Organizational Development: A Manual for Managers and ... - FPDL

Rational choice gives more chances to survive that random choice, providing that information
about the situation and the applicable set of the rules are good enough. Lack of or poor information
can be a weak point.
An organism’s perception of where it is and how things are is not exactly the same as where it is
and how things are in reality. An organism does not necessarily react to actual reality, but to its
always limited and more or less compromised perception. Thus, what looks rational from one point
of view, based on a certain picture of reality, may look irrational from a different point of view,
based on different information about the situation.
On the other hand, the basic rules of life, drawn out on one’s own, or ‘borrowed’ through education
or another’s experience, is never absolutely complete and correct. Some rules merely proved to be
correct enough to give a sufficiently good prognosis in an older time; they may not be valid any
longer. Other rules and regularities may remain unknown. In the worst case – some borrowed
‘rules’ may not be rules at all. For example: ‘One can only rely on the members of his family.
Strangers will never help.’ Thus, what looks rational when applying one set of rules, which are
known to this organism, may look irrational when applying ‘wisdom’, based on different experience
fixed in one’s ‘mental map’.
The range of available options also depends on available resources of any type or nature. That
may be time, money, space, or skills, whatever is considered to be usable and is limited. In fact,
when resources are different, the situation is different. The greater resources in hand – the more
paths of action available, creating a better possibility for rational choice and increased chances for
success. For example, with $1,000 in one’s pocket, a person may have more options for travelling
to London than with $50.
In human organizations, considered alternatives may also be bounded by certain constraints that
might forbid or fix as highly objectionable certain potential goals or ways of action (these are
marked in red on Picture 4). The opposite may also happen – some additional criteria, which has
nothing in common with the parameters of rational choice at the given level, may promote some
potential goals or trajectories as being more desirable. These additional limitations or priorities,
which may distort the picture of rational behaviour and, in fact, always narrow the space of
available actions - thus making behaviour more predictable - we call politics.
In its common meaning, ‘politics’ is the process by which decisions are made within groups. A
similar word, ‘policy’, means a plan of action to guide decisions and actions
(http://en.wikipedia.org) Author is not in position to find better term in English for the abovedescribed
notion. But in Lithuanian, Russian and some other languages it works well.
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