Time LO20913

J.C. Lelie (janlelie@wxs.nl)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:48:44 -0800

Replying to LO20895 --

Hi Steve,

You wrote, amongst others:

> One of the advantages of the "digital age" is the presentation and/or
> management of information in new forms.

and
> This advantage however has created what might
> be termed a plethora of options. By that I mean, more options than can be
> sorted easily by the manager, teacher, facilitator, etc. Selection is
> difficult if for no other reason than the possible number of choices.

I agree and do not agree: selection is difficult, mainly because we
haven't been thaught how to choose, how to think properly. Until a few
years ago information was scarce and valuable. And choosing, making an
informed choice, was not encouraged. Within an organization, the boss made
the choices. Within a church, the priest; within a family, your father (or
mother). This led to situations in which people were trained to avoid
choice, to avoid responsibility. Information has been used to reduce
uncertainty. Now, in the information age, we start to understand that the
amount of information increases as the amount of uncertainty becomes
greater. However, trained at reducing uncertainty, we would like this
increase of information to stop. Learning Organizations, in my opinion,
will have to learn to deal with uncertainty without reducing it.

Selection is easy because now we have so many choices.

> Now comes the importance of time, resource management and the application
> of theories in time's relative importance. With little argument, most
> would agree, among all other variables or characteristics, time is the
> common threat to all activity.

No new news there

> Time as applied
> to when an action needs to be completed, the number of iterations of an
> activity, the interval between iterations, the time to select an activity
> or series of them that will result in the desired goal (say a trained work
> team) and the time, related to having the peak performance potential, to
> start activities.

Or time as a source of possible actions and choices, time to wonder about
the possible outcomes, the endless means of creating results from vision
(with an inspired team) and the time to reach the end, the flow to the
source.

snip

> With that, the manager, teacher or organizational
> leader relies most heavily on something that is not as clean as time:
> experienced judgement.

Perhaps it is experienced judgement we've learned to value too much. I,
considering what i have been doing the last few years, think it is time
for re-evaluating judgements. There is nothing wrong with judgements,
everybody makes them, as long as they are not routinely imposed on others
or on behalf of others. Free choice, how ever nasty some of its
implications, is connected to free flow of information.

> Conclusion: While we might strive to improve information management and
> decision making by the use of technology and the discovery of new ways to
> conceptualize the common characteristic of time, if we are not striving to
> solve the growing dilemma of practical selection methodologies, we may be
> part of the dilemma not the resolution.

It think it is not a dilemma. I experience it as a paradox. Information is
printed on paradocs. Time turns paradocycly. Leading change starts out
with a pair-o'dox ("to be or not to be, whether it is nobler in the mind
to etc."). Energy and entropy are a pair of parade-oxes pulling a wagon
with square wheels loaded with people having a point.

By the way, Will McWinney made a perfect attempt to select methodologies
for change and resolutions in his book, my bible, Paths of Change. He also
comes to the conclusions: you're part of the problem (and the resolution)
and it's paradoxes all the way down.

Take your time.

Jan

-- 
Drs J.C. Lelie CPIM (Jan)
mailto:janlelie@wxs.nl       
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