Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky guide to the methodology of organization, leadership and management. G

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Georgy Shchedrovitsky
Organizational thinking: ideology, methodology, technology

Course of lectures 3rd edition, corrected and enlarged

Publishing house Art. Lebedev Studios

Responsible editor P. G. Shchedrovitsky

Editors G. A. Davydova, A. V. Rusakov

This book is the third edition of the course of lectures on management by G. P. Shchedrovitsky (1929–1994), a Russian thinker, philosopher, methodologist and public figure. The author believes that the activities of organization and management are leading for the development of any practical areas. The source of the principles of the methodological school of management is a deep theoretical and ontological study of organizational thinking. The knowledge and ideas that the methodology operates with are in the nature of prescriptions for action or projects for organizing activity (or thinking). Particular attention in the lectures is given to the systematic approach developed in the Moscow Methodological Circle.

The book is intended for specialists in organization, management and leadership, for undergraduate and graduate students of all specializations in the field of management.

P. G. Shchedrovitsky. Foreword

I go up the escalator of the Paveletskaya metro station, jump out into the street and, squinting from the sun, run to the crossing over the Garden Ring. On the opposite side of Sadovoye, near the bridge over the Moskva River, there is a typical Soviet building - it looks like it was built in the 1930s, made of brick, painted with yellowish paint. The Institute for Advanced Studies of the USSR Ministry of Energy is located here. It is here that the lectures of my father, Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky, and the organizational and activity game dedicated to management problems will begin today. Outside - May 1981.

Situation

In the Soviet Union since the late 1960s 1
According to the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of September 29, 1966, a plan was approved for the construction in the USSR (until 1977) of nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 11.9 million kW. The work of industry organizations went on simultaneously on several projects: RBMK-1000 and 1500 MW, VVER-440 and 1000 MW.

Plans for the construction of nuclear power plants (NPPs) began to expand significantly. Party and government documents, including a 1980 resolution, provided for the commissioning of 66.9 million kW between 1980 and 1991, as well as the creation of the necessary civil nuclear infrastructure to provide nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 100 GW. The active promotion of domestic nuclear technologies to the markets of Eastern and Northern Europe continues.

In the periods immediately preceding and following the reading of lectures by Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky at the IPK Ministry of Energy, a number of significant events take place in the nuclear industry 2
In 1980, the second VVER-440 unit was put into operation at the Loviisan NPP (Loviisan ydinvoimalaitos) in Finland; in the same year, the VVER-1000 head unit began operating at the site of the Novovoronezh NPP. In the future, from 1980 to 1993, 17 similar power units were launched on the territory of the USSR and the Russian Federation.

On April 8, 1980, the third block of the Beloyarsk NPP was launched, the construction of which lasted almost 13 years. In June 1981, the operation of the first unit of the Beloyarsk NPP was completed ahead of schedule. After the accident in December 1978, the fate of the first and second blocks was actively discussed and scenarios for the development of the site as a whole were being developed. Georgy Petrovich and members of his team were later involved in these discussions. 3
In 1981, from August 2 to 22, Georgy Petrovich held an organizational and activity game "Decommissioning and determining the prospects for further use of the NPP power unit" at the Beloyarsk NPP.

As the scale of construction of new power units increased, numerous problems of serial construction of nuclear power plants became more and more acute. Despite the ongoing development and further adoption in 1982 on the basis of the accumulated experience of “mandatory technological rules for the construction of a power unit” (the so-called OTP-82), which were focused on the serial construction of nuclear power plants 4
The second edition was adopted in 1986; OTP-86 for the first time formulated the requirement to build a typical nuclear power plant in 60 months.

These deadlines were violated everywhere and in fact the pace and quality of construction depended largely on the quality of management of a particular facility.

In the seventh lecture, Georgy Petrovich, having lost patience, read out an excerpt from the report of the government commission on the results of checking the progress of construction at the Kalinin NPP 5
The construction of the first unit of the Kalinin NPP began on February 1, 1977 (that is, by the time the program was implemented, it had already been under construction for more than 4 years), and the station was put into operation only on June 12, 1985.

“... At our construction site,” Georgy Petrovich quotes, “for many years the plan for commissioning capacities has not been fulfilled ... The main disadvantages of the construction of energy facilities are the insufficient concentration and dispersal of capital investments, an increase against the standard duration of construction, uneven commissioning of capacities throughout the year, uneven loading workers and technology, slow productivity growth. The construction results are negatively affected by the backlog of the Ministry’s own industrial base, chronic non-compliance with the principle of advanced construction of residential buildings, social and cultural facilities.”

Thus, the issue of construction management at that moment was extremely acute, which set the applied focus of the work that was carried out by the IPK of the Ministry of Energy with a reserve of personnel.

It should be said that from March 30 to April 4, 1981, at the request of the director of the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant, Vadim Mikhailovich Malyshev, Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky conducts an organizational and activity game “Ensuring the normal functioning and development of technologies and activities at nuclear power plants” in the town of Zarechny, Sverdlovsk Region. One of the consequences of the game was the involvement of Georgy Petrovich in discussing the situation in the industry and inviting him as a lecturer at the IPK of the Ministry of Energy to work with the personnel reserve.

Situation

Lectures Georgy Petrovich reads in parallel with the game 6
Georgy Petrovich gave lectures from May 25 to July 8, 1981; the game took place from May 25 to June 17, 1981. In the list of the first organizational and activity games - a method that Georgy Petrovich has been actively developing since the summer of 1979 - it takes ninth place.

The game is called "Introduction to the position of the head of the nuclear power plant construction department." A little later, Georgy Petrovich will play another game with the personnel reserve of the IPK of the Ministry of Energy - "Programming the social development of the NPP construction team."

