some questions
Hello. Could you suggest me a proper method for evaluating and continously improving quality on both high performance teams and the systems they manage? I«m trying to teach these teams (at a Mexican Brewery) about GST and how to define and improve their efficiency.
Looking forward to hear your comments,
Catalina Tamez Alvarado
Documentacin del Sistema de Calidad
Cervecera Cuauhtmoc Moctezuma Guadalajara
Tel. (013)66826-00 ext. 2878.
[From Rick Marken (2000.02.25.0745)]
Tamez Alvarado Catalina (2000.02.24) --
Hello. Could you suggest me a proper method for evaluating and
continously improving quality on both high performance teams and the
systems they manage? I�m trying to teach these teams (at a Mexican
Brewery) about GST and how to define and improve their efficiency.
I think there are people on this list (CSGNet) who are interested
in "quality" issues in business but it looks like they're busy with
other things right now.
Best
Rick
--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates mailto: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken
From Ken Hacker (August 3, 1993):
As I read more PCT literature, I wonder the following:
1. How does CT differentiate intentions, goals, objectives, and
purposes?
2. Is it correct to say that CT looks at objectives for humans as
more about maintaining perceptions than getting certain things
done as specific behaviors?
3. What do PCTers think of "self-organizing" theories of behavior?
Any ideas and even disturbances are appreciated. Thanks. Ken Hacker
From Tom Bourbon [930805.1152]
From Ken Hacker (August 3, 1993):
Ken, you asked some good questions. They go to the heart of the differences
between PCT and other theories of behavior.
As I read more PCT literature, I wonder the following:
1. How does CT differentiate intentions, goals, objectives, and
purposes?
There is little more I would add to Bill Powers reply to this question. In
a PCT model, the reference signal(s) play the part(s) of constructs that go
by many different names in other theories. Most other theories at least
imply that the actor has a relatively high degree of "awareness" or
"consciousness"about those constructs -- that the actor "knows about them."
That can also be the case for reference perceptions and reference signals,
in a PCT model, but in the model there can be many reference signals that
are "unconscious" or outside of "awareness." We assume that for a
person many perceptions are also "outside of awareness."
2. Is it correct to say that CT looks at objectives for humans as
more about maintaining perceptions than getting certain things
done as specific behaviors?
Yes. I believe that is the biggest difference between PCT and other
theories. PCT (the theory) starts from the fact that living systems
experience the world as perceptions, not as objective, direct knowledge
about things -- or behavior -- as such. As an example, a PCT explanation
of my typing this message would start with the idea that I everything I know
about my own actions and their consequences is in my perceptions. When I
plan this reply, I plan my perceptions, not the details of the actions that
produce them while I type the reply.
William James realized that intentional behavior is better understood as a
selection of what will be perceived when we act, rather than as a
designation of actions that will occur. The stroke of genius in the 1950s
and 1960s that led to PCT was the working out by Bill Powers, Bob Clark and
Bob McFarland of a functioning, generative, model that can behave to
control its modeled equivalent of a perception. They gave a formal
organization to a principle recognized to some degree by people as long ago
as Aristotle, and by others at the time of William James: purposive behavior
always entails selection of what will be perceived, with actions left free
to vary any way necessary for the realization of the selected results. In
the 50s and 60s, there were no personal computers, but nowadays someone
with even the simplest of the original PCs can run programs in which the
PCT model behaves, producing results strikingly close to those produced by
living control systems, including people. In fact, when I speak about and
demonstrate my programs in which two people interact in various ways, I have
recently adopted the practice of substituting the simplest possible PCT
model for one of the persons. The model and a person perform together and
the results are like those for two people. For the simple interactions
I demonstrate, I do not know of a version of any other model of behavior
that can perform live with a person. Certainly, no model that specifies its
actions in advance can produce results like that.
3. What do PCTers think of "self-organizing" theories of behavior?
Once again, I have nothing to add to what Bill Powers said in his reply.
Any ideas and even disturbances are appreciated. Thanks. Ken Hacker
I hope our replies have helped. You certainly are identifying the
important differences. Let us know more about the peper you are preparing,
and about your walk "between a cyclone and a dark closet." (That brings up
some interesting images.)
Until later,
Tom Bourbon
Department of Neurosurgry
University of Texas Medical School-Houston Phone: 713-792-5760
6431 Fannin, Suite 7.138 Fax: 713-794-5084
Houston, TX 77030 USA tbourbon@heart.med.uth.tmc.edu