Chris Corrigan wrote: Is there anything we can't measure? There are lots of things I don't want ever to try to measure; I was brought up as I guess any reasoning mathematician should be: there are liars, damn liars and statisticians (a state I post-graduated in for my sins)
To preserve my sanity , my translation of these bon mots is: "don't ever apply maths to human systems unless you care deeply about the models and their openness" (by this test most accountants and management consultants wherever they use their additive measurements today appear such poor mathematicians they shouldn't be influencing companies' leaders -just take out an annual company report (if you ever pass such an obscenity) look at those pages at the back that pretend they are adding up performance to the decimal point, and shred the thing because a mathematical model of what thousands of people produced with no multiplication in it is utterly meaningless in telling you what will happen next to that organisational system, whereas because we live in a service/knowledge era much of what will happen is already destined by the relationships of goodwill or badwill already invested in that system's connectivity- PERHAPS MOST OF ALL today I wish we could change what people mean by measurement To illustrate the second point, have you ever considered how wonderful maps are They connect what you want to do with other people so simply that everyone can use them YET a map's practical use depends wholly on good measurement It is my contention that in a world where there are those that insist organisations must have measurements we give them maps, and then demonstrate those maps are very nearly the best an organisation will get to measuring, and wholly systemically different from the ruinous performance measurements in use currently In this sense a map is : Both a conversation and visualisation of connectivity Of relationships needed so that productivity and demand relationships win-win around a context an organisation is suppose to revolve round as a human system There is no point of a map unless its so simple to open that anyone of any discipline can walk on the map and participate with confidence And if we put the appropriate value coordinates on the map , people will enjoy learning and accomplish great work , respect each other and flow trust , and in fact serve all stakeholders in ways that compound goodwill both for the organisation and across networks of collaborating organisations, societies etc So just like I have no fear of a map which tells me how to get to Potomac as quickly as possible when I need more spirit, there should be no reason to fear maps of organisations if we calibrated these as trustworthy human relationship infrastructures, and do so simply and openly If that is the task then the good news is maths can provide a standard to deliver that...so why not open source it....as we open space? Does this sort of answer your question? Chris Macrae www.valuetrue.com -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Chris Corrigan Sent: 06 April 2004 17:13 To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Hierarchies, decision making and a real-life example chris macrae wrote: > ---------------------------------------------------------------- > Chris Macrae > For 20 years researching social and organisational identities I was > weary about measuring organisational relationships, but then the > mathematician in me woke up. Measurements don't just determine what you > get but what human systems compound. With deep respect (open communing > once freed up everywhere that 95% of management techniques destroy it > (to interpret a Harrison one-liner) is a far more creative/human thing > than measurement) BUT its way too late to turn global valuation systems > round UNLESS we change measurement around This is really useful stuff Chris, because it gives me some language to talk to the measure happy folks about the effect that internal health and wellbeing has on an organization and a person. And I like the work on flow of course, in fact just last night I was reading a great interview on Flow and Soul (http://www.wie.org/j21/csiksz.asp) with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who talks about the role of flow and soul in human evolution. But here's a question for the mathematician in you. Is there anything we can't measure? Or is the mathematical model one that says only that which is measurable is real? I'm prepared to accept either answer, just so you know this isn't a trick question. It opens up an interesting phenomenological conversation for me that has lots of implications for my work with organizations. So what do you think? Chris > > So for example the direct answer to your OST question is very easy > > There are now standard batteries on the main emotions : happiness , > trust, courage etc > > Take those before and after an OST intervention in an organisation; > happiness ought to go up if the intervention had anything to do with > cultivating self-organising. Reason joy of learning is the number 1 > self-organising energy according to 15000 interview on Flow done at > Peter Drucker's Claremont by a professor whose name I can never spell > but is begins Csik. > > Turns out the positive win-win emotions are a good health check of how > hi-trust relationships are being organised around here; and hi-trust > (=goodwill) compounds the vast majority of any networked organisation's > future > > SO > More broadly with our open source work www.valuetrue.com we feel > confident that all you all need to do is tell a story that begins > something like this: > > The Future is now measurable > It is impossible to govern an interactive world by separable numbers. > The harder you try the more likely you are to do an Andersen to your > organisation's valuation. Moreover, without maps of organisational > networks a strategy isn't interactively worth the paper its printed on. > > These mathematical facts present leadership teams with the greatest > opportunities and threats ever to have confronted big organisations. > Fortunately, the necessary transformation : mapping human relationships > that connect goodwill systems together is very simple to do provided you > cultivate a hi-trust climate and benchmark transparently with your > biggest partners. Welcome to the Network Age of Value Multiplication of > Business and Societal Organisational Designs. Sorry it took our systems > club 21 years to work out the maths of global & local networking, but > better late than never. chris & norman macrae > wcbn...@easynet.co.uk > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, > Visit: > > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > > * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html