The personnel reserve of the Ministry of Energy was a rather heterogeneous and uneven-aged team. As far as I remember, there were only two real heads of construction departments among the students of the 1981 summer course. Most reservists are deputies, both line and functional. But there were also several specialists who were at the lower levels of the notorious Soviet vertical of control, who, as is often the case in the practice of advanced training and retraining, were sent at the last moment to replace deputies from those construction sites where, as always in the summer months, " emergency."

Young professionals feel uncomfortable - especially at first, sitting at the same desk with the authorities, even if not their immediate, but a narrow layer, everyone, of course, knows each other. In the corridors, the employees of the IPC are whispering: for a long time there has not been such a representative composition. Already two real construction managers arrived; no one remembers this lately. Not without reason.

At the game, the audience is divided into groups of five people. A team of psychologists headed by Viktor Andreyevich Zargarov works with them. 7
Zargarov Viktor Andreevich is now the dean of the Novosibirsk Special Faculty of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Civil Servants.

Sociologist and psychologist from Novosibirsk. It was then fashionable to talk about teams and team building, about role structures, about more efficient use of the individual qualities and abilities of each manager. The nuclear industry also wants to be at the forefront here and make the most of both domestic and international experience in training managerial personnel, including in team mode. This is a separate line of study.

Taking office is a typical situation that any leader faces repeatedly in his career. Georgy Petrovich is experimenting with a game form. The game is built as a simulation game: you have been appointed the head of the NPP construction department; construction deadlines are disrupted; the party and the government expect the industry to put new energy facilities into operation in a timely manner; the country's economy needs cheap electricity; you arrived at the site; your first steps.

Indeed, where should the newly appointed leader begin his acquaintance with the situation on the site - with the team? How can he quickly identify the reasons for the delay from the approved schedule?

Here you are, for example, the deputy head of the construction department at the Novovoronezh NPP for transport? You have been appointed head of construction at the Kalinin NPP. It is the materials on the analysis of the situation at this station that are distributed to all participants in the game as a "case" for developing an action program. Your actions? Problem

Each of the readers can mentally put themselves in the place of "reservists" or recall similar situations from their managerial practice. “Georgy Petrovich, we need to convene a meeting,” the “newly minted” construction manager says either inquiringly or affirmatively after a rather long pause. “Well, then collect! See you through." “What, right here? Now?!" “Yes, here and now. Comrades, let's help, rearrange the tables to make a conference table. Here is a typical organizational structure of construction management. Materials about the real situation at one of the construction sites. Let's quickly distribute positions and roles among ourselves and get started.

How should a leader begin to get acquainted with the situation? Somewhat bewildered, the “head of the construction department” begins to conduct a planning meeting: “So, comrades, which of you is the deputy for transport? Tell us, how are things going with the transport support of the construction site? You don't know whether to cry or laugh. For each cycle of imitation of real actions - two or three cycles of analysis, reflection. “Why did you start with this question? Probably because you yourself are responsible for these issues (transport) in construction today? But can this fact be a sufficient reason to put this question first in a new situation. And what should have started? Comrades, who has other suggestions? BUT? Should we start with the most important questions? How do you know which are the most important questions? From the whole! Who said that it is necessary to start discussing the situation “as a whole”? Come on, take the “seat” of the manager, now you have been appointed head of the NPP construction department. Act!”

The team of reservists is in a fever. The most intelligent keep silent, trying to orient themselves in the situation. Either one or the other "runs up": "It's easy to criticize," says Georgy Petrovich, "try it yourself." One more beat, then another. “Georgy Petrovich, but this is how it happens in life! They will appoint a new leader, so for several months he cannot figure out what is happening. Planning meetings go one after another, each about his own, but it is not clear how to move the situation as a whole! Georgy Petrovich, how to quickly and correctly deal with a new situation?

Here it is, the moment of truth. Teaching adults, especially good professionals, is extremely difficult. They often know more than the teacher in their field. And I think highly of myself. “I came here alone, trying to teach us something! I myself have probably never been to a construction site in my life. If he was so smart, he would have come and done something useful.” During the simulation game, it becomes obvious that the usual ways of acting do not work. Conducting meetings and planning meetings on the site is familiar and understandable. Checkmate. Construction schedule on the wall. “If you don’t solve the problem, I’ll rent it for such and such a mother.” - "But as?" - "It's not my business. You answer, you decide. Subcontractors let you down? Delivery delays, factory problems? To their ministry, on the carpet.”

The same actions - familiar and seemingly understandable - in the stuffy room of the IPK, where the Garden Ring is noisy behind the wall, and the roles of the participants quickly change, look far-fetched theatrical and hang in some kind of vacuum. “The manufacturer failed. Come on, sit down on this chair. You are now the director of the manufacturing plant. And what's the problem, colleagues? What is the subject of your managerial action? Construction! Are you seriously? And I thought you were managing fourteen of your deputies. By the way, why are there so many of them? And what is the object of your managerial thinking? Construction? Or the life cycle of a nuclear power plant from design to decommissioning? And in what form is this object of thought given to you?” "Manager" as a hero of the twentieth century

In his work, Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky is the heir to the values and ontological guidelines of German classical philosophy. For him, the concepts of Development – activity, society and a person – are extremely important. He considers thinking and reflection to be the source of development. Thinking is that artificial organ, thanks to which humanity is able not only to penetrate into the essence of the surrounding world, but also to design - to foresee, plan, organize and manage.

