Hierarchies, decision making and a real-life example

Wed Apr 7 07:56:37 PDT 2004

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:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris
Corrigan
Sent: 06 April 2004 17:13
To: OSLIST at 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
> Wcbn007 at easynet.co.uk
>
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