Jay's excellent insight incites me to remark on a great little paperback,
"The System Made Me Do It" by Susan Osborn, PhD, which models several
typical behaviors encountered in business settings and in other "peopled
systems" and dissects them in systems dynamics terms which reveals the best
ways to deal with them.
Sort of like Acupuncture for Management.
+++++++++++++++++original message +++++++++++++++
On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 Jay Warner wrote Re: MOTIVATION
>Clearly, we need to get at the reasons underneath the stated ones. I am
>reminded most of Berne, Eric, _Games People Play_, and the deeper book
>by Stern (or Steiner?), _Scripts People Live_. For example, the 'game,'
>"Help me... Yes, but." Every time I offer a solution, there is a reason
>why it won't work. Repeatedly. Must be a really difficult problem, if
>a visiting expert can't resolve it. Personally, it is very hard for me
>as answer-man to recognize this game, and drop out of it. However, I
>get hit with it about once per client visit, so I'm learning fast.
>
>In this game, as in others, the real rewards and objectives are hidden.
>Sometimes I can hear the real objectives in the sound of the voice, not
>the words. What survey people do, I can't imagine.
>