A professional organizer, leader and manager as presented by G.P. Shchedrovitsky looks like hero of the era. It is this figure, despite the relative youth of managerial professionalism (according to Georgy Petrovich, it took shape only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries), that pulls together numerous tensions and gaps characteristic of the 20th century. The growing complexity of technical and social systems, the growing importance of collective and cooperative activities, "mutually understanding" communication, the complication of knowledge systems; more and more urgent requirements for a systematic understanding of the phenomena and processes taking place in the world - all these changes put forward growing demands on the work of an individual manager and management teams and teams.

“In my opinion,” says Georgy Petrovich already in the first lecture, “today, in our time, the organizer, leader, manager are people who, by the will of fate, are put at the head of every corner. And today, how they work (that is, how you work) depends on everything else.

Georgy Petrovich begins his story with the history of the formation of control systems in the world and in Russia (USSR) and immediately poses two questions: how prepare managerial staff and what should know the modern manager. For Georgy Petrovich, it is obvious that the complication of the world will inevitably lead to an increase in the complexity of management itself as a special type of thinking and activity. A control system cannot be simpler than the system it is intended to control. Schematically, this idea is extremely convexly expressed in the so-called organizational-technical or socio-technical scheme, which is introduced already at the first lecture and the unfolding logic of which runs like a red line through the entire course. This scheme is fundamentally different from the so-called cybernetic schemes familiar to many, which are based on the idea of "forward" and "feedback" connections. In contrast to these ideas about control, which are quite common in the engineering environment, Georgy Petrovich draws control on the diagram as activity over activity, as a “matryoshka doll”, in which control “encompasses” and “immerses” the controlled system inside itself. Such coverage and immersion, being, it would seem, purely graphic symbols and metaphors, in the lectures of Georgy Petrovich gradually acquire a deeper and deeper meaning, at the level of philosophical generalization.

But the coverage of the controlled system by the control system occurs primarily in thinking and at the expense of thinking, in knowledge and at the expense of knowledge. The ability to manage something (a particular activity or a particular process) depends entirely on the extent to which we understand what is happening, we can reconstruct the logic and patterns of these processes and anticipate their deployment in the future.

That is why the ideal manager of Georgy Petrovich spares no time to comprehend the situation, is the “customer” for creating more and more profound knowledge about what he should manage, and, most importantly, constantly improves the structure of his own activity and his thinking. By virtue of this attitude, most of the lectures are devoted to issues that you will not find in the usual courses on management or corporate governance. Many of the issues that are discussed in the lectures are more related to courses on a systematic approach, philosophy and methodology. Why is that? How does a modern manager form a “picture of the world”?

If we ask ourselves how a modern manager forms the so-called "picture of the world", then we will not be able to give an unambiguous and clear answer to it. The fact that the picture of the world, or a set of ontological ideas about how the world around us “really” works and how we ourselves, acting and living in this world, is important for effective management, hardly anyone will doubt. Lack of understanding of what situations and “essences” we encounter in our management practices is, perhaps, the main reason for errors, crises and simply the collapse of management systems of various scales - from the bankruptcy of an enterprise to the collapse of the state.

But where does a modern manager get knowledge about the objects of the world around us, about the situations in which he has to act, and even more so about his own activities? If we try to take an unbiased look at ourselves (if we are included in the management processes) or other representatives of the managerial profession, we will immediately see that these ideas are quite heterogeneous and already because of this eclectic character. Part of this knowledge is borrowed from the natural, engineering, social and human sciences (among which economics, sociology, and psychology are significantly ahead of other disciplines in terms of importing their ideas into management practices). Part is empirical in nature and reflects the reflection of managerial experience, both successful and unsuccessful. More general ideas are drawn by a particular leader from religion, philosophy, history, political disciplines, and often from mysticism and the occult. In my consulting work, I often met high-ranking executives for whom astrological forecasts were much more important for making specific managerial decisions than economic calculations or the results of sociological research.

On the whole, the 20th century was marked by disappointments in the ability of man to know, understand and foresee. This disappointment could not be shaken by the undoubted successes of the natural and technical sciences. In a sense, the more we learn about the world around us and about ourselves, the more we become convinced of how little we still know and understand.

Georgy Petrovich builds his lectures as if on top of this situation. He consistently introduces for listeners - practicing leaders of the nuclear industry - a picture of the world based on activity and mental-activity representations, which Georgy Petrovich himself and the Moscow Methodological Circle headed by him developed over several decades, relying on German classical philosophy. This is the world of mental activity (MD), permeated with relations of communication and understanding (mutual understanding), reflection, the world of reproduction of activity and transmission of culture, the world of self-determination and social action.

In order to introduce these ideas, Georgy Petrovich appeals to ontics, which, from his point of view, allow us to see activity in the realities of our daily life. Therefore, Georgy Petrovich begins his story about his activities with a description of social strata, groups, relationships, scooping up those “realities” of our everyday experience (including “yesterday’s” game experience of taking office), which for listeners act as a “gateway” into the world of mental activity. . Conclusion

G. P. Shchedrovitsky was never a naive romantic. He knew and understood very well that the picture of the world he painted was radically different from the world in which his listeners lived and worked. He also had a good understanding of the society in which he lived, its possibilities and its prospects. Here is another quote from the lectures.

“We bought in France for a lot of money a game, an economic one. This is the game the special institute played before making recommendations to the cabinet. They gathered doctors of economic sciences and decided to play the game "France": trade unions, parties, council of ministers, etc. And in five years they turned France into a desert. There's nothing left. A civil war broke out and everything “flew”, the whole economy was shattered.

Why? Yes, because each of our players carried our culture and elements of our organization. What did it mean? Bankers gave money only at high interest rates. The Cabinet of Ministers slightly increased taxes. People stopped working. The parties went wall to wall. Etc. And everything went haywire."

