More from Carman de voer:
Great questions Lisa, Perhaps I could begin to address them through a practical illustration:
I recently heard about a professional bureaucracy that is experiencing high turnover of its trainees—which, in such an organization, is surprising given the time, money and personnel allocated to training. Furthermore, neophytes exhibit enormous enthusiasm and commitment.
In terms of the brain metaphor (cybernetics) the organization could pursue the following:
Ask questions:
1) What is it about our culture that contributes to high turnover? What do trainees tell us (via exit interviews)? How might the workload exceed the limitations of trainees? What kind of treatment do trainees receive once on the job? Is it civil or uncivil? In other words, surface noxiants.
Avoid noxiants: (set limits on undesirable behavior):
2) Don’t browbeat. Don’t overload (with information). Don’t exceed the capabilities of trainees. Don’t impose unreasonable deadlines. Don’t proscribe social [professional] interaction with co-workers.
Morgan says: “Cybernetics shows us that effective management depends as much on the selection of the limits that are to be placed on behaviour as on the active pursuit of desired goals” (p.99)
I would like to further delve into your questions tomorrow Lisa (I’m off to work now).
Bye for now!
Hi Lisa,
I’ll try to paraphrase your questions:
1. Is emergent (bottom-up) organization compatible with goals and direction (top-down)?
2. When is the imposition of limits appropriate?
Morgan explains that “the intelligence of the human brain is not predetermined, predesigned, or preplanned. Indeed, it is not centrally driven in any way. It is a decentralized emergent phenomenon. Intelligence evolves.” (p.94)
Morgan calls vision, norms, values or limits “cybernetic reference points.” Though they guide behavior and prevent complete randomness they also create a valuable space “in which learning and innovation can occur.”
To return to the example of the trainees:
Managers seem to have slain the goose to get the golden egg (forgive the worn-out analogy). Conversely, by referring to the philosophy (vision and values) of the organization they might have avoided short-term thinking (and the tyranny of targets!) and encouraged the emergence of new behaviours.
For example, might trainees eventually have fostered more effective ways of serving clients (and accomplishing goals)? Might such behaviour have enabled new insights and learning for managers? In short, could managers have learned from learners?
Tomorrow we can discuss single-loop versus double-loop learning if you like Lisa. Once we have beggared the brain metaphor perhaps you would like to select the Morgan metaphor that especially interests you.
Well, I’m off to the Stanley Park seawall, which I love to walk each weekend. Sometimes I see seals and sometimes they see me. Heavy fog in Vancouver today. Reminds me of a Conan Doyle novel. Sweet symphony from KUWY (on computer) without and Starbucks coffee within–the Lark is ascending!
Bye for now!