Dear Organlearners,
For the archive of this list server to work, I need to link to some
message on the subject. So I will link to the message from
Richard Goodale <fc45@dial.pipex.com> who writes:
> I have found myself increasingly disinterested in the LO list over
> the past 3-4 months due to the high level of abstraction in most of
> the threads and the dearth of empirical evidence offered to support
> the vast majority of the various contributors' abstractions. I've
> also been disappointed in the lack of response to the few
> contributors (including myself) who have tried to give (and solicit)
> concrete examples to enliven various debates. I do not think,
> however, that your queries can or should be ignored.
Allow me also a few other quotes:
Ed Brenegar <edb3@msn.com> who writes in LO18911:
> All I know is that a Learning Organization is not a commodity, but a
> statement describing the action taking by those within the organization to
> continuously improve by continually learning. Isn't this a fundamental
> truth of LO doctrine?
Robert Bacal <rbacal@escape.ca> who writes in LO18912:
> Clearly to me, the answer is no, we cannot do better, because we are not
> interested in doing so. The LO terminology is philisophically rich but
> essentially bankrupt (as happens to many fad type ideas). Typically this
> happens not because the concepts or ideas are faulty, but because the
> demagoguery of the originators required to get a hearing eventually gets
> taken on by the disciples, who can't pull it off....they end up talking
> the words, sometimes without those words having meaning.
Doc Holloway <learnshops@thresholds.com> who writes in LO18913:
> The point is, like all models, others will
> come along and parrot the talk but not know (or care to know) how to
> walk the walk. Religions, societies, alliances, movements--all are
> eventually enriched or deprived by our skills, or lack of
> skills--our commitment to principles over our commitment to
> self-aggrandisement.
So, why does the LO work or not work? The LO is a very complex
system. We can write down many things which will make sense. But we
will have to find the one thing without which all the other things
will not make sense. What is this "first sensible thing" which we
must do in order to have a LO working?
Allow me offer the following perspective. But first I have to quote
Doc once again to show the clue to this perspective.Thank you
very much Doc for your long, yet very instructive message. You begin
it with the following:
> I'll do my best to respond to your questions--but I'd really like to hear
> (see) some of your thoughts behind these questions, and perhaps hear from
> some others too.
THIS IS THE CLUE. At a certain stage even Doc almost gets lost,
writing:
> Finally--how did I get on this soapbox? Oh yes--Gene. You asked
> about "who is responsible for how well it works?" ..........
Eventually, Doc articulates the following profound words:
> We need to be aware of and sensitive to
> EVERYONE in the organization--especially the silent resistors. They
> are the ones who will kill the transition--they are the targets of
> inculcating the culture of LO in the organization.
>
> Gene--I got carried away here. I hope I answered your questions,
> finally. thanks for your patience.
My perspective is that the "first sensible thing" which we must do to
have a LO working, is to set up and maintain DIALOGUE.
There are two important things which I want to stress.
Firstly, the dialogue has to involve ALL the members of that
organisation from which the LO has to emerge. Not one member should
be excluded for whatever reason. Most important are the silent
memebers. We must encourage them, without any force, to participate
spontaneously and prevent all intimidation which will silence them
again.
The second important thing is so wierd that I wonder if I even should
mention it because I may fail in getting it articulated, thus leaving
you others in confusion. So forgive me my many screens to get it
across.
Dialogue is primarily accomplished by speaking & hearing and not by
writing & reading. What I am doing here, is not dialogue. I am
commiting my thoughts to alphabetical symbols called script, not
sounds. Sounds are waves which dissipates (disperse) through space,
visiting every point in it momentarily. If I do not act immediately
upon these waves, I cannot recall them later (except by memory). But
when I commit my thoughts to script, its dispersion through space is
not natural like in the case of waves. Thus I have to use technology
both to multiply it and to transport it. Wherever a copy stops, we
can look at it again and again -- because it is not a wave.