And so it happened just 10 years after Georgy Petrovich read his lectures to the reservists of the USSR Ministry of Energy. He could not teach students how to build nuclear power plants; that was not his task. The formation of managerial thinking takes years, but we know that many of today's leaders, having once in their lives got to the lectures or games that Georgy Petrovich conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s, were inspired by his approach and made the task of forming managerial professionalism the work of your life. He failed to warn the generation of the 1990s against the upheavals that our country entered 25 years ago and from which, most likely, it will not be able to get out anytime soon.

However, this, in my opinion, does not in the least detract from the importance of the course of lectures that you now hold in your hands. It is still relevant today and can help you understand how the world around you and your management practice works.

Georgy Shchedrovitsky

Organizational thinking: ideology, methodology, technology

Course of lectures 3rd edition, corrected and enlarged

Publishing house Art. Lebedev Studios

Responsible editor P. G. Shchedrovitsky

Editors G. A. Davydova, A. V. Rusakov

The book is intended for specialists in organization, management and leadership, for undergraduate and graduate students of all specializations in the field of management.

P. G. Shchedrovitsky. Foreword

Situation

In the Soviet Union, since the late 1960s, plans for the construction of nuclear power plants (NPPs) began to expand significantly. Party and government documents, including a 1980 resolution, provided for the commissioning of 66.9 million kW between 1980 and 1991, as well as the creation of the necessary civil nuclear infrastructure to provide nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 100 GW. The active promotion of domestic nuclear technologies to the markets of Eastern and Northern Europe continues.

In the periods immediately preceding and following the reading of Georgy Petrovich Shchedrovitsky's lectures at the IPK of the Ministry of Energy, a number of significant events take place in the nuclear industry.

As the scale of construction of new power units increased, numerous problems of serial construction of nuclear power plants became more and more acute. Despite the ongoing development and further adoption in 1982 on the basis of the accumulated experience of “mandatory technological rules for the construction of a power unit” (the so-called OTP-82), which were focused on the serial construction of nuclear power plants, these deadlines were violated everywhere and, in fact, the pace and quality of construction depended largely on the quality of management of a particular object.

In the seventh lecture, Georgy Petrovich, having lost patience, reads out an excerpt from the report of the government commission on the results of checking the progress of construction at the Kalinin NPP.

Situation

Lectures Georgy Petrovich reads in parallel with the game. The game is called "Introduction to the position of the head of the nuclear power plant construction department." A little later, Georgy Petrovich will play another game with the personnel reserve of the IPK of the Ministry of Energy - "Programming the social development of the NPP construction team."

The main difference between game instrumentalism and other approaches and technologies for mastering managerial skills is that it has its own “tool workshop” built into it. In other words, a student who masters this approach acquires the ability to make the tools he needs according to the situation (ad hoc - for this case).

For this you need:

Take the position of "student";

Learn to work with the arsenal of management ideas, schemes, tools that mankind has developed (diagram 30);

To understand the fundamental structure and limits of the use of tools of managerial mental activity (Scheme 31).

A few words about this last but important work. I ventured the experience of drawing a sketch of the general picture of the genesis of the tools of managerial thought and activity (Scheme 30). It is very extensive and yet obviously incomplete. Its design implies the ability to add and remove authors, ideas, schemes, reorganize the structure as a whole at your own discretion.

And generally play.

At the same time, willy-nilly, you will have to read something, remember something, think about something. And this means - to embark on the path of historical and cultural research. There will definitely be something left in the toolbox.

The scheme is multilayered and deployed along the time axis. Layers from bottom to top indicate places:

For practical and methodological descriptions of management activities - Situations of decision-making and Accumulation of experience;

For experiences of grasping the essence of managerial activity in theoretical models and constructions - Activity;

This division is rather conditional and is necessary only for the primary open storage of ideas and the names of their creators for the purpose of operational use. Fixing in different top-places the scheme of individual names, ideas, schools allows you to simultaneously “take a look at them” and link them into the structure necessary for the business. Those who are interested in names can make an anthology. Those who are interested in ideas can design tools.

Assigning an idea to a name presupposes, as a logical continuation, the preservation of the name by the forces of a group of successors. The tasks of translation require the formulation of an idea (corpus of ideas) in the form of a discipline and placement in the appropriate subspace of culture, where similar units are placed on the shelves according to the rubricator.

Good luck.

A.P. Zinchenko

LITERATURE

Thinking, Action and Thinking Research Program

1. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Fav. works. - M., 1995.

2. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Philosophy. The science. Methodology. - M., 1997.

3. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Technology of thinking //Izvestia. - 1961. - No. 234.

4. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Scheme of mental activity - system-structural structure, meaning and content // System Research: Yearbook.1986. - M., 1987.

Basic schemes and concepts of the ORU methodology

1. Shchedrovitsky G.P. outdoor switchgear (1). Organizational thinking: ideology, methodology, technology: a course of lectures // From the archive of G.P. Shchedrovitsky. - T.4. - M, 2000.

2. Shchedrovitsky G.P. outdoor switchgear (2). Methodology and philosophy of organizational and managerial activity: basic concepts and principles // From the archive of G.P. Shchedrovitsky. - T.5. - M., 2002.

3. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Problems of system research methodology. - M., 1964.

4. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Problems of building a system theory of a complex "populative" object // System Research. Yearbook. 1975. - M. 1976.

5. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Principles and general scheme of methodological organization of system-structural research and development // System Research. Methodological problems: Yearbook. 1981. - M., 1981.

6. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Scheme of mental activity - system-structural structure, meaning and content // System Research. Methodological problems: Yearbook. 1986. - M., 1987.

