I'd like to offer an observation about the interesting dialogue between
Fred Nickols and At De Lange on problems, solutions, and the heart of the
matter.
Implicit in Fred's definitions is someone who wants things to be
different, someone with an investment in change. I don't see that in At's
definitions. There are an endless number of things I understand
incompletely, but they don't represent problems to me.
"Problems" are a case in which there is no sound in the forest without
someone there to hear it. It's not a problem unless someone owns it,
gives a damn about changing it. By the same token, in an organizational
setting, there's no such thing as The Problem, meaning a situation that
constitutes a problem divorced from the people who care about it.
Thinking there is is a classic consulting error (and one I've certainly
made more than once).
Yours for more complete knowledge of the things you want to change,
Bill Buxton
--"William Buxton" <wbuxton@hns.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>