Just as the laws of physics aren’t useful when actually sailing a boat, nor chemistry when trying to heal a patient, I don't find any of the [idealised work] models much use at the coalface of organisations.
- Open Management
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If you don’t obey the law of physics, you possibly don’t survive sailing the boat.
What’s the point you’re trying to get across here?
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I don't need to know the laws of physics to sail a boat. They dont come up in discussion while sailing one.
To do modern design of a boat, or even to optimise sailing technique, they inform the discussion, especially at the leading edge. But day to day sailing, nah.
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The coalface of organisations is sailing and designing at the same time though isn't it?
None of us would be talking about this if we we just sailing in the ship we are given...
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if the position is that people do not know the names of the theory(ies) they are enacting, ok sure.
Even though they don't know the name (or the law), if they are talking about the phenomenon, they are talking about the phenomenon.
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I had a manager that once told me” Alidad I don’t understand why you need to know the theory of things before you do it. I’m an action man”.I told him, everyone have a theory of action, you just don’t explicitly know it and are allowing your autopilot to decide for you.
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The flip side is that work-as-imagined is always different (sometimes a little, sometimes very) from work-as-done, and true expertise (which in fairness “action man” managers tend to lack) comes from mastery of the latter—whether or not those experts can explain it!
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And often they can’t! They’ll fall back on the textbook descriptions when asked. It’s only by studying their work in situ that folks start to work out what the real principles are
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This is the tip of the iceberg of several whole fascinating fields of study:
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Actually, I have a different blog post about the phenomenon being discussed here: commoncog.com/blog/the-right
In a complex system, you can’t reason using the rules of the layer below. You have to reason using the rules of the emergent behaviour/layer above it.
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It’s the same reason I don’t find neuroscience super useful when evaluating learning theories, for instance — whereas cognitive science or psych is more useful since it’s a higher level of abstraction.
is right — you do not need to understand physics when sailing.
Sorry, clarification: you can’t reason using rules of a layer TOO FAR below/above the layer you’re operating at.
So re: the learning example, cogsci deals with functional subsystems in the brain, which tends to be useful for learning; whereas neuroscience is just too low level.
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(This doesn’t mean that you should ignore neuroscience — just that you should be skeptical of its relevance if you’re focused on finding more effective learning methods — which is at least two levels up. I say I’m neuroscience aware but neuroscience agnostic for learning.)
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The difference is in what “understanding” truly means.
I didn’t know p=mv but I did know that I needed mass and swiftness to chop firewood with my machete.
I’ll leave it at that.
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