rectangular and of equal dimensions. Perspective - distance - modifies
that - so that which is closer is relatively larger, and that farther
away, relatively smaller.
I think you've introduced an important topic and hope it will lead to more
discusion about how we learn to cross professional and institutional
boundaries. Every profession, it seems, can solve the problems of the
world from its own logic. Engineers, lawyers, sociologists, poets,
religionists, etc. Ultimately those visions are tunnels - and effective
organizations are those that can integrate the visions - communicate - and
build an inclusive vision that sustains the organization with the very
practical benefit that its participants, if its a company - get paychecks
and over dividends.
Tom
lovizual.txt
-- Thomas J. (Tom) Christoffel * e-mail: tjcdsgns@shentel.net My mission: "Regions_Work!" Why? "All markets are regional and the economy is global. Two or more crossing boundaries to solve a problem is regional cooperation." *TJCdesigns * Box 1444 * Front Royal, Virginia (VA) 22630-1444 * "True peace is dynamic. For sustainability, design with re-use in mind."Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>