Dear Steve,
Sorry if we sounded a bit testy, but perhaps (in not exemplary LO style)
we are a bit a cross purposes and thus tending to shout without listening.
But what you write below confuses me a bit:
>That does not mean the whole cannot be greater than the sum of the parts,
>especially in terms of output rather than process; it does mean that the
>unit of analysis can be --and indeed, should be--at the individual
>level. Or so I
>interpret it. I had not thought this to be a controversial position.
Maybe its not controversial Steve, but why should the level of analysis of
a group necessarily be at the individual level as some group skills and
attributes clearly reside with the team, not with a particular person? In
the case of a car motor, for example, a designer needs to design both good
individual parts and a great whole motor. So, doesn't it then follow that
s/he would some times examine the motor at the part level, and other times
at the whole? The point of view or perspective taken depends on what
questions you are asking or what problems you need to solve.
Is it not the same with teams? At the team level, the team
leader/facilitator is probably very focussed on the individual unit, or
person. An executive probably focusses at the level of whole team output
because s/he has a company full of teams to run and probably can't even
know individual names, let alone skill sets.
Anyway, that's my $s worth on this topic...
Kind regards from Down Under,
Philip
Philip Pogson
Leadership Development Strategy Consultant
Staff Development Branch
University of Technology Sydney NSW 2007
+61 2 9514 2934
mobile: 0412 459156
"Men stumble over the truth from time to time but most pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing happened."
Winston Churchill
--Philip Pogson <ppogson@uts.edu.au>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>