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There are some who have an almost pathological objection to theory, and then there are some who believe there’s nothing more useful than a good theory. I fall into the latter camp. What I want to show here is that theory is a natural consequence of living, and that we Homo sapiens, are theory generating and using ‘machines’ and there’s nothing we can do about it. Theory making is natural, so if even if your first reaction is to reject theorising, and the people who you think create it, you too are a theorist. Don’t throw theory overboard, one day it might be just what you need. To illustrate my position I use two 'theories' from Max Boisot, E-space and C-space
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WHY THEORY IS USEFUL AND INESCAPABLE
UNDERSTANDING THEORY GENERATION USINGMAX BOISOT’S E-SPACE
PETER BONDLEARNING FUTURES CONSULTING
Sensible?
Desirable?
Realistic?
E=MC2
structurefollows strategy
spanof
control
positive feedback
organisationsaremachines
motivationtheory
expectancy
theory of
performance
blackholes
bigbang
THEORY GENERATING MACHINES
Benefits of Theory
Enables practice—gives you the foundation for practice
Allows you to stand on the shoulders of other, greater, practitioners
Greater acceleration toward good practice and higherstandards of professionalism
Teaches you the language of a profession
Opens up membership to a profession
A quicker way to a style of your own and a unique trademark or professional identity
PRACTICE —BUT WITH A MODEL OF SUPERIOR
PRACTICE IN MIND
doing/acting
doing/acting
reflecting on result
reflecting on result
accumulatingresult of acting
accumulatingresult of acting
growing personal
knowledge
Rehearsalloop
A model of learning by doing and thinking about doing. An iterative double cycle
Embrace a model
Where do modelscome from?
Max Boisot’s Epistomological Space
Max Boisot’s Epistomological Spaceco
difi
cati
on
abstraction
concretereality
E=MC2
modelsLearning toolssolutions
language
Models of good practice
explanations
Generating explanatio
ns of
experiences or p
henomena
Validatin
g models
and learning
by exp
eriment b
y usin
g
Max Boisot’s Cultural Space
The developingsolution
AccumulatingIndividual problem
Owners(forming a
Market)
The developingorganisation
(solution deliveryand support
solution
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