Rick,
I find the distinction between "governance" and "management" shifting and
fuzzy, but I am clear on one thing: both set limits on my freedom.
Nor is it clear to me that one is "top down" and the other "bottom up"
Both, it seems to me, allow me zones of freedom and impose zones of
constraint on me.
And both can penalize me when i fail to conform in those areas where the
governors and the managers have been granted or assume power.
Steve Eskow
Dr. Steve Eskow, President
The Pangaea Network
Cliff Plaza House
1933 Cliff Drive
Santa Barbara, CA 93117
Phone: 805-962-2900
http://www.pangaeanetwork.com/tour
> >If it was literally true that you can't manage knowledge workers the
> >prospects for our civilization would be grim indeed; knowledge
> >organizations that are unmangeable, a knowledge society that is
> >ungovernable.
>
> Counter examples: Both the USA's democratic society and free market
> economy are governed yet not managed. This is a case of a top-down control
> viewpoint of management versus a bottom up self organized order.
>
> A slightly bent metaphor: In the complex adaptive system model of
> organization you can think of knowledge workers as equivalent to managers
> - they are both autonomous agents in the grand scheme of things - freely
> interacting with other such while constrained by the attractors of the
> system they are part of. In the same vein - those who are "managed" here
> are simply a part into the manager's constellation.
>
> As a higher percentage of the participants in our organizations become
> knowledge workers (and self-motivated learners), the more overtly the
> organizational structure will resemble a self-organizing system.
>
> "Visions of a Learning Society" proposes the inevitability of learners
> everywhere and some of the profound effects that this will have on all
> things based on human interaction. This 2-page essay can be found at:
> http://www.parshift.com/publicat.htm
>
> Rick Dove, http://www.parshift.com/
> Rick Dove <dove@parshift.com>
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>