GeePawHill/gist:9fa0b38eec2fa47876e4bf7c230cd951

## gistfile1.txt
The relationality of all experience contains challenges to our understanding of organizations that we have
barely begun to come to terms with. I can illustrate this by extending the metaphor of the blind men and
the elephant. In its conventional telling, each blind man had a grip on a different part of the beast, and
they were unable to agree on what it was really, really like, that is, as one of Kuhn's "fixed and neutral
experiences." But there is more, for the elephant isn't just standing there but instead ambles through the
forest and the veldt. The blind men are trying to understand the system as it evolves and as their experience
of it unfolds. The blind man clinging to a leg experiences an elliptical forward motion. He who has the
misfortune to have hold of the tail is jerked and whipped about in a random fashion. A few feet forward, his
colleague, in the crotch, is periodically flooded and/or pasted with output that seems to have nothing to do
with the beast's motion or with the feel of the surface clung to. At the front end, another observer rides
the probing trunk, jerked and whipped like the tail man but, it seems to him, in a somehow "purposeful" manner.
Clinging high up on the massive haunch is another perceiver, subjected to none of the motions or indignities
of his fellows and wondering what their gasps and protestations are all about. And the observer who is astride
the massive neck, an accidental mahout, finds that the flexings and shifting of his ours body seem to correlate
with the gait and momentum of the beast. This leads him to think he is steering it and thus is uniquely
qualified to say what it really, really is.

And we with sight-what of us? Is sight in the metaphor an analogue to science in real life? Is our experience
different from each blind man's? Yes. Does it replace each blind man's? No. Are we the captives of our standpoint
fully as much as each blind man? Yes.

Peter B. Vaill. Spirited Leading and Learning: Process Wisdom for a New Age (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Kindle Locations 192-203). Kindle Edition.
	The relationality of all experience contains challenges to our understanding of organizations that we have
	barely begun to come to terms with. I can illustrate this by extending the metaphor of the blind men and
	the elephant. In its conventional telling, each blind man had a grip on a different part of the beast, and
	they were unable to agree on what it was really, really like, that is, as one of Kuhn's "fixed and neutral
	experiences." But there is more, for the elephant isn't just standing there but instead ambles through the
	forest and the veldt. The blind men are trying to understand the system as it evolves and as their experience
	of it unfolds. The blind man clinging to a leg experiences an elliptical forward motion. He who has the
	misfortune to have hold of the tail is jerked and whipped about in a random fashion. A few feet forward, his
	colleague, in the crotch, is periodically flooded and/or pasted with output that seems to have nothing to do
	with the beast's motion or with the feel of the surface clung to. At the front end, another observer rides
	the probing trunk, jerked and whipped like the tail man but, it seems to him, in a somehow "purposeful" manner.
	Clinging high up on the massive haunch is another perceiver, subjected to none of the motions or indignities
	of his fellows and wondering what their gasps and protestations are all about. And the observer who is astride
	the massive neck, an accidental mahout, finds that the flexings and shifting of his ours body seem to correlate
	with the gait and momentum of the beast. This leads him to think he is steering it and thus is uniquely
	qualified to say what it really, really is.

	And we with sight-what of us? Is sight in the metaphor an analogue to science in real life? Is our experience
	different from each blind man's? Yes. Does it replace each blind man's? No. Are we the captives of our standpoint
	fully as much as each blind man? Yes.

	Peter B. Vaill. Spirited Leading and Learning: Process Wisdom for a New Age (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Kindle Locations 192-203). Kindle Edition.