Discussion: View Thread

I admit to understanding no more than 2 percent of Steven Henderson's response to my question. I think I am not academic enough. To me, we make decisions all the time, and not just because we don't know what to do! It seems to me we could get through/beyond some of the highflown academic solutions if we looked at things practically FIRST, get some clues from how we actually DO things, then learn from the academics how we might do things better, more effectively.

I bow to academia for now.


Edryce


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Edryce

I'm dismayed that I have written something which is 98 per cent
incomprehensible to you. Apologies, please let me try again.

You want to look at decisions (or whatever) before you apply a paradigm.
The word paradigm means "way of seeing". Thus, you cannot look at anything
and comprehend it without invoking a paradigm by definition. What you see,
and where you look, are governed by the paradigm, whether this is explicit
or not.

The paradigm that dare not speak its name here is PRACTICAL (your upper
case). My chosen paradigm is not, perhaps that's why you cannot see more
than 2 per cent of what I say. I would say that the academic name for
practical in your terms tends to be "functionalist", in Morgan and Burrell
speak at least. The rational basis of this paradigm does not allow the
possibility that our social conditions require individuals (in this case
managers) to continually deal with problems that have no solutions.
Further, anything that we don't currently understand must be created by
recent changes - technology, world politics etc. - because the world must
be more complex and difficult than ever before or we would understand and
know what to do.

Hence, from a functionalist perspective deparadoxifing strategies sound
ridiculous and trivial, and it seems that if only we could be more creative
then solutions are just within our grasp. From, say an interpretivist
paradigm, we would say that people have always had to deal with unknowable
things, particularly since the industrial revolution and this year is no
different from any other in that general respect. Deparadoxifying
strategies are practical ways of dealing with things we don't and can't
understand. Searching for "real" solutions is impractical.

Neither of these paradigms and interpretations of 'practical' are true.
They are both ways of looking and seeing. I would say that you can only
accept one as true by employing a deparadoxifing strategy, but that's only
my way of looking at it.


Hope I reach double figures of meaningful content this time, and I hope you
have a good week end


All good wishes


Steven Henderson

ZPF Communications Glactica - If its clear then it's probably wrong

Dear Steve: I must confess that I must be as "unacademic" as Edryce. I
can't quite follow this and wonder what this deparadoxifying stuff is
all about. I'm also not sure about your discussion of functionalist and
interpretive paradigms and how it relates. These paradigms, as you
know, exist within in a continuum and don't seem to me to be quite as
black and white as I think you are describing. In other words, I don't
think that if you are a functionalist, you are unable to deal with
problems that have no solutions. I'm not sure that any of the paradigms
deal with unsolvable problems except for one piece of the interpretive
paradigm which embraces solipsism- in which case it's all hopeless
because they think the world exists within our own minds. There is an
intellectual place for that discussion, but back to Edryce's plea for
practical (mine too), since most of live and work within the business
environment, chaos reigns if we run businesses this way. It reminds me
of what my son says to certain ideas: "Whatever". So, I'm glad that
many of us think that unsolvable problems don't exist- perhaps
confounding problems. But there is always an approach that hopefully
gets us closer to a solution or resolution.

So, can you help me out here and tell me how your concept of
deparadoxifying is helpful from a management perspective. How does this
help the managers I teach or those I consult to make different and
better decisions. In the word of me, the functionalist, how do you
operationalize all of this?

Cheers.



Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361



-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Steven Henderson
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2004 12:38 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Question - Reaction to Steven Henderson's response


Edryce

I'm dismayed that I have written something which is 98 per cent
incomprehensible to you. Apologies, please let me try again.

You want to look at decisions (or whatever) before you apply a paradigm.
The word paradigm means "way of seeing". Thus, you cannot look at
anything and comprehend it without invoking a paradigm by definition.
What you see, and where you look, are governed by the paradigm, whether
this is explicit or not.

The paradigm that dare not speak its name here is PRACTICAL (your upper
case). My chosen paradigm is not, perhaps that's why you cannot see more
than 2 per cent of what I say. I would say that the academic name for
practical in your terms tends to be "functionalist", in Morgan and
Burrell speak at least. The rational basis of this paradigm does not
allow the possibility that our social conditions require individuals (in
this case
managers) to continually deal with problems that have no solutions.
Further, anything that we don't currently understand must be created by
recent changes - technology, world politics etc. - because the world
must be more complex and difficult than ever before or we would
understand and know what to do.

Hence, from a functionalist perspective deparadoxifing strategies sound
ridiculous and trivial, and it seems that if only we could be more
creative then solutions are just within our grasp. From, say an
interpretivist paradigm, we would say that people have always had to
deal with unknowable things, particularly since the industrial
revolution and this year is no different from any other in that general
respect. Deparadoxifying strategies are practical ways of dealing with
things we don't and can't understand. Searching for "real" solutions is
impractical.

