Robert Bacal wrote (in part)...
>I really don't remember the significance of this conversation...
I'll give it one more shot, using a different example, and then I'm going
to drop it.
My original concern was about reification in particular, and the sloppy,
unthinking use of language in general. I believe that language shapes
thought and thought shapes behavior; as we speak, so we think; as we
think, so we act. The language used in relation to organizations is, in
my view, is used in terribly sloppy ways and leads to thinking of
organizations as though they are people, replete with human
characteristics. Organizations don't think, people do. Organizations
don't laugh, cry, or feel sorrow or joy, people do. Organizations don't
do things, people do. As Larry Wilson (a fellow John Gunkler knows well)
once wrote, "You can love your company until you're blue in the face and
it won't love you back."
Organizations are many things: abstractions, groups of people, legal
entities and so on. It is important to me that I be aware of how I am
using the language in relation to organizations so I don't fall into some
of the traps of thinking that concern me. For example, I consider
"organizational culture" one of those traps. At best, the term refers to
some perceived behavioral patterns and perhaps some artifacts. These
patterns are observed, often inferred. They exist as much in the mind of
the observer as they do "out there." When I hear people talking about
changing the culture of an organization, they generally do so using the
language of overt actions and material objects. That concerns me because
I hear them talking about culture as though it is a concrete object
instead of a construct that is largely of their own making.
Now to a different example. A friend of mine, well known in training and
human performance circles is an expert on the matter of needs assessment.
Indeed, I think of him as the grand-daddy of needs assessment. He uses
"need" in a very particular way -- as a noun -- as a shorthand term for a
discrepancy between actual and required results. Thus, when he speaks
about needs assessment, he isn't talking about how to find out what people
need, he is referring to gaps in results. I can count on one hand the
others who use the term "need" as he does (and, yes, I'm one of them).
Most people use "need" as a verb, as in, "We need a training course that
will improve interpersonal skills." Or, "Those people need to learn how
to do a better job of defining the problem." Or, "McKinsey & Co needs to
hire more system dynamics modelers."
The use of "need" as a verb leads to needs assessments methodologies that
start out by asking what it is that people or the organization need --
without first touching base to see what results are out of kilter or that
are being sought. In this case, what I consider the sloppy (or at least
the imprecise) use of language functions to short-circuit the analysis of
results, a sure-fire prescription for wasted effort.
Anyway, I don't see that this thread is head down any particularly
productive path so -- except for one last remark -- I'm going to stop
flailing away at what is probably some hobgoblin of my own making.
At the end of Robert's post cited above, he writes...
>It it walks like an actor, if it talks like an actor, if it is recognized
>legally as an actor, is it an abstraction? And does that make it NOT an
>actor?
All I can say is that organizations don't walk or talk. Their legal
status has to do mainly with owning property, paying taxes, and contracts.
Organizations don't vote, nor do they lobby, although many voters and
lobbyists receive their pay from corporate coffers (authorized, of course,
by some walking, talking individual). "Abstraction," by the way, doesn't
mean non-existent." "Actor" is an abstraction, unless it refers to a
particular actor.
-- 30 --
Regards,
Fred Nickols
Distance Consulting
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@worldnet.att.net
(609) 490-0095
--Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>