Michael, my impression is that you and Ben spend a lot of time zipping up
the ladder of inference; are bothered by pesky mental models, and have a
number of personal issues that you project onto others. I personally find
the narrow, controlling characteristics of people who utter absolutes, the
way you both have in this thread, as the height of folly--and in my
professional and personal life I find it difficult to suffer fools gladly.
I have met the malcontent--they aren't just incompetent, they are
destructive. I have moved incompetent people out of my organizations--but
I realized that they were simply not prepared or skilled for the
activities that I needed completed. They were often competent at
unrelated activities from the tasks they were originally hired for. I
have worked with people who were extremely competent in one phase of the
operation--but totally out of water in the next. The situation and
conditions changed--and they were unable to change with them. Most of
these people were of high moral character--and people with whom I was very
proud to be associated. They were simply irrelevant to the current
situation. I'm thinking very specifically of two men who were awarded
medals of honor for heroism, but who couldn't fit into a peacetime
operation effectively. It really irritates me when I think of how you
color everyone, including these two, with your stereotyping crap. I hope
I've been direct enough--your experiences simply don't qualify you to make
the judgments for me or many others.
Two final points--one directed at Ben who wrote, "We don't call a bum a
bum, we call him/her a homeless person; we don't call lazy, unemployed
people indolents, we call them less fortunate." Ben, I placed 14 people
in a homeless shelter the other night. 6 were children. 2 were women
escaping violent spouses. 3 were mentally ill people awaiting mental
health services. 2 were a couple who had lost their apartment after the
husband had been hospitalized for a cancer with health insurance that only
covered about 20% of their expenses. She works, but most of the money was
going to the hospital--they lost the apartment, the car was
repossessed--but he's recovering and looking for work (his job was
eliminated while he was sick--and he ran out of sick leave). 1 was a
single woman whose car broke down in the area and she didn't have the
money for lodging. Please write back to me and tell me which one of these
homeless people was a bum.
For Michael--despite your claims to the contrary, I will wager that I can
find more things that you are not competent at that you can find skills or
tasks with which you are competent. I don't know you. I don't know if
you can paint or sculpt--or if you can play a violin for a violin
concerto, or sing an aria like Pavarotti. I don't know if you can take an
auto transmission apart, fix it and put it back together--or create a
gourmet meal. I don't know if you can fashion a bridle for a horse from
rawhide or a rope, and ride it bareback at a quick canter over a rough
field. I don't know if you can herd cattle, or move hay from rack to
manger with the quick, easy lift of the hay fork. Can you properly
diagnose a mental illness or physical ailment? Are you good at driving a
NASCAR or Grand Prix auto at more than 200 mph? How are you at performing
an autopsy? Can you sit in a sacred circle with your people and share the
stories that bind your people together? When was the last time you
displayed your competency on a forced 12-mile road march with a full
combat load of 120 lbs--and finished it in 2 hours? If you can affirm
your competency at all of these, then I'll publicly apologize.
When you speak from within yourself and from your personal experiences,
you speak with a great power and authenticity. When you disparage others,
through the error of stereotyping, you cause harm to yourself and all
others. I know that you both have experience with malcontents and
incompetent workers and bosses. I'm sure everyone shares some of this
experience. I simply ask that you speak with truth from those
experiences, and from the wisdom you receive from others, but don't
project your opinions on me and call them truth.
-- "Truth does not emerge from opinions; it must emerge from something else-perhaps from a more free movement of this tacit mind. So we have to get meanings coherent if we are going to perceive truth, or to take part in the truth." -David BohmThresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Olympia, WA Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>