Systems Thinking vs Belief? LO19740

W.M. Deijmann (winfried@universal.nl)
Wed, 4 Nov 1998 21:04:48 +0100

Replying to: Systems Thinking vs Belief? LO19730

At de Lange wrote:
>Steve, you will probably now understand why I stress that we have to
>look in both directions, extreme simplicity and supreme complexity --
>it is because we have to cater for morons, geniuses and everybody in
>between. ;-)

Hm, IMHO morons look into the directions of extreme complexity, the
geniuses into supreme simplicity and everybody in between has a good laugh
from the sideline, or shiffers in uncertainty Huh! ( note the changes in
the text I made).

Hit At, Dr. Steve and others.

I want to avoid that this/my contribution becomes too complex, nor do I
want it to be too simplistic. Not being able how to avoid the first or
the latter I will just jump into the middle of it and splash around a bit.
Somebody might get wet...., if so I am sorry!

The above quote from At de Lange gave me a smile at first, and made me
write my comments right under the quote. Reflecting on it, however it
struck me that although both At's quote and my comment were meant as an
'in between joke' both quote and reply are not funny at all!

Allow me to explain why.

It's my quess that this/his sentence came right from his mind, like my
reply, and that he hasn't given it much thought. So I dare to consider it
as an unconsious belief and not a product of clear judgement.

Let me ask your right out At:: Why do you connect 'supreme' with
'complexity' and 'extreme' with 'simplicity'. Is it your inner belief,
that going into the direction of complexity will result in 'excellent
entropy' for geniuses?

Complexity always turns out into an overload of information. More
information means more doubting. The amount of information on the internet
for instance is practically impossible to be seen and read in one
lifetime. Papers get thicker and thicker. Every day thousands of books
are printed.What to think of the legendaric issue of The New York Times,
that consisted 1.612 pages and more than 12 million words!!!!!

More and more I run into professional decisionmakers who are losing track
and burn themselves out because of the overload of available information.
Infostress is a good name for this I think!

How come I haven't come over one single Mailinglist for managers? The
answer is easy: after having been online one time, 70% of them never takes
another look on the net. They have enough trouble with their internal
informationflow. They live in informational 'nuthouses'. I have seen only
two types of reactions on information overload:

* Managers with a lot of confidence who take little notice of all the
available information., and
* managers that use more and more accessable information, see more and
more alternatives and have less and less confidence in a solution.
Harrison's Informationparadox is true: The more information becames
available the lower the quality is.

The problem begins when people start to fear because of a belief that they
will MISS information that COULD be necessary. No knowledge management
system, datawarehouse, 'fuzzy logic' system or information department will
solve that problem.

What will stop this negative trend?

Integration of intuition and feelings in our inner judgementprocesses,
accessable by a supreme simple formula:
1.) take your feelings and intuitions serious, name them!
2.) Ask yourself where, when and why they became manifest.
3.) Ask yourself what you want, and
4.) what you ought to do about it?
5.)Then consider that action, and ask yourself what problem and who's
problem you will solve by that.

Tip 1: If the answers on one question gets too complex and you get lost in
it, take it serious, because it is a sign that you are on a path that is
getting you nowhere. Try one of the other questions.

Tip 2: Stay calm, slow down and ask yourself regularly: What's the use of
it? Where are my efforts getting me and is that the direction I want to go
into?

In doing so you will always belong to the "ones in between", the survivors.

"If you pay attention at every moment, you form a new relationship to
time. In some magical way, by slowing down, you become more efficient,
productive, and energetic, focusing without distraction directly on the
task in front of you. Not only do you become immersed in the moment,
you become that moment." -Michael Ray

greetings,

Winfried Deijmann

-- 

Winfried M. Deijmann - Deijmann & Partners - Zutphen - The Netherlands Artists, Consultants and Facilitators for Organizational Learning, Leadership and Action Learning Events Het Zwanevlot 37, NL 7206 CB Zutphen, The Netherlands <Winfried@universal.nl> Phone: +31-(0)575-522076 mobile: +31-(0)654 94 71 27 Homepage: <http://www.come.to/dialoog>

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