On 12 Apr 99 at 10:16, Dr Maggi Linington wrote:
> Robert bachal wrote:
>
> > But I'm not sure where it leaves us, because surely, the exact same
> > argument applies to any aggregate (which we conceptualize - a marriage, a
> > family, a country, any group at all.
> >
> > By the same logic, none of these "do things" or have goals, it seems.
>
> Surely if the individuals within that aggregate have a common goal
> then the aggregate as such can do things. By their very nature
> marriages and families are groups that can be effective because they
> are "united" i.e. are committed, have common goals etc.
> Theoretically from a christian point of view, in a marriage the "two
> become one flesh", so is it an aggregate?
I hope Mr. Nichols will respond to both my post and yours. I'm not sure
how completely accurate your characterization of families as "united" is
in real life though.
> I think the ability of a group to "do things" would depend on the
> characteristics of that group. Commitment to the common goal being
> one of the highest. This is possibly why mission statements and
> visions have become so popular - to try and make a cohesive unit of
> a large number of people. Is not the US declaration of independence
> is basically a national mission statement??
This makes sense to me until I match it against my understanding of the
world, which tells me that there it is rare to find "real" commitment to a
common goal except in the abstract. So, for example, we could find pretty
much universal commitment to stopping genocide as a principle, but the
meaning of that "commitment" would vary considerably.
So is the U.S. united, or not? And if not, does that mean that we can't
speak of this organization (the U.S.) as "doing anything"? I don't know!
That seems to follow if we say that aggregates or organizations don't
actually do things, people do.
> I would suggest that "healthy" small groups (marriage; family
> -departments?sections?) have the ability to "do things" while large
> groups have too many individuals and don't - but the smaller groups
> within the large do!!
But things still get done. In both situations things get done so who is
doing them? In one instance the organization? In the other people?
I can't make sense of these distinctions.
Robert Bacal, author of PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT,(McGraw-Hill). Details at
http://members.xoom.com/perform and http://members.xoom.com/cooperate.
"Performance management - about people and creating success"=
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