Robert, Robert, Robert ... sometimes I despair for your soul. Has your
experience made you so cynical? Are you so blinded by early education in
the physical sciences that you confuse "objective" with "useful" or (even
worse) "true"???
I say this so harshly only because I, too, have been that cynical and
misled by my early education in physics and astrophysics (my first college
major.) I hope I am coming around but it's amazing how easy it is for me
to fall back into such traps.
To answer some of your issues more directly:
>Are you aware of instances where this kind of thing is done routinely and
>is NEVER contentious or controversial?
1. I know of nothing of any substance (that is, that matters to people at
all) that is NEVER contentious or controversial.
2. Given that expected level of controversy in anything important, Yes --
it is done all the time. A similar methodology is used by nearly every
organization that pays its employees to determine the relative pay scales
of different jobs. Some kind of metric is placed on the contribution a
job category makes to the organization and, using numerical values, this
is translated into salary/pay levels. No, it is not done without some
contentiousness, but, yes, it is a well accepted practice.
Another issue:
>any approach which attempts to make something sound objective by using
>numbers that are, in fact, subjective, is damaging to both people in an
>organization, and the organization.
>
>I'm sorry, but I've seen this kind of obfuscation, and it is indeed
>contentious, and as a result, one of the most destructive things
>companies can do.
1. If you're talking about the Deming issue that measuring individual
performance when what needs to be focused on is the system, then I can
understand your vehemence.
2. On the other hand, to make such a sweeping accusation -- that, for
pick on one thing, any use of "numbers" to stand for subjective judgments
is "obfuscation" -- is hard for me to understand. Who told you that
numbers are "objective" or to be used only for "objective measures"? I
have a degree in mathematics and I can assure you that such a concept was
never raised in all of my education. Mathematics, and numerical scales in
particular, can be used to represent anything at all -- objectively
measured constructs, subjectively measured constructs, even constructs
that don't include traditional kinds of measurements at all (where the
numbers stand for structural characteristics.) Mathematics, in its
practical applications, is primarily content-neutral. It is a formalism,
a way to represent some aspects of the complexity of the real world in a
simpler form that can be more easily dealt with and, thus, can contribute
to our understanding of the world being modeled by the math. Even the
simple counting numbers are just formal stand-ins for having a collection
of real objects (one step more formalized than an abacus, which
substitutes one kind of object -- beads on a wire -- for other kinds of
objects -- such as cattle for sale in the market.)
Robert, I no longer believe that using numbers is bad nor is it damaging
to people and an organization. Of course, but this is too obvious to need
saying, isn't it?, the MIS-use of numbers (like the misuse of almost
anything) can have negative consequences. And I sympathize with you if
you are saying that you have seen numbers put on things in order to
obfuscate -- in order to make something seem more "real" or "objective"
than it really is -- and that makes me burn with anger, too.
But, as we try to create a more scientific way of dealing with learning
and organizations, as we try to become more precise and useful in our
language (so we can be more effective in our decisions and policies),
please don't suggest that we do without numbers, even to represent
subjective phenomena. We have too much trouble with our less-formalized
spoken language to ask us to rely exclusively on it to guide our
understanding.
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>