Dear Marilee,
I am new to the Learning Organization listserv this week and have just
dipped into some of the postings so far. I was struck by the profound
environmental shift I felt reading the contribution by Chau Nguyen, as
compared to the very intellectual and esoteric stuff I had been skimming
up to that point. Suddenly, I sensed that there were many facets to this
virtual community that I did not yet know.
I really enjoyed your metaphor, "drinking the skim milk of conversation."
It is true that this vehicle contains only words, and it can be hard to
discern what folks are feeling or thinking as they describe their
intellectual exercises. I work in a health care organization with an
employee population of 75 to 80% women, with top management and physician
groups looking more like 70 to 80% men (mostly white European-American
men, at that). As you might expect in a "science-based" business, there is
a high value placed on linear, left-brained, analytical, empirical
thought. The masculine/feminine archetypes -- or should I say stereotypes
-- are nicely embedded into the western medical model. While there are
exceptions, the unspoken equation is still "diagnosis = doctor = boy;
nurture = nurse = girl." Indeed, there are segmented systems of valuation
that cleave along thought process, gender, ethnicity, age, and so forth.
Your thoughtful and heartful posting on the listserv revealed to me new
possibilities in this group, and makes me want to keep in touch with it. I
appreciated reading it. You never know where the next important thought
will come from, and I want to keep paying attention.
I wonder, thinking about the linearity and narrowness possible on a
listserv, how can people and technology find the way to a richer syntax?
Spoken conversation offers context we miss here, and necessitates a kind
of turn-taking for speaking, listening, and reflecting that is missing
from this missive-style format. Also, participating in the listserv is
like reading poetry in a book instead of hearing it delivered aloud at a
reading. What kind of system, and what kind of communication "grammar,"
might better facilitate a more complete, satisfying, and inclusive
conversation among people who are distant in geography and cultures?
I am just finishing an Organizational Psychology degree myself, having
come into training & development work from a previous career in
horticulture. There is a very important difference, I have decided,
between plants and people. Plants only live in environments where their
needs get met; people live where they want and then seek to change the
environment to meet their needs. Maybe that is what we keep running up
against here in cyberspace as well.
Thank you for what you wrote, and for stimulating my thoughts!
Mark
Mark.Rolfson@lovelace.com <mailto:Mark.Rolfson@lovelace.com>
--"Rolfson, Mark" <Mark.Rolfson@lovelace.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>