Employee Ranking Systems LO17750

Mnr AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Mon, 13 Apr 1998 19:16:54 GMT+2

Replying to LO17678 --

Dear Organlearners,

Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> writes in reply to
Ben Compton who wrote:

> > A rock is a rock, and always will be a rock. A bum is a bum, but he/she
> > can change who they are if they want to.
> It's a small change, but suppose we say that the person is behaving like a
> bum... To be more precise, behaving like a bum at this time.
>
> I think part of the problem here is the inference that
>
> * behaving like a bum now == implies ==> is a bum
>
> Such an inference is not good logic. That inference would require us
> to go further and say, "In my opinion, behaving like a bum is a
> relatively unchangable characteristic of a person." If that's the
> position you want to propose, please say so; we can talk about that.

Rick, you say that the inference is not good logic. The word "good"
used here is not precise enough. (Take care of the essentiality
("identity-categoricity" (sureness)). The inference is definitely
valid logic. (I will not supply a proof because it will be too
boring.) But the inference is horrible. In my contribution
Essentiality - "becoming-being" (liveness) LO17651
under the heading
BECOMING-BEING AND LINEAR RATIONALITY
I explained why I consider it to be horrible logic. It is linear
so that it cannot distinguish between the emergence and the
immergence of a bifurcation. It can only affirm that an emergence is
not an immergence (that Q and not Q stuff).

In this contribution I want to see if we can learn anything new by
shedding some light from chemistry rather than logic on Ben's
statement "A rock is a rock, and always will be a rock". But let
us quickly look at this statement from the point of view of logic.
It can be symbolised as ((R => R) => R). It is the Law of the
Excluded Middle refering to itself - a strong way to formulate this
law. In other words, Ben stressed that a rock cannot be a rock and
also not a rock, that a rock has a fixed identity. But is it the
case?

Let us consider two kinds of rock, a white rock consisting of quarts
and a black rock consisting of coal.

Let us heat the white rock. We can heat it to a temperature of 1000C
and it will still stay the same. Thus it seems as if
given (R => R), then R
or ((R => R) => R) for short. It seems as if the white rock as a
fixed identity.

Let us heat the black rock. Long before we have reached 1000C,
it will catch fire. Its complexity of carbon compounds will immerge
(simplify) into carbon dioxide, water and ash. Thus we cannot
state any more that
given (R => R), then R
We should rather state
given ((R => R) => R), thus not Q.
where "not Q" symbolise an immergence. Clearly, the black rock
does not have a fixed identity.

We, like coal, need oxygen for combustion. We should not forget about
the essentiality "associativity-monadicity" (wholeness) - the fact
that we and the piece of coal are linked together by means of oxygen.
We should also not forget the other essentialities. Let us think
about "quality-variety" (otherness) and see where it will lead us to.
Fasten your seatbelts.

Let us see what will happen to these two pieces of rock when we place
them in hydroflouric acid (HF). Now, HF is very dangerous. It reacts
through a glass bottle like a knife through butter. It reacts with
our skin, creating sores which may take years to heal. It is also a
serious carcinogenic substance. Thus it is no surprise that almost
all use will have no experience with HF. But this does not give us
any reason to make fixed conclusions.

What will happen? The piece of black coal will change a little bit at
its surface and then remain the same indefinitely. But the piece of
white quarts (SiO2) will set off clouds of white fume (SiF4) until it
has been destroyed completely. In other words, the black coal and the
white quarts have switched their roles completely by merely changing
the environment.

The chemical metaphors above help us to understand the following.
By changing the environment, some reactive (competent) rocks become
inreactive (incompetent) while other incompetent ones become
competent. This had been one of the important points in Doc
Holloway's serious contribution (Employee Ranking Systems LO17656).
(Thank you Doc.) He wrote:

> I have moved incompetent people out of my organizations--but I
> realized that they were simply not prepared or skilled for the
> activities that I needed completed. They were often competent
> at unrelated activities from the tasks they were originally hired for.
> I have worked with people who were extremely competent in
> one phase of the operation--but totally out of water in the next.

Now why do rocks behave in such a manner? It all has to do with
"free energy". Free energy is the quantity which results when we
combine "energy" and "entropy". Consider a certain being (entity) in
a specific environment. They will have together a specific free
energy. Put the same being in a different environment and together
they will have a different free energy. The free energy in each case
tell us how they will react.

A being will change (become) with respect to its environment when the
free energy of both decreases. A being will not become when the free
energy has to increase. Thus, for example, the coal will burn in an
environment of oxygen because the free energy will decrease. But coal
will not react in an environment of HF when the free energy has to
increase.

Should the coal be able to change its internal composition, it might
change such that it will react in HF. However, the coal cannot
self-organise into a new composition. On the other hand, living
organisms can self-organise. Humans can self-organise their brain.
This physcial self-organisation of the brain is mentally known as
learning. Learning about a topic increases the mental free energy of
a person with respect that topic as its environment.

A person who is competent with respect to a specific topic has a high
free energy with respect to that specific topic. This high free
energy was obtained through learning (mental self-organisation) about
that topic. Because of this high free energy, the competent being
(person) can become (cause changes).That same competent person will
be incompetent with respect to another topic when the person did not
acquire through learning a high free energy with respect to the other
topic.

Thus, when a competent person is employed, the employer is paying
for a high free energy with respect to a certain topic. It is like
buying petrol (gasoline) for a car. Petrol and oxygen have a high
free energy for change. But water and oxygen have a low free energy
for change. Thus, nobody will buy water as fuel for a car.
Similarly, nobody will employ an incompetent person because it will
amount to paying for low free energy.

Wow, what a clinical decription we have above! It is much less
understandable as Doc's description referred to earlier. But the
technical laguage in it makes it at least as horrible . However,
hopefully this technical language will help us to see what we are
doing. Let us use Doc's medicine

> I simply ask that you speak with truth from those experiences, and
> from the wisdom you receive from others, but don't project your
> opinions on me and call them truth.

We hire and fire people just as we buy petrol for fuel or refuse to
buy water for fuel. We have made people a commodity, just as we have
made about anything else with a high free energy a commodity. We
treat these commodities as beings, calling on their becomings
fired by their high free energies only when it pleases us. Otherwise
they have to remain in closed storage.

However, employees are not mere beings. They are also becomings. To
deny their becoming until it is needed, is to deny them as creative
systems, physically and spiritually. To use any ranking method to see
how much mileage (free energy) we can get out of them, is cleverly
disguised slavery. When will we stop to act as free energy vampires?

Here is the way which we should move forward. Managers ought to know
far in advance how changes will effect their organisation. They ought
to know which employees will be affected detrimentally. Thus they
should warn these these employees far in advance of such changes and
should assist them in preparing for such changes. Should the employee
not heed to such warnings and should they not participate in any
subsequent learning offered, only then should they be fired. A
mangager who fires people because of his/her own lack of reading the
future and make timely changes, should be the first one to be fired.

Best wishes

-- 

At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

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