Transforming The Enterprise - 4

Path For Superior Application
(The HOW is per 20th Century)

It is easy to snap a twig but a bunch of twigs is another story. The concept of unity does not easily translate to humans though the lesson is not lost in translation. The problem is humans need a reason to unite and remain so. Fortunately the reason emerges from the need for superior application of Knowledge to overcome the negative force or the Knowing/Doing gap for driving success.

The way to success was clearly known as far back as 500 BC. It was recorded by Sun Tzu:

If you know the enemy and know yourself,

You need not fear the result of a hundred battles

i.e., Success follows emergence of Reality

In 1990 Peter Senge identified emerging the reality needed the following skills: 

• Surfacing assumptions and generalizations
• Team Learning and Team sharing
• System thinking to define and solve problems.

Senge concluded Feedback for Constructive Disagreement developed the skills

• Feedback = Knowledge free-flow in context

                         = Coordination of interventions

                         = Trust and Teamwork.

Success makes Feedback a lasting glue for forming a Collective

 

In brief: Feedback creates the Collective. The success achieved provides the Collective the reason to remain unified. Free-flow in context is a property of Feedback. It implies exchange of Knowledge with capture of content alongwith all references to define context. Organization for its delivery has proved to be a major stumbling block that IT has yet to cross.