Adaptive Action and Schroedinger’s Cat

Two articles particularly caught my eye this week. Both are well worth a read.

The first, by Lisa Gill, begins by quoting Margaret Wheatley who suggests that:

“I realised I had been living in a Schroedinger’s cat world in every organisation I had ever been in. Each of these organisations had myriad boxes, drawn in endess renderings of organisational charts. Within each of these boxes lay “a cat,” a human being, rich in potential, whose fate was determined, always and irrevocably, by the act of observation.” 

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Words in their speaking

We don’t just use words and language to name and describe things. More often than not our words are designed to do things: to direct; to evoke; to command; to unsettle and to pacify or calm – and much more!.

As obvious as this may seem, and as central as it is to how we go about our everyday business, we generally have very limited awareness of this aspect of our own involvement in the various circumstances that go to make up the multitude of intersecting worlds we inhabit.

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Recommended – Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein

Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling

“Questions are taken for granted rather than given a starring role in the human drama. Yet all my teaching and consulting experience has taught me that what builds a relationship, what solves problems, what moves things forward is asking the right questions.”

“What we choose to ask, when we ask, what our underlying attitude is as we ask—all are key to relationship building, to communication, and to task performance.”

Edgar Schein,

I will do a larger review early in the new year. These quotes are a taster!