Richard asks,
> What is truth?
>
>Is there one, objective truth?
>
>For example, can an appropriately designed Performance Appraisal system
>accurately determine the value of an employee? Should the bottom 10% of
>employees as measured by that Performance Appraisal system be fired?
>Should a Learning Organisation ever indulge in mass dismissals?
We have been down this road before, and what we found was that there is
virtually no agreement on fundamental, or universal truths, or, for that
matter, morality. Even among a somewhat "homogeneous" group of people on
this list, not much agreement. I use the "homogeneous" word very
carefully, because of course, we don't have much idea just how homogeneous
we actually are.
This inability to agree on anything much around morality is one of the
reasons I have such a hard time with Ben's connection of competence to
morality. That is his personal view, but I know already there is not much
consensus around that view.
So, given that everything is relative, including truth and morality (as
near as we can agree), do Richard's questions lead us to question the
value of assessment? Not for me. Relative truth, or context-dependent
truth, is a very useful concept. The world we live in, is a given, even
though we may not always be able to define exactly what is given. If the
organization wants certain things of me today, even though that may change
tomorrow, those organizational wants are legitimate (at least for the
organization), and I can decide to give them, or risk consequences. If I
can't give them, I need to learn how. And my manager needs to help me
learn how. If I can't learn how, then I need to find something else that
I can do.
As far as the "should" questions that Richard asks, I find it a bit
difficult to answer those for the same reason. There are not any
universally accepted "shoulds" any more than there are universally
accepted morals.
--Rol Fessenden
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>