This page aims to point to a small sample of the excellent internationally available articles. - we hope you enjoy reading. and learning, from them. There can be little doubt that "Knowledge" is readily available. Our challenge is to apply this knowledge within our society.
By Margaret Wheatley
We believe this to be a very important article from Margaret Wheatley's web site. It uses the example of the Bush Administration's aim to enhance the USA's education system. Its title was "No Child Left Behind." It utilised conventional change theory of determination from the top, careful planning and good controls with rewards and punishment to motivate people. The outcomes was opposite to what was intended, it in fact damaged the education system. It was inadvertently high jacked by general perceptions of American society such as a focus on results rather than the whole system, use of simple metrics to describe complex problems, an increasing reliance on testing to sort students etc. Her belief is that large scale system-wide change emerges from working locally. Enabling local experimentation and learning and creating networks to build local learning into an emergent national dynamic for change.
By H Tom Johnson
Professor of Business Studies - Portland State University - USA - tomj@sba.pdx.edu
The 2007 Shingo Research Prize
We, in the West, view our organisations as mechanical; entities that can be broken down into parts; and we manage each part with a budget or a target. But should we in fact be viewing an enterprise as a "natural living system?" A system where relationships are vital. Tom is an accountant by profession who is very aware of the damage that we have allowed acountants to do to our organisational thinking. He has developed his thinking through studying Toyota where he recognises that they see "improvement primarily in terms of a system of relationshiops - human social systems that is the busienss - and not simply in terms of arithmetic sum of seperate parts." - In other words we move forward by looking at the whole system, not the parts - very relevant to our concept of society having a learning ability.
Tom, with Anders Broms have written the excellent book "Profit Beyond Measure" see Bibliograhy.
John is a very profound thinker in context of learning society - the need to create a society that is continually learning without and any one of us having to know all that much. John is the Author of "The New Wealth of Nations" and is co-editor of "Competence in the Learning Society" The following are some of John's articles.
John Web site is: http://www.eyeonsociety.co.uk/index.html
The Influence of C I Lewis on Shewhart and Deming
by C T Peterson
An underpinning theme of this site is the importance of knowledge; and it is heavily influenced by the work of Walter Shewhart and W Edwards Deming. A key element in Deming's "System of Profound Knowledge" is what he refers to as "The Theory of Knowledge." In this regard he was influenced by the work of C I Lewis, especially his work "Mind and the World Order." It is a work of serious philosophy. This article brings the thinking more into realm of the everyday reader.
by Myron Tribus
This is a classic paper looking at variation within organisations. While variation occurs naturally in all our systems it does need to be controlled - or should we say limited. If there is large variation within our systems then the organisation will tend towards chaos. The more we can limit variation the more stable and controlable will be our organisations. Myron uses the analogy of the Germ Thoery in medicine. The more variation (germs) within an organisation the sicker it will be.
This article was made available through Ernst G Glasier and Noel Spare of The Swiss Deming Institute.
by William m Tsutsui
Deming and Juran's disciples are guilty of grossly overstating their influence in Japan. In fact they, themselves, were guilty of using their so called reputation as a marketing tool. In practice the transformation of a culture is much more complex. We hold the works of Deming and Juran in the very highest esteem, but this article brings us down to earth and makes us recognise that the transformation of our culture is much more involved that the simple application of the advice of selected eminent scholars.
by Jake Chapman
The other relevant publication by Jake Chapman, emeritus professor of energy systems at the Open University, is his Demos booklet "Systems Failure - Why Governments must learn to think differently." (see http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/systemfailure2) This article is used by Jake as a precursor to his courses on Systems Thinking. It sketches the origins of systems thinking right through to its application in today's complex society.
by John Renesh
The transformation envisaged on this site has been likened to the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The metaphor was first used by Elisabet Sahtouris. This delightful short article encourages to keep pursuing our goal but to have patience. Our present culture is not sustainable in the long term.
by Paul Buxton - on behalf of SOLACE
The purpose of this report is to document some examples of the pernicious effects of Central Government’s command and control regime.
by Peter Senge
A letter from Peter Senge to Barack Obama on his inauguration as President of the USA. It was written from China. It is a call to move from a perspective of dominance to one of co-operation, to see the worlds problems as complex interdependent issues require all our cooperation. His particular concern is the environment. His concluding sentence is "The world has gotten used to an arrogant America. Rather than a sign of weakness, asking for help and partnership might just be the signal of hope that the world is looking for."
Other links will be developed as the initiative progresses.