Change Management : The Columbo Theory

Overview: Systems are perfectly designed and operated to get the results they get, yet do they get the results they want, or could potentially get? Not hardly! Systems operate the way they do, not because of what we understand, but because of what we don't understand. We are for the most part consistently victims of our own ignorance. A system is an entity which maintains its existence through the interaction of its parts. This is Bertalanffy's definition, with which I have become most comfortable because of its simplicity and its implications. The key element of this definition is "interaction," rather than "parts." A system is composed of subsystems and at the same time a subsystem of one or more other systems. And, it is the interaction of the parts of a system which is responsible for its emergent characteristics. Emergent meaning that the system as a whole has properties one can not find by studying the parts, like wetness emerging from the interaction of hydrogen and oxygen in a system called water. We each choose what we believe, and then we believe what we choose, and one reinforces the other. The best that I could possibly hope for is to provoke thought, which I can never do if I discount you, because you become deaf to my words.

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Format: HTML | Date: Jan 2003 | Pages: 1