Checklist on how to discuss something LO29006

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 08/15/02


Replying to LO29000 --

Dear Organlearners,

Jim Marshall <marshall_jim@yahoo.com> writes:

>At rightly asks me to work out what the "principal causes"
>are and to avoid using quick fixes, such as a checklist. This
>is good advice - thank you At.

Greetings dear Jim,

It has been a pleasure! Your problem is very interesting and i think that
it has reached "epidemic" proportions.

Perhaps i should have used "primordial causes". What i mean by them is
that they cause problems which do not get solved. As unsolved problems
they cause another "generation of problems" which also do not get solved.
This may go on for several "generations of problems".

While studying the rest of your contribution, the following struck me as a
very important observation:-

>It is about the Board itself as a cohesive workforce. The
>pattern I have recently seen is that, at both extremes (of
>being under stress and in the absence of stress), Board
>members seem to 'collapse' into a recognisable default mode
>of being a collection of extreme free-standing individuals who
>very much keep their own counsel and behave as though
>disengaged from the behavioural norms for the collective
>action needed to function as a Board.

We have an old idiomatic saying for it in my mother tongue Afrikaans:
"Elke haan op sy eie mishoop" - every cock on its own dung heap. This
shows that your observation has been made many times in the past, even in
a different country.

Is this observation a symptom or is it an "principal cause"? It is easy to
argue that the board cannot discuss anything because its members act so
independently. But i think that the next paragraph points to it as a
symptom, especially its last sentence "you have to give us the training
for that".

>Further, in my perception, it is not Due Diligence as such
>hich has lapsed but its constituent element - 'discussing
>issues'. Exhortations to 'discuss - damn-it; discuss' fall
>on deaf ears and are deflected under debating points
>such as - 'you have to give us the training for that'.

The last sentence "you have to give us the training for that" is a
positive sign. They know that they have the problem of not being able to
discuss board issues. It is exacly here where their past training as
professionals prevents them to solve the problem. They want you to train
them in the solution of the problem as they had been trained in their
profession. They never learned how to solve a problem as if it has never
been solved before.

I think that you have to put it to the board that they will have to solve
this problem among themselves without any training in its solution. Your
task should now become like that of a mentor, praising them when they take
a right step and warning them (through questions, not no's !!!) when
taking a wrong step.

It is a tough problem and its solution will require them to think along
paths which they have not travelled before. However, by solving it, they
will have learned two things (1) to work as a team (2) to solve problems
authentically. These two things are crucial to their effective functioning
as board members.

I have been working on essay on-and-off for the past couple of months. It
is "The Dialogue" and i will link it to LO29000. I do hope it will
stimulate your own thinking on the problem which your board members have.

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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