Morality in Learning Organisations LO17810

Fred Nickols (nickols@worldnet.att.net)
Fri, 17 Apr 1998 13:39:22 +0000

Replying to Mnr AM de Lange in LO17776 --

At de Lange closes his reply to Richard Hills by asking:

>Is it possible for an organisation to be a LO and persist in
>acting immoral?

At's question has two components: (1) the nature of a Learning
Organization (LO), and (2) the possibility of such an organization
persistently acting in immoral ways.

Regarding the first component:

If by "LO" is meant an organization where knowledge is being created,
captured, and communicated in ways that enable its further use by people
who didn't create the knowledge, then I would say that any organization,
regardless of its "morality," could be an LO.

Regarding the second component:

I do not believe that organizations act in any fashion, immoral or
otherwise. My favorite statement on this score is, "Organizations don't
do anything, people do." (Originating with Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch,
in "Organization & Environment," if memory serves.) That stipulated, I
believe it is possible for moral and immoral people alike to continue
learning while continuing to act morally or immorally, as the case may be.
I also believe that people who act immorally can learn and change in ways
that their patterns of behavior are no longer characterized by acts
labeled as immoral. In other words, immoral people become moral people.
The reverse is true as well.

"Moral" and "immoral," like "competent" and "incompetent," are to me
labels applied to the observed behavior patterns of others. If they are
internal states, then I have no way of knowing anything about the morality
or competence of anyone else. All I know is what I can determine from
their behavior (verbal and nonverbal).

Having said all this, it occurs to me that the consultant's favorite toy
(the 2x2 matrix) might offer an interesting structure to explore the
interactions of morality and competence.

On one axis array moral and immoral. On the other array competent and
incompetent. The resulting cells are as follows:

moral competence
moral incompetence
immoral competence
immoral incompetence

Four brief "starter" definitions follow (these are "up for grabs," so fire
away):

o Moral Competence. The state of proficiency that results from the
actions a person takes to acquire the ability to perform socially
acceptable tasks and duties.

o Moral Incompetence. The state of proficiency that results from the
refusal of a person to acquire the ability to perform assigned tasks
and duties that are socially unacceptable.

o Immoral Competence. The state of proficiency that results from the
actions a person takes to acquire the ability to perform socially
unacceptable tasks and duties.

o Immoral Incompetence. The state of proficiency that results from the
refusal of a person to acquire the ability to perform assigned tasks
and duties that are socially acceptable.

In short, we can chose to become or not become proficient at the right
things or the wrong things.

Whatcha think?

Regards,

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm

"The Internet offers the best graduate-level education
to be found anywhere."

-- 

Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>