Je vous propose un petit billet (que j'ai fait en anglais) sur les paradoxes et le management. C'est une courte introduction sur la notion de paradoxe, qui présente quelques paradoxes organisationnels et qui débouche sur une question fondamentale en management : que doit faire un manager si le management est en lui-même paradoxal?
Logical paradox
The term paradox literally means "contrary to received opinion or expectation" (after the ancient Greek paradoxa, para "by the side of", hence "alongside of", "by", "past", "beyond", and doxa "opinion").
In logic, a paradox is “an apparently absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition, or a strongly counter-intuitive one, which investigation, analysis, or explanation may nevertheless prove to be well-founded or true”.
Common themes in paradoxes include self-reference, infinity, circular definitions, and confusion of levels of reasoning. Other paradoxes involve false statements or half-truths and the resulting biased assumptions
Famous instances of logical (or semantic) paradoxes are statements such as :
“this sentence is false”: if this sentence is true, then it is true that this sentence is false; that is, this sentence is false. If this sentence is false, then it is false that this sentence is false; then, this sentence is true.
“the set of all sets that are not members of themselves”: such a set appears to be a member of itself if and only if it is not a member of itself; hence the paradox.
Famous examples of paradoxical “situations” are:
Achilles and the tortoise : Achilles and a tortoise have a race. Achilles, being the fastest runner in Athens allows the tortoise some heads’ start. For Achilles to win, he must first reach the tortoise’s starting position; but, by the time he does, the tortoise has moved to a new position. By the time Achilles reaches that new position, the tortoise has moved a little further. Although the tortoise’s extra distances ahead become smaller and smaller, it looks as if they must go on for ever. Hence, it seems, Achilles cannot reach the tortoise, let alone win the race.
A heap of grains – say it is a million seeds – remains a heap even with one grain removed. One grain does not make a difference between a heap and just a few grains. From the heap, remove one. We retain a heap. Removing another should, therefore, still leave us with a heap – and it does. And so we continue the process – yet, of course, we end up without a heap. We end up heapless!
The analysis is similar to quantum theory. The state of particle is known and unique when measured. Before, it is probabilistic. The particle is in all states. Not virtually, really. This counterintuitive behavior misleaded even the best scientists, who called paradoxes what is indeed the true nature of the Nature. See for instance the paradox of the Schrödinger's cat.
RépondreSupprimerBenoit's article magnificently illustrates corresponding point of view in social sciences. What is counterintuitive is called paradox. In social sciences, measurement is performed continuously. Every second, what happens defines the current "state" of our society. Before something happens, anything else could happen. Social sciences are intrinsically probabilistic.
Before deciding, a manager is in all states (like the cat in the box): he has to integrate the whole probabilistic spectrum of possible situations (short and long term, stability and change, etc. See Benoit's list). When he decides, he "measures" the situation by reducing the probabilistic spectrum to a few defined parameters (he opens the box).
Social scientists develops theories and models to explain facts that happened. They are able to explain the state of the cat after opening the box (alive OR dead). But not before (alive AND dead). This partially explains why social sciences are so efficient to explain the past, but mainly useless to predict the future. Now social scientists do apply such theories to predict the future. Therefore paradoxes like Benoit's ones.
It is time for social sciences to invent and develop social theories and models equivalent to quantum physics. Are you aware that, except few pioneers like Madelbrot, another Benoit :-), social scientists are using maths developed centuries ago?
There is more to say, but it is not the place here. It was only a comment.