The Tipping Point

[Artur Ferreira da Silva]

At 17:40 04-03-2003 -0900, Dan Chay wrote:

>On the possibility you haven't come across the book already, I thought I
>might share with you a quick summary/interpretation/taste of "The
>Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference," by Malcolm
>Gladwell (2000): http://www.gladwell.com/ .

Thanks for sharing the reference and for forwarding it to this list, Dan. I
had never heard about the book or the author and it was very illuminating.
I have already ordered the book ;-)

 From the quotations and superb headings that Dan provided, and the link I
followed, I began to make some interesting connections and to formulate
some questions to all of you.

First, I found a connection between Gladwell's concept of epidemics and my
own (unfinished) work on metanoia. This is a comment that I should probably
post to the LO-list. But the reason why I will probably not do that and
decided to post it in this list is clarified above...

Second, would you agree that all the major organizational transformations
emerge like epidemics or that, at least, this is a powerful analogy?

If it is so, can we also interpret the spreading of OST itself as an
epidemic? (and contrarily to other practices that are not - or no longer -
epidemics, like Senge's LO disciplines)?

On a different perspective, some epidemics, like AIDS, work through a
destruction of the body's "defense system". And Argyris and Schon argue
that the majority of organizations have strong difficulties in double loop
learning because they have "learning disabilities" (namely the "Model 1
theory-in-use"), that are similar to Freud's  "ego defense mechanisms" -
indeed they "defend" the system from change and transformation, hence from
learning.

So, would you agree that we can interpret the success of OST as a
transformation toll saying that somehow OST has the ability to bypass the
current "organizational defenses"?

And, if you agree, could we go still one step further and say that when an
OST is very successful in the moment, but unable to later allow for the
emergence of an OSO, somehow the "infection" is later controlled by the
organizational defenses? And, on the reverse side, if an OSO emerges, can
one conclude that the infection has won against the organizational defenses
and an "epidemic transformation" has emerged?

Two final notes: one to say that from my questions here you can see why I
like more my hypothesis that OST opens an otherwise closed system (with
organizational defenses and learning disabilities, I mean). The second to
inform that I will be out of touch during the next week - if there are any
answers to this or previous posts I will only see the dialogs and
eventually reply after one week...

Regards

Artur

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