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

subordinates. ‘Profit’ is just one word to describe the ‘difference between incomes and
expenditures’; ‘too warm’ means that ‘the balance between heating and irradiation of heat needs
adjusting’, and so on.
The use of metalanguages allows disaggregate control, reducing the diversity of parameters under
the control of each level to an acceptable level, which would correspond to the managerial
capacities of controllers at each level. Hierarchical levels of control may lose sense if they all
‘speak the same language’
Quality of information
The amount of information transfer that happens in the course of interaction says nothing about the
value of it. The usefulness of the information or its value for the receiver will be determined by:
• Relevance of the content to the needs of receiver;
• Necessary and sufficient amount;
• Necessary and sufficient level of specification;
• Necessary and sufficient precision and accuracy; and
• Appropriate timing.
If the information that was received is not needed, or not sufficient, or too general, or requires
additional verification, or just arrives too late – what use is it? It uses resources and blocks the
signal processing channels, thus being more harmful than mere noise.
Thus the processes of bilateral or collective information or informational interaction may be
effective or not, depending on the relevancy of content, the speed, the amount, and the
correctness of the result of interaction (the intended change of the mental map).
These processes may also be more or less efficient depending on the ratio between the value of
the result and the related costs. Sometimes, waste in transacting certain informational processes
may produce a big economic effect. But inconsistency of these processes, when they are needed,
may cause a lot of loss and even death to the organization.
Maintaining and managing numerous and various informational processes both within the
organization and the environment is a large part of the manager’s job. Usually, one can find a lot of
problems and opportunities related to these processes in any organization.
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