Knowledge in management: practical and methodological, historical, natural science (about objects), technical, methodological

1. Shchedrovitsky G.P. The system of pedagogical research (methodological analysis) //Pedagogy and logic. - M., 1993 (1968).

2. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Beginnings of a system-structural study of the relationship of people in small groups // From the archive of G.P. Shchedrovitsky.-T.3.-M., 1999.

3. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Initial representations and categorical means of the theory of activity // Development and implementation of automated systems in design (theory and methodology). - M., 1975.

Experimental practice of the ORU methodology

1. Shchedrovitsky G.P. Automation of design and tasks of development of design activities // Development and implementation of automated systems in design (theory and methodology). - M., 1975.

2. Shchedrovitsky G.P., Kotelnikov S.I. Organizational-activity game as a new form of organization and a method for the development of collective mental activity // Innovations in organizations: Proceedings of a seminar at the Research Institute of System Research.

G.P. Shchedrovitsky
MANAGEMENT THINKING:

ideology, methodology, technology

Lecture 1 3

Lecture 2 23

Lecture 3 50

Lecture 5 71

Lecture 6 94

Lecture 7 113

Lecture 8 135

Lecture 9 164

Lecture 10 186

Lecture 11 203

Lecture 12 225

Lecture 1

scientific and technical knowledge

act of activity

intentionality

cooperative ties

ORU as a sociotechnical activity

knowledge for outdoor switchgear

scientific and methodological support

knowledge for outdoor switchgear

social strata (strata)

reference groups

groups, parties

club and production

organization and personality

Lecture 3

natural-cybernetic and activity

ideas about management

natural and artificial

centaur-objects

typological characteristics of outdoor switchgear

organization, leadership, management

system-object control scheme

Lecture 4 missing

Lecture 5

mental activity and pure thinking

retrospective and prospective reflection

understanding and meaning

reflective and actionable understanding

Lecture 6

design

club and production

problem and problematization

system boundary problem

Lecture 7

self-determination

object and subject

sign and sign form

Lecture 8

objectification and disambiguation

substitution and assignment relations

activity and naturalistic approach

system movement

structure and connections

whole, part, element

place and content

system (1st concept)

Lecture 9

system (2nd concept)

objects and schemas

technical, natural, nominal, target objects

naturalization of objects

Lecture 10

development, knowledge, assimilation of the world

connections of reflection, understanding, communication, thinking and

knowledge in the transfer of experience

dual knowledge scheme

ontology and ontological work

thinking formal and meaningful

structure and organization

connection and relationship

Lecture 11

system (2nd concept)

organization of the material, functional structure, functional structuring

combination-semantic tables

monosystem and polysystem

process, mechanism

Lecture 12

knowledge functions

organization

approaches, principles, methods

systems approach

approaches and types of activities

approach and ontology

Lecture 1

<...>I must turn to history and discuss some historical issues.

First moment. In the 1980s, a very important and significant turning point took place in Russia. Until that time, education had always been the prerogative of the ruling classes. For example, there was such a procedure: if a person graduated from the university, he received a personal (non-inherited) nobility. Even the gymnasium was already a step up, the university was even a step higher. Therefore, there was a struggle around who should be educated and who should not be educated. Hence the thesis that we will not let the cook's children go to gymnasiums and universities. But in the 1980s, a turning point took place - in the sense that education was no longer the prerogative of the ruling strata, but obligatory for everyone. Because now there could no longer be workers and soldiers who did not master the basics of technology and elements of science, who could not read blueprints, and so on. Everything is flipped. However, if you look at the modern education system, you will see that the class approach still remains there. In every country there are two or three or several, depending on the size of the country, privileged educational institutions, and it is very difficult to get there. And they do not enter them in order to gain knowledge, but to get into a company that will move on as one "landing group". This is described for Japan, and for Germany, and for the USA. And in all other educational institutions they also teach, they teach without fail, and even those who do not want to are pulled. A ten-year education is no longer a prerogative, not something that is won, it is a compulsory education. Therefore, today the teacher is primarily concerned with learning, and the students do not really want to learn. This is the first important point.

The second is that organizational and managerial work has become massive. This is also very important. And therefore, it became impossible to count on the spontaneous formation and selection of personalities and on a workshop, unorganized system of training according to personal example.

These two points seemed to converge: on the one hand, the expansion of the contingent of organizers, leaders and managers, and on the other, a change in the purpose, functions and meaning of education, secondary and higher.

And when all this was intertwined, then at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries the question of professionalism was sharply raised: is it possible to lead, manage an enterprise without knowing or almost without knowing the essence of the technologies that are being deployed there? And then the whole world in this matter was divided into two struggling groups.

One position (I express this extremely sharply) was that organizers, leaders and managers are exactly the same profession as a veterinarian, agronomist, teacher, doctor, etc., that one must purposefully prepare for organizational and managerial activities and to give such knowledge in the field of organization and management, which is fundamentally indifferent to the peculiarities of this or that branch, this or that business, where the organizer and leader comes. And in this sense, a person who has experience and knowledge in organizational and managerial work will move from one area to another, from agriculture to industry, from industry to pedagogy, and everywhere he will work equally well as an organizer, leader and manager, because the features technology is irrelevant here.

According to the second position, all this is not so: in order to manage agriculture, a person must be a good agronomist; in order to manage construction, he must be a builder - even, I would say, an installer - and understand the laws of life of structures, structures. And therefore, it is necessary to give him, first of all, professional knowledge of a specialized type, and already he becomes a leader by virtue of personal talent - the ability to build relationships with people, to captivate them, etc.

