Replying to LO28651 --
Dear Organlearners,
John Dicus <jdicus@ourfuture.com> writes:
>I want to mention one aspect of multiple personalities
>and ask you to ponder with me how this might apply to
>organizational learning. My belief is that a group of
>people have some sort of collective mind. They can
>think together in unconventional ways. They might have
>some sort of prescience from time to time. Anyway --
>just to set a context for pondering.
Greetings dear John,
Thank you for setting such an interesting context of pondering.
I myself have observed occasionally how a person with a very complex
personality can appear to have one personality for the one person and
another personality for another person. This was especially the case for
Jan Smuts, the father of holism and also prime minister for South Africa.
It is really incredible how the different social groupings (Banthu,
Africkaners, English, Xhoi, Malay, Indian, etc) had a different
interpretation of his personality.
A complex personality would have broken up into a multipersonality (also
called dissociative identity disorder) would it not have been for
something which keeps it in order. This, i think, is where the 7Es (seven
essentialities of creativity) comes into the picture, wholeness
("identity-associativity") being one of them. Jan Smuts' insight into
wholeness was such that it kept his complex personality from not falling
apart, especially when he lost the election to those calling for
apartheid.
>A question for you. First -- how valid are our
>assumptions regarding how fast change can take
>place in an organization? We talk about revolution
>and evolution. We talk about how we have to go
>slow and give people time because "no one likes
>change except a wet baby."
That question I cannot answer. But I want to point out that people in
general underestimate how fast a change can happen relative to the slow
changes before it. For example, the Ancient World (Egypt and Mesopotamia)
changed little for some 1500 years. Then Alexander came and within 10
years the Ancient World ended with the Classical World (Greece and Rome)
beginning. Or think how fast the Reformation (religious) or the French
Revolution (political) swept over Europe.
The trouble with such fast changes is that when it does not happen in a
Learning Organisation, many people get hurt very much. I have studied an
OO (Ordinary Organisation) here in Pretoria which emerged into a "tacit
LO". It did not intend nor expected to change so fast, but it did with
nobody getting hurt.
>And second -- can an organization undergo a
>personality change and almost instantly have a
>new physiology? What would it mean for an
>organization to have a personality change and
>what would cause it? What is "physiology" in an
>organization? What would cause an organization
>to have multiple personalities? Would it have to
>be traumatic? Could there be a personality shift
>under "better" conditions -- like a change in mindset?
>
>I'd like to hear the stuff this brings up in you.
I think the personality of an organisation is how its interaction with an
outsider appears to that outsider. That interaction depends on the
internal interaction between all its departments. It is like the
interaction between all the faculties (like creativity, knowledge and
character) of an individual's personality.
There was a huge semi-state factory here in Pretoria. When we came to live
here in Pretoria in 1976, it still had the personality which it had for
the previous 50 years. Then, after some half a dozen years, I began to
notice a change in its personality. It could not defend anymore why it was
doing what it was doing. A major change in its organisation took place in
which the driving force became to maximise its profits rather than to
provide jobs. It was called privatisation. One by one it closed each of
its many diverse sections which had a lot of workers, but did not make a
lot of profit. The shareholders smiled because it increased their profits.
But after about a dozen years the factory had to close. The share holders
are still smiling because it has factories in other parts of the country.
But the same process is happening there too, one having to close down
soon. When will this stupidity end? Only when it changes its personality
once again. But will 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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