Replying to LO28332 --
Dear Organlearners,
Terri Deems < Tadeems@aol.com > writes:
>I've found this conversation of particular interest
>this past week -- what I've understood of it, anyway
>(it seems I am having an increasingly difficult time
>really grasping what people are often saying on this
>list--perhaps too many of my own mental distractions
>-- and I'm one who is often too hesitant to ask for
>further explanation for fear of looking foolish).
Greetings dear Terri,
I learned long ago a most valuable lesson. There is not such a thing as
fool who can ask questions. Only learners can ask questions and only by
learning can any learner escape from fooldom. The big problem for me is
still to understand the question correctly so that I could answer it
fittingly. The only way which I have found to solve this problem is by
Team Learning. Sometimes I have to question the learner to make sure what
the original question meant. Sometimes I have to encourage the learner to
question me further until he/she is satisfied. If anybody else have found
a different solution, I will be the first to want to learn it.
>Hard work and efficiency can go a long way
>towards making improvements along many lines
>at work, though by themselves they are certainly
>not enough. I've known many designated leaders
>who seemed very focused on the "how's" --- how
>to turn things around, how to enhance performance,
>how did that other company do it, how to become
>an LO. The perennial striving for control and
>redictability (the antithesis of an LO?). I'm guilty of
>it myself, I know.
Thank you for answering a question which I was trying to answer self for
many years. In our Bible study group I often ask the "how" question. Then
I usually get the answer "how others do it" upon which I have to question
"but how would you do it". At first they got agitated when I did it. But
now they are smiling broadly when I do it for they have learned self how
much tacit knowing they have.
I always wondered why people focus so much on "how others do it" and so
little on "how I do it". As you have reminded me, it is our leaders
striving perennially for control. Such a thing as "irreversible
self-organisation" they will never allow because with it they will lose
control and hence the power which they have.
The managar which I wrote about also wants that control which "efficient
management" will give him. But strangely enough, he does not want it for
himself. I might be wrong, but I think that he is very honest in wanting
it to save the organisation from its decline.
(snip, snip, snip)
>Just some random Sunday afternoon ideas . . .
They are indeed beautiful ideas. Thank you for contributing what now seems
to become a valuable Team Learning project for me. I think the manager
will be surprised to learn how much thinking went into his cause without
him knowing anything about it.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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