And it so happened that in Russia these problems were discussed earlier than in all other countries. This happened, as I said, in the late XIX - early XX centuries. A revolution was being prepared, and the theorists of the revolution drew attention to these problems. Shortly before the revolution, an advanced work appeared, which is still significant - this is the work of Bogdanov-Malinovsky “Tectology. General Organizational Science".

Bogdanov has a very interesting path in general. He belonged to the associates of Lenin, then came into conflict with Lenin, but at the same time they maintained very good personal relations. Lenin in 1909, as you know, severely scolded him in his work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Bogdanov worked in various fields. He is a microbiologist by training, in 1926 he organized the Institute of Blood Transfusion, of which he became director, and in 1928 he died after inoculating himself with a cholera vaccine, which he himself invented.

Second tale. During the Second World War, two important areas arose, without which today's work is basically impossible. This is operations research and systems engineering. How did they come about? I will illustrate this with one example. When ships sailed across the Atlantic, from England to the States and back, each ship had an anti-aircraft gun to defend itself against German bombers. And then, when London was bombed and the city was in a difficult position, one general decided to count how many planes were shot down by these guns. It turned out that for all the time - three or four aircraft. He ordered these guns to be removed. And what turned out? It turned out that the ships simply stopped reaching. Since the purpose of these guns was not to shoot down aircraft, but to not to give them to bomb, i.e. redeem a possible positive result. The question arises: how to count what did not happen, the restrictions that we have imposed? The guns shot down only three aircraft, but if they are removed, the ships will not reach at all. How to consider that they provide the passage of the ship, i.e. when their function is defined like this? I had to start counting empty spaces. And from that moment on, operations research and systems engineering arise, where empty functional places are considered as significant.

And the third story, the funniest one, is about statistics. Here the plane crashed. People who rely on statistics say that now you can safely fly, because once one has fallen, now the other, according to probability theory, will not fall soon. How does a systems engineer think? Since the plane crashed, it means you need to fly less on the planes of this company. And it turns into a bike like this. One big American businessman flew planes all the time. Then, when they began to blow up, he stopped flying, because the probability of an accident became high. And then all of a sudden it started flying again. He was asked: has the probability gone down? He said: “No, the probability is the same, but I always carry an explosive device with me. And the probability that there will be two explosive devices on one plane is infinitely small.

In fact, the organizer, leader or manager must always contrive and come up with something like this - in this case it sounds grotesque. This is a systems approach.

Tell me, do you know a lot of sciences that answer the question, what should a person do?

- Fiction.

Yes. Or politics. And the sciences don't tell you what to do. The technique also gives instructions on how to proceed. And in this sense, it is always useful. If you are told to do something, then you can use it. Science, on the other hand, is built in a fundamentally different way. Science always answers the question of what laws objects live by. But tell me: from the descriptions of the characteristics and laws of the life of the object, should there be any conclusion regarding what to do with it?

- Yes, sure.

And I'm not sure about that. And this is what we need to discuss. I certainly understand and agree with you that by knowing how an object lives and moves, you can determine what you can and cannot do with it. But in itself, knowledge about the object does not at all answer the question of what to do in order to achieve certain goals. And here I introduce a distinction of technical and scientific knowledge, which is very important for our further work. It will be extremely important for us, we will always refer to it.

I will work now on your organizational material. Imagine that you are dealing with some person that you lead or manage. You must determine his actions in the future. Make a decision about his actions. You, therefore, have a goal in advance, and you consider this person as a means or instrument to achieve this goal. This is how it always really happens if you are an organizer, leader or manager. But this person can resist, “break out”, somehow act. You tell him one thing, and he - maybe he is a creative person - does otherwise. And you don't know whether it is necessary to regulate the method of execution or whether it is only necessary to set a goal. In short, every time you must have knowledge about the person and his action, but this knowledge must be such that from the very beginning it is closed to your goals. You must achieve a certain goal through this person. And therefore, your knowledge answers the question of how you can achieve your goal through this person, and fixes him, the person, the actions and your attitude towards them in relation to your goals. This kind of knowledge is called technical knowledge.

I will say it again, because it is extremely important for us. Technical knowledge is always determined by certain goals of our action. Technical knowledge gives us the answer to the question about the object, its structure and its actions, but not in general, but only from the point of view of our achievement of these goals. It shows how this object is adequate to achieve goals and what we should do with it, how we should act on it in order to achieve our goals. It is very complex, technical knowledge, it is actually much more complicated than scientific knowledge. And the work of an engineer is actually much more difficult than the work of a scientist. The work of a practitioner is even more difficult.

What is scientific knowledge? Imagine that I am again dealing with this person. But I have no goals in relation to transforming him, transferring him to another situation, forcing him to act in a certain way. I'm interested in what he is like. I want to "photograph" it for purely educational purposes. I ask how he lives on his own. I don't have a target relationship with him. And I begin to carefully “play” with him in order to find out how he behaves. Then we get scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is always a "photo" of an object, or a fixation of the laws of its life - regardless of our goals and our ways of influencing it.

Later I will tell you how this polarization came about, how scientific knowledge arose, why it arose, that it provides us with something that others do not provide. But for now, this is what matters to me. IN technical knowledge is not only for purposes, it is also about my means of influence. I am not interested in the object as such, but in achieving the goal with the means and methods of action available to me. And I consider this object in this closure. With scientific knowledge, I pretend that I have no goals. Hence the idea of a multilateral, multifaceted description of an object. The more I know about him, the better, I think. For a technician, on the contrary, an excess of information is always a disadvantage. Need information necessary and sufficient. Must have corresponding knowledge.

Now, when we have twenty minutes left from the last hour, I want to move on to the structure of the act of transformative activity.

