Some years ago a prominent Silicon Valley firm tried to rapidly design and introduce a new computer in response to a competitive challenge. Although the project was initially skillfully laid out, it fell apart and subsequently failed. Meetings among major contributors often moved smoothly to agreement, but subsequent actions led to bizarre mismatches and unmet expectations. Subsequently we had the occasion to examine the fragmentary pieces of this effort in considerable depth, interviewing many of those involved and systematically sampling texts from each of the involved departments (Osborn 1990).
There are two findings that stood out:
First, each of the functional groups involved in the project believed they did what they were supposed to do and it was the other people who failed. Second, we found definitive evidence that the groups worked from practices and theories that were systematically incompatible.
Those in charge of the design specification and budget worked from a classic (classifying) mentality; the engineers were pragmatic and ingenious about what could be built; and the marketing department and over-all project management responded to customer values and competitive demands. A detailed content analysis showed the three groups used different logics, different constructions of meaning, and different criteria for performance. Moreover, they had no sense that each group spoke a different language or that they acted from a different paradigm; they were simply frustrated. They took for granted that their theories were correct and their skills were highly developed. They did not see that their practices did not, nor could not fit together. These managers and technicians knew their own practice, but they lacked the skills to integrate across paradigms with differing logics, causalities, and criteria of achievement. This case took place in an organization of highly educated workers and managers. The same story can be told of communities, government agencies, academic institutions - wherever people work together.
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