>You point to an important distinction between business and other
>activities. But, I'd like to reframe what practice is. In your post, I
>assume you refer to practice as doing something when there are >no/less
>consequences so that it is safer to learn and try new things to build
>skills; we go "offline." In business, we don't get much time to practice
>off-line, but every time we do anything, aren't we are practicing as well
>as performing? It is our relationship to it, our interpretation that has
>it be practice rather than execution.
In business, it seems the only ones who practice are the marketing people.
In manufacturing, finance, management, and especially technology, practice
is a time-consuming, expensive proposition. In management, ideas and
proposals can be bandied about and scenarios proposed until a final course
of events is settled on. In other areas we don't often have the luxury.
In computers, setting up a test system to confirm results is just as
expensive as the proposed system, and sometimes the only recouse is
simulation - but that is still a limited view.
In the performing arts, practice is the lifeblood of an organization. In
business, performance is survival, much like the hunter-gatherer
environment, where if you want to eat, you have to get out there and do
the job. You can practice with weapons until you get better, but that is
no comparison to fighting with a live, dangerous foe or animal.
Practice, I agree, is essential to doing things right. With technology,
it helps a GREAT deal to have a test environment to mimic the real thing.
My experience is that each situation has its own unique combinations and
challenges, and that some type of practice may help. In that sense, we
practice as we go - the performance becomes the practice becomes the
performance, at infinitum.
Computers could help us so much in this area, with Senge's description of
microworlds and the use of simulation, we could model business situations
and gauge our responses and the results to make better judgements. What a
great tool this could be to show us consequences without the
consequences.....I would personally love to help develop or promote
software to do this....what a boon to managers trying to manage dynamic
complexity.
Tom Clifford
cliffotj@state.mi.us
--"Tom J. Clifford" <CLIFFOTJ@state.mi.us>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>