Neither of these paradigms and interpretations of 'practical' are true.
They are both ways of looking and seeing. I would say that you can only
accept one as true by employing a deparadoxifing strategy, but that's
only my way of looking at it.


Hope I reach double figures of meaningful content this time, and I hope
you have a good week end


All good wishes


Steven Henderson

ZPF Communications Glactica - If its clear then it's probably wrong

Deborah,

Not all postings will fit the needs of all recipients.

For me, I found giggles in Steve's posting.
Then I realized that I didn't know my own terms.

How many decisions are made:
On the basis of myth and paradigm instead of on logic and information?
Through dysfunctional mindsets rather than functional?
On assumptions never questioned?
On the basis of language we've never defined?

New bits of language help me see areas I've glossed over.
Areas in which I'm working from assumption instead of clarity.

Will deparadoxifying join my lexicon? No.
Will I benefit from using it to do a bit of learning? That is far more
likely.

Best,

Gary



----------------------------
Innovation and Branding - done Strategically

Gary Lundquist - The Accelerator
Market Engineering International
303-840-9929 www.market-engineering.com
garyl@market-engineering.com

Making and keeping satisfied customers,
at a profit, over time,
in a competitive environment.

I agree that not all postings fit the needs. But my question was very
basic and completely sincere. I have absolutely no idea what
depardoxifying means, how and when this term came into being, and what
to do with it. So, I'm still in the dark and would love to be
enlightened.

Collegially.

deborah

Deborah Nixon
University of Toronto
704 Windermere Ave
Toronto Ont M6S 3M1
Ph: 416-763-6985
Fax: 416-763-3361



-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary Lundquist
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 12:05 PM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Question - Reaction to Steven Henderson's response


Deborah,

Not all postings will fit the needs of all recipients.

For me, I found giggles in Steve's posting.
Then I realized that I didn't know my own terms.

How many decisions are made:
On the basis of myth and paradigm instead of on logic and
information?
Through dysfunctional mindsets rather than functional?
On assumptions never questioned?
On the basis of language we've never defined?

New bits of language help me see areas I've glossed over.
Areas in which I'm working from assumption instead of clarity.

Will deparadoxifying join my lexicon? No.
Will I benefit from using it to do a bit of learning? That is far
more likely.

Best,

Gary



----------------------------
Innovation and Branding - done Strategically

Gary Lundquist - The Accelerator
Market Engineering International
303-840-9929 www.market-engineering.com
garyl@market-engineering.com

Making and keeping satisfied customers,
at a profit, over time,
in a competitive environment.

From: Kim Warren [mailto:Kim@strategydynamics.com]

As a newcomer to this group, I've been trying to get a sense of what is
important to the community, and Gary's comments certainly resonate with
my experience of my own little piece of the business field - Strategic
Management. Coming to the study of management after 15 years of
practice, there seemed to be a considerable disconnect - the issues
discussed in research and the frameworks we were teaching had little to
do with the questions that had once concerned me and my colleagues in
the 'real world'

Gary's comments seem to summarise precisely what I have since found ...

1 - we use abstract language, with little attempt at consistency, both
for the questions we pose [what exactly is 'competitive advantage'?] and
the factors we hope will answer those questions [what exactly is an
organisation's competence?]

2 - the answers we discover are so broad and approximate to be of little
practical value [the 'competitive forces' at work in our industry
determine firms' profitability .. except that they don't, accounting for
only 20-25% of performance variance]

3 - there is little knowledge accumulation ... each new strategy-fad
junks those that went before [and astonishingly, that very rough
'industry forces' framework - now over 20 years old - is still the only
semi-respected analytical framework to be used by strategy
professionals]

4 - 'myth and paradigm' do indeed, as Gary observes, dominate teaching
and practice through slogan-based strategy ... 'if Walmart is doing it
[or GE, or ABB, or Enron], it must be great!' - regardless of 'its'
appropriateness for *our* situation

The result? - a truly appalling record of unprofessional strategic
management, in spite of what is now half a century of massively costly
study and 'analysis'. So three cheers for Gary's request for language
that is well-defined and commonly shared, for evidence-based frameworks
to replace hopelessly approximate statistical coincidences, and some
decent standards of professionalism amongst those who define, manage and
advise on organisational strategy.

Kim Warren - London Business School.



-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Lundquist [mailto:garyl@market-engineering.com]
Sent: 17 January 2004 17:05
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Question - Reaction to Steven Henderson's response

Deborah,

Not all postings will fit the needs of all recipients.

For me, I found giggles in Steve's posting.
Then I realized that I didn't know my own terms.

How many decisions are made:
On the basis of myth and paradigm instead of on logic and
information?
Through dysfunctional mindsets rather than functional?
On assumptions never questioned?
On the basis of language we've never defined?