Why do I have to talk about activities now, why did I move on to this? Because organizational, managerial and managerial activities are activities over activities. And in this it is fundamentally different from, say, practical activities with natural material. Organizational activity, in its essence, is activity on activities. I am now forced to introduce ideas about activities of various types, about acts of activity, in order, firstly, to specify the object with which the organizer, leader and manager deals, and secondly, to explain the features of the very activity of the organizer, leader, manager.

Just as we represent the world in the form of structures of atoms, molecules, in the same way we believe that the world of activity consists of elementary acts that are organized into complex chains, or molecules, of activity, due to the links of cooperation, communication, due to the introduction certain technologies, etc. And this elementary unit of activity, the so-called Act, I will depict the following diagram.

H

and a little man is drawn on it, as a kind of clot of material (I’ll tell you later what its functions are), he has some abilities, and besides, he constantly uses certain, as they say in psychology, internalized, i.e. "internal" means. What is an internalized remedy? For example, language is for us an internalized means. Let's say, a person has mastered algebra, its language and all transformations - this is his internalized means. It displays the situation in the language of algebra and makes a transformation. The same with differential and integral calculus. The languages of mechanics fall here and everything else.

In addition, a person has a so-called scoreboard consciousness. Here we have images. I draw a "scoreboard" with such arrows. What do I want to emphasize? The fact that we always have not a relationship of perception, but intentional relations. What does it mean? Here you see me. But where do you see me: in your eye or standing right here? Consciousness always works on “carrying out” relations, the world is organized by us due to the work of consciousness as it is laid out outside of us. Consciousness brings outward all the time. Consciousness is always active, not passive.

Next, there will be raw material, natural, which we will transform. I draw an arrow transformations material in product. At the same time, I put another arrow here, it means transformation. So, the top arrow means transformation, and the bottom one - transformation. In addition, there must be actions, or operations, which I refer to as d 1 ... d to, and certain guns, facilities, - machines with which I work, calculators, computers, calipers and all that stuff. Is there some more goals as a specific block. Moreover, they are used knowledge. As you understand, knowledge comes from outside.

This will be the composition and structure (although it is depicted only in some moments) of the act of activity. This activity is called transformation. We usually do it. That's when I rearrange the chair, when I work in some kind of technological process, when I calculate some values - this scheme works every time. We receive some source material, capture it, apply certain actions, tools, means to it in order to transform it into a certain product corresponding to the goal, and it goes further from the act of activity. In doing so, we use tools and means.

If we combine tools and means with actions, we get machines, mechanisms. In fact, they film both. Then the activity rises higher: the activity of the person himself becomes a touch-action. For example, if we consider the actions of an excavator, it is not clear what he is doing - digging a pit or operating his excavator. This is a multi-layered complex activity. Much depends on how it was taught. In the same way, when you learn to drive a car, you are driving a car. When you have mastered all this, then you are driving a car. And in a sense, the edges of the car are your edges. Similarly, the excavator, when he learned to work, he does not control the excavator, but digs a pit. The manipulator works in the same way at a nuclear power plant, etc. This is where complex gluing comes in.

And at the same time, a person must have certain abilities - this is a subjective part. He can get something through knowledge, something through a direct vision of the situation, its assessment. Something with ability.

Now from this we can collect complex "mosaics" of relationships between activities. We can build cooperative ties. For example, when the product of the work of one becomes the source material for another. We can collect support connections when, for example, the product of the work of one person becomes a tool, a means of another. Or the product of the work of one - methodical or constructive knowledge - becomes knowledge, a knowledge tool for another.

And we can finally type complex, so-called sociotechnical ligaments, when this whole structure of one person's activity becomes the source material in the activity of another. We need to record this “strange” case: when it turns out that human activity is aimed not at the transformation of natural material, but at organizing the activities of other people, at directing or managing such activities.

M
we will say so. Here is one activity, leader or manager, with all these elements, and below, as its object, is the activity of another person or other people.

Now let's ask the question, what is affected in organizing, directing and managing? What can we influence? On target. For knowledge. We can influence knowledge: give other knowledge and thus manage. We can give other source material. We can influence operations, actions. For example, through technology. We can change tools and means, introduce new machines, and this will also be a new organization and management. You can change abilities. From here arise psychotechnics, anthropotechnics, group technology (you can create groups and influence the group organization), cultural technology, or normotechnics. And all of these are different ways of organizing, leading and managing. Assuming that organization, leadership and management refer to activities. This thesis is very important and significant.

And then you can put the following question: if you organize an activity, direct an activity, or manage an activity, then it’s interesting what kind of knowledge about activities you own? I'm planting a bomb here for you. See if some amazing aberration has taken place here? You lead and manage the activities of people, and in knowledge you always fix structures, technological processes, or something else. Has there been some kind of substitution here, have we missed?

- No, they didn't miss.

Some time ago, I had to carry out organizational work at the Riga NGO Biokhimreaktiv. This is a large enterprise licensed to sell medicines abroad. Therefore, if we establish the documentation part there, we will receive a lot of money. But we can't sell because we don't have documentation.

Or one American company wanted to buy 300 ships from us - this is gigantic money. We could not sell, because we finish each one, bring it by hand. We do not have documentation supporting production. Do you understand this as a technologist?

- Clear.

So what does it mean to sell a drug? This means selling a series of experiences.<...>The technology is being worked out, the biochemical process is being launched, but there are many deviations. Why? They think they have bad models. But since I have an activity approach, I said this: this is nonsense, you have excellent models, but people do not work. Do you have a continuous four-shift process? So I affirm, in advance, a priori, that night shifts do not work for you. You have to be on duty there, and they sleep at night with you. And that they have magazines - so, of course, they write in magazines what should be. They asked how this could be verified. I suggested checking on the cost of electricity: it can be guaranteed that certain technological processes are not being carried out, people are sleeping. We began to check, it turned out that it was.