Let us look again at what Doc writes:
> Finally, the organizing activity for everyone in the organization should
> rely on mental activity. This is why vision and purpose are critical--and
> why everyone in the system must be "cognitive" or aware of why they are
> "relating" to one another in the organization. Cognition (the life
> process) consists of all activities involved in the continual embodiment
> of the system^Rs (autopoietic) pattern of organization in a physical
> (dissipative) structure.
If we look clinically at how our brain (in the material world) works,
we will find that it produces electrical waves by the firing of
neurological synapses in a bewildering manner. On the atomic level we
find and even more bewildering interaction of electrons and nuclei in
terms of waves, described by Wave Mechanics. The change of the old
name Wave Mechanics to the modern name Quantum Mechanics serves as a
reminder how easily we give up the "being-becoming" nature of it all,
namely waves, for something fixed like the concept "quantum".
Do we really believe that our mind (in the abstract world) works
differently -- that there are no waves in our thoughts?
As we parcipate in emergences to higher levels of existence,
especially the noopshere (the world of thoughts) we easily forget the
wave nature of it all. Take script, for example. What is wave-like in
what I have written so far. Nothing, if any, because I have to rush
through to get to my daily tasks, using a language which is not even
my mother tongue. But when I begin to write poetry, I am beginning to
let these waves emerge with script. Thus I am telling my reader --
lookout, it is the waves in the message which are important. However,
as I move from poetry to prose, the more difficult it becomes to get
the message across-- lookout for the waves in the message.
Do we know what are the signs common to all waves? Do we look for
these wave signs to find the higher messages in a messgae which seems
to be boring? Here are some typical signs common to all waves:
* A wave consists of a change in some property which oscilates
between two extremes.
* A wave travels such a path between two points A and B that it uses
the least time to do so.
* A wave is reflected by an impenetrable object
* A wave is bended around the corner of an impenetrable object by the
process of diffraction.
* When a copy of a wave results by reflection or diffraction and both
(wave and copy) interfere, constructive and destructive
patterns arise.
* When a wave crosses from one system to another, its velocty and
direction change by the process of refraction.
* When a wave gets absorbed by a system to elevate its energy, it
will only happen when the wave's frequency resonates with the
system's implicate structure.
We all say that we are literate, but do we look for signs such as the
above in the writings of others? When we respond, do we try to build
these signs into our messages? I am afraid that our written messages
fail to qualify as waves. Thus we become immensely tired of hunting
for whatever few waves occurs in an unwave like message so that we
can learn. In frustration we blast each other with the concussions
and percussions of monologues which we disguise as conversations. We
suspect each other of hurting in the same manner. Eventually our
learning falters.
As I see it, we have to choose between two self-fulfilling paradigms.
The one concerns constructive creativity which finally emerges
into unconditional love. The other concerns destructive creativity
which finally immerges into uncontrolled terror. In the one we
communicate openly and unceasingly, despite our differences,
exlcuding nothing. In the other one we proclaim our interests and
damn any thing which does not fit in. In the one we grow in our
capacity for learning and sharing. In the other one we make people
insecure and impoverished by claiming what is rightfully theirs to
serve our own selfish growth.
We must take extreme care not let our literacy be dictated by the
paradigm of destructive creativity -- not to confuse our writings as
dialogue. I have seen it happen in South Africa the past thirty
years -- people eloquently articulating their thoughts, but loosing
the ability to talk about the things which concern them all. This is
the common message which I found in the messages of Richard Goodale,
Ed Brenegar, Robert Bacal and Doc Holloway, parts of which I have
quoted at the beginning. They may think differently. Whether they
agree or differ, I would like them to share their thoughts with us
again and again.
I do not mean that writing will never suffice for dialogue. But I
want to stress that writing will destroy dialogue if it does not have
a wave-like nature. The sad thing is that when writing destroys
dialogue, it also destroys Learning Organisations, each LO with its
unique metanoia (ubuntu).
Thus I want to plead with all of you -- let us keep up the dialogue
because its is the "first sensible thing" which we must do to have a
LO working
Best wishes
--"Mnr AM de Lange" <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>