Replying to LO28976 --
Dear Organlearners,
Jim Marshall <marshall_jim@yahoo.com> writes:
>I work with doctors and am at a loss to help them
>discuss their industrial structure and performance so as
>to learn and find sensible and achievable options for
>reform. They spin around on personalities, ideology,
>bad civics and rarely inter-act (i.e. a discussion in a
>committee is like the parallel play of pre-schoolers in
>a sand pit).
>
>Very strong chairmanship of their meetings ensures
>that they get somewhere but they are not internalising,
>much less reproducing by themselves, the chair's
>mandated methods.
>
>Does anyone know of a checklist or some such on how
>to discuss something, which they could each use?
Greetings dear Jim,
Thank you for bring this important problem under our attention. The
problem which you have sketched is not only complex, but has reached
epidemic proportions globally. This is terryfying when thinking of any
global tribulation which may lie ahead.
A possible solution is to use a "diversity template" which will generate
sufficient complexity to get the discussion going. For example, fellow
learner Jamie Nettles suggested the Six Thinking Hats (6TH) of De Bono
(see LO28979).
Begin quote
"By explicitly cycling through the 6 hats as appropriate,
all necessary styles of thinking are covered. The six
hats are white - facts, red - emotions, green - creation,
yellow - benefits, black - problems, and blue - thinking
about thinking. In most meetings not run using the six hats
methodology, the most common hat is the black hat."
End quote.
Thank you Jim for such a concise summary.
Unfortunately, the 6TH template does not solve all communication problems.
In fact, it solves only those problems caused by an insensitivity to
diversity ("lateral thinking" as it is called by De Bono). It cannot solve
problems caused by, for example, an insensitivity to unity, to change or
to mental models.
Furthermore, such "quick fixes" have to be advertised heavily before a
group will buy in on them. What i mean by this is that when somebody
suggests using, for example, the 6TH without telling that they originated
from De Bono, an world expert on creativity, and that they are employed
all over the world with success, the chances are slight that the group
will use them.
Lastly, solutions based on templates or checklists are only temporary.
Such "quick fixes" usually fail in crisis situations since they are blind
to the principal causes of the communication problem. They treat the
symptoms, but not the causes. Only when the principal causes get
corrected, will the problem become solved permanently.
What caused the problem which you have sketched? It is important to note
that this problem occurs among persons belonging to a particular
profession. They have more than average intelligence and yet they are
oblivious to their communication problem. I myself have observed dozens of
times this very problem which you have described among persons belonging
to a highly specialised rofession. Why does this problem occur among them?
I think it has to do with their professional training and specifically the
way in which they had been trained to solve a problem. Last night I
attended a board meeting of a certain organisation. Several problem areas
had been identified. In each area the chairman, having had a specialised
professional training himself, encouraged board members to share their
particular solutions so that a common solution which will work for all
cases could be panel beaten out of them. Worst of all, those board members
who responded to his calling were professional persons too, not realising
the treacherous road they were taking.
This is not how problems become solved authentically, not even by
professionals. One does not, with a "box of solutions" in mind, search for
a problem to which one of the solutions can be applied. A solution should
never define the problem. Should this be done, a serious ignorance to most
problems not covered by the professional's "box of solutions" will
develop. This ignorance will involve problems in most walks of life.
It is like a plumber with a plumber's tool kit. The plumber can solve most
plumbing problems with little, if any, original thinking. But when the
problem is more than a plumbing problem by involving also, for example,
electricity, he will say "call the electrician". Once the electrician
arrives, the trouble begins. The plumber wants to solve his problem with
his plumber's recipe while the electrician wants to solve his problem with
his electrician's recipe. The trouble does not get resolved by sharing
each other's tool kit. Only when they are willing to learn each other's
ways will they be able to overcome their troubles.
Particular vexing in the training of professionals to solve problems is
that they are brought under the impression that "the problem is out
there". They are seldom trained that they often may be part of the
problem. Thus they cannot solve it when "the problem is among us". They
cannot even identify such a problem so that they remain ignorant to it.
The epidemic occurance of this problem among all sorts of professions
points to a serious deficiency in the training of professions. Old
doctors, engineers, lawyers or accountants used to say that the young is
brought up with the text book under the arm rather having acquired
knowledge in the mind. I still know of one doctor and one engineer, deep
in their seventies and still practicing, who say it. Sadly, the others
have passed away. This mean that the deficiency has come a long way before
its problem have reached epidemic proportions. A whole generation of all
kinds of professionals will have to be convinced that their training had
lead them astray. No wonder they will respond that anyone who claims this,
must be a lunatic. A whole generation of all kinds of professionals cannot
be wrong.
Ben Compton's story of the lady programmer in "Intellectual Passions
LO28965" tells vividly what went wrong in her training and probably the
majority of programmers.
Jim, i think your task is to make that bunch of doctors aware that the
very highly specialised training in their profession impaired their
creativity seriously. This is very difficult to accomplish when there is
not an atmosphere of learning whatever the topic. So, should you want
short term results, use advice such as that of Jamie Nettles and remember
to overwhelm this bunch of doctors by advertising the advice heavily. But
please, for the sake of humankind, delve deeper into the cause of the
problem.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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