New bits of language help me see areas I've glossed over.
Areas in which I'm working from assumption instead of clarity.

Will deparadoxifying join my lexicon? No.
Will I benefit from using it to do a bit of learning? That is far
more
likely.

Best,

Gary



----------------------------
Innovation and Branding - done Strategically

Gary Lundquist - The Accelerator
Market Engineering International
303-840-9929 www.market-engineering.com
garyl@market-engineering.com

Making and keeping satisfied customers,
at a profit, over time,
in a competitive environment.

Since a helpful posting has recently invoked the elephant tale much cited
in organisational learning literature and its related stuff, I thought the
following from extract from something written by Deborah Blackman might be
thought amusing


A commonly cited tale is that of a group of blind men that individually
seek to understand the nature of an elephant. Each man felt one bit of the
elephant and thought he now knew what the whole looked like by comparing
what he felt with what he already understood; e.g. a snake, a tree etc. and
extrapolating the idea. Only by sharing their mental models can the men
understand the nature of elephants.





Unless........ the first blind man feels a trunk and describes the animal


to the second blind man. The second blind man finds the elephant's tail and


confirms the shape of the animal but questions its dimensions. The third


blind man finds the elephant's legs and concludes that the animal lives in


a wood. The fourth blind man is something of an empiricist. He seeks for a


different subject to confirm the earlier observations. To everyone's


relief, he confirms the presence of both creatures in another wood. A fifth


blind man ? a rationalist ? points out that all observations imply that the


two creatures are a pair, and live in adjacent trees. Together the blind


men build up a logical, empirically verifiable complex and perhaps even


helpful superstition. Their mental models converge. It is worth noting that


none of the blind men is tall enough to reach the elephant's ears. Even if


accurate sharing had occurred, the systems analysis of the elephant would


have a large part of the picture missing, and this may be crucial in


predicting system outputs.





A final blind man - who has thread the lateral thinking thread - does not
search the elephant, but examines its environment, finding a large quantity
of a soft, foul smelling substance under the tree inhabited by the smaller
snake like creature. Since this creature cannot have produced the volumes
found, the final blind man argues that another creature perhaps, called
dark mammal, lives higher in the tree than can be currently detected.
(Blackman and Henderson 2003)


All good wishes


Steven Henderson
steven.henderson@solent.ac.uk

(Amazingly chuffed to have a thread with his name in it even if the
comments aren't all that complimentary)

Deborah

Quite right. Paradigms are not incommensurable, as I seem to imply. The
Burrell and Morgan paradigms I refer to (functionalist, radical
structuralist, interpretative and humanist) were based upon conflicting
epistemological and ontological assumptions, and thus appear to be as black
and white as I said, but as such are not particularly good as proxies for
the muddle that goes on in our heads.

My sons say "whatever" too. I think I said "what's the hassle man" to my
parents (I suspect its a sign of syllable deflation). I don't think it's
because they are happy about problems that cannot be resolved, I think it's
because my paradigm identifies problems that they do not (school work, tidy
rooms etc.), while I am the problem in the world they see themselves in.

Deparadoxifying strategies are no more than a name for routines we use to
deal with problems that have no solutions. For example, it is impossible to
know which candidate is best to employ once you have eliminated all the
obviously unsuitable ones (ignoring that this too may be problematic).
However, there may be all sorts of strategies for dealing with this - after
all, if unsuitable candidates have been eliminated then maybe it doesn't
really matter that much. However, we may have some ranking process
strategy, we may wait to see what the boss wants, we may take the least
able bodied to fit in with social or legal pressure, or we may appoint the
person we fancy most. We resolve our problem without having to worry that
we don't and cannot know whether or not we have made the right, or even a
good, decision. Following Kim Warren's excellent posting, strategic
management is clearly impossible, one cannot know enough things about the
future to management effectively in the present. Practical scholars produce
an unremitting stream of nonsense aimed at this paradox. Some of which is
adopted by people who pay money for it, and while it lasts this is taken as
knowledge validation. Consultants make a living implementing versions of
these ideas (and it may improve or damage the company). Managers either
muddle along with temporal deparadoxifying strategies (formalised and
packaged as logical incrementalism) or copy each other (cognitive
deparadoxifying strategies - evolutionary strategic management) or process
deparadoxifying strategies (reengineered total learning scorecard
management) and so on. It may be that these strategies become so habitual
that we forget that we don't know how do strategic management. If we teach
them well enough, then (say) MBA students become frustrated that their
firms don't or can't implement these things effectively.

How do I operationalise these things with the students I teach and the
managers who pay for my time? I hope, with style and conscientiousness,
thank you for asking Deborah.


All good wishes


Steven Henderson
People Paradigm Consulting inc
If you can say it, you can sell it.