The fact is that technology does not work without human activity. Especially where there is no production line. And there is still really no technology in construction. Everything there is due to human activity, interspersed with technology. You intersperse the technological process with activity, a heterogeneous whole is formed, in which activity plays no less a role than technology. What, one wonders, should be managed and managed at this NPO Biokhimreaktiv? Naturally, that activity, not technological processes. It is obviously not necessary to manage them, and if they are well done, it is also not necessary to manage them. It can also be assigned to the machine. The whole essence of the matter is in the activities of people. And people act one way or another depending on their attitude. Therefore, the problem of organization, leadership and management is the problem of activity over activity.

Where do you get the knowledge about the activity? In which university did they teach you?

- Only by experience.

Is it possible to rely on experience here?

- Reading.

And one more question before we finish.

On the one hand, it is necessary to have methods for the activities of a leader or manager - there must be a methodical organization of his own activities in order to answer the question of how he should act. And on the other hand, he must know how his subordinates “live”, how their subordinates act, since the subordinates and their activity are the object of his activity. So what do you think: knowledge about self-organization and knowledge about the “life” of an object of activity are the same or different?

- Miscellaneous.

Certainly different. So it turns out that with regard to self-organization, you need methods, and with regard to the object, you probably need scientific knowledge. About activities. If any are possible. They must answer the question of what laws this activity lives by.

I briefly repeat the standard of ordinary separation. If you are dealing with construction, then you must have, on the one hand, knowledge of the resistance of materials, metal science, etc., and, on the other hand, methods for organizing work related to this. Two things are needed. So here. It is necessary to have methods related to the activities of organizers and leaders. And there must be knowledge related to the activity as the object of their work.

Here we return to the issue of professionalization. What kind of knowledge should an organizer, leader and manager acquire in order to be a professional in their field? Probably both, and the question is how much today provided.

Now the last question, looking ahead to tomorrow. It seems that if you are leaders, managers, then you should first of all get an idea of construction as a complex system of activities at different levels. You have to think of construction management as the management of the most complex mega-machine. And who gives you such a template, such a scheme, according to which you can lay out your construction like a mega-machine? You have probably already figured out this question, preparing for tomorrow.

- There was no time...

What about the night? Please note: this is not your job, you have come to study. After all, you probably organize your work well, so you should not work there at night. And here the work is not very well organized.

Now let's imagine what I did today. I posed a problematic question: is the work of an organizer, leader, manager professional and what is this community of organizational managers. In my opinion, today, in our time, the organizer, leader and manager are people who, by the will of fate, are put at the head of every corner. And today, how they work (i.e., how you work) depends on everything else. And for each time there are people who are responsible for the entire organization. Let's say that in a bourgeois society it was a bourgeois - he, in fact, accumulated social production, made contributions to its development, and so on. Today, a huge community of organizers, leaders and managers - community or profession - is responsible for how our national economy develops. But not only the national economy. Because it turns out that this profession, which has become mass, gives rise to a new situation, pulls a new scientific revolution, because, just as in the 17th century it was necessary to create a complex of natural sciences, so now the spread and technologization of organizational and managerial activity gives rise to a new cycle of sciences about the activity and thinking of people. Therefore, sociology, psychology, activity theory, etc. come to the fore. They are starting to be created. By all indications, we are now living in a new, incredibly complex revolutionary situation. And then, in a hundred or two hundred years, they will write about us in books: they lived in the period of a new scientific revolution, namely, they created the sciences of activity and thinking.

Analyzing this problem of professionalization, I outlined several lines: you can save the community on the basis of personal achievements, select the best, handicraft; you can cook them in a workshop way; you can prepare them professionally through universities. What is hindering the development of the profession today? Lack of relevant knowledge - technical, methodological and actually scientific. If there is no such knowledge, there will be no vocational training - there will be workshop and personal training. This I have already said.

You can disagree with me, say that there were gaps in the presentation. But it is important for me to lay out this logic before you. It is important that you think about this. What does it mean to develop a profession, and therefore science? This means that completely new sciences must be built. The old science based on laws cannot work here. And it is necessary to create the sciences of activity. Let's say we need to consider a building, a factory, a region as a kind of mega-machines made up of activities. We need to understand that there are many different factors involved. How can we influence all these factors in order to ensure high production efficiency? But the point is not only in production, but also in the fact that people live a human life, because a factory, construction is not an organization for the production of surplus value, but, first of all, a form of organization of people's entire life. Including cultural, social and other. And this is the peculiarity of our situation. Because each of us could, generally speaking, raise labor productivity. A friend of mine, the director of the Simferopol television factory, looked and looked and drove four thousand workers out into the street - due to the rationalization of the process. He was summoned to the regional committee of the party and demanded that tomorrow all the dismissed were in their places. He began to say that at the academy he was taught that it was necessary to increase labor productivity. They told him: Yes, under other circumstances; but you have to provide for the lives of these people, and if you do not get out of your head everything that you have been taught, or do not learn to understand it correctly, you will go to the bureau in a week. And everything is clear and understandable.

- Will this not happen to us?

As you can see, I understand all this. That is why I say that thinking is one thing and doing is another.

So, I sketched an atomic, or molecular, diagram of an act of activity. At the same time, I emphasized that organization, leadership and management are activities over activities. And then we need to consider the features of leadership, organization and management as different activities that require different levers of influence, different techniques, people, etc.

But at the same time I put one more, additional question. Namely: I raise the question of how to present as a mega-machine the organization that you manage and lead. Tomorrow we'll see how you do it. This is where I end.