At,
> You voice exactly my own struggles. Even now knowing how how not to become
> a victim, I often find myself affirming myself as victim. Luckily, in most
> cases I manage to free myself from this pathology.
Phrased in the language of Argyris and Schon and borrowing from the story
of the turtles supporting the earth, there are days when, looking at
myself, I think it's Model I all the way down (after an initial layer of
the occasional examples of my Model II behavior). :-)
> I see it more general. Putting something on paper is merely one of many
> creative activities. What we should do, is try to become creative in as
> wide as possible manner in those faculties in which we are still very much
> inferior.
I'll buy that. For me, though, it has to be a creativity linked closely
enough to the issue I'm addressing and to my reflection on my situation so
that I can begin to draw insights or inspiration, and words meet that
criterion for me. I guess that's called 'creativity'.
Once upon a time, I used to do some (music) composing for my own amusement
(amazement?). I'll have to think about whether that provided (or could
have provided) me any similar benefits. It certainly fulfilled an
emotional want.
> One of the question is whether organisational learning and individual
> learning is the same thing. If I would answer that question it would be a
> simple no. However, although they are different, scapegoating is a common
> symptom when neither of them happens.
I've been learning about individual learning from our exchanges (not that
you've only been focusing on that; that's just what I'm learning). Not to
want to stray too far into the "Can organizations learn" thread which I
have only had time to skim, have you had successes in applying these ideas
to understanding how nations (or any organizations, for that matter)
transform themselves into a higher degree of learning? In your model, it
would seem to have something to do with the generation of entropy and it
would seem to involve pushing further away from equilibrium (concepts that
I can spell much better than I understand). Once one gets far enough, it
would seem that bifurcations are inevitable. Those seem messy; it would
seem important to have safety nets when one approaches one.
So, can you help me clarify my thinking and then understand how one
practically and pragmatically adds entropy (actually, I care today more
about organizations than nations, since they seem more approachable) in
productive ways, and how one manages in the vicinity of a bifurcation?
Are there ways to progress through a bifurcation which are less messy? Is
progress seemingly better when one blasts through those bifurcations
rapidly or when one tries to progress smoothly and incrementally? I
recognize an implicit self-contradiction in a smooth transition through a
bifurcation, but I see great possibility for pain in being "a bull in a
china shop" (both for the bull and the (owners of the) china).
Regards,
Bill
-- Bill Harris Hewlett-Packard Co. R&D Engineering Processes Lake Stevens Division domain: billh@lsid.hp.com M/S 330 phone: (425) 335-2200 8600 Soper Hill Road fax: (425) 335-2828 Everett, WA 98205-1298Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>