When you map PAE styles to the perceptions "is", "should" and "want", those things add up to "mine". But when you shift from the "me" to a "we" perspective, that perspective carves off a sense of what is, what is wanted, and what should be - in collective terms. It's about the state of the world for us.
My general observation is that this is another source of confusion in perceptions - in life and on management teams. Very, very, very often, people think they are arguing for the "we" case, but they misperceive. They fail to see that their perceptions are in fact very focused on their own understanding of "is", "should" and "want", then they falsely universalize these perceptions, and make pronouncements about what "we" must do.
An individual pronouncing for a "we" is usually projecting. The right to really make pronouncements about the reality we face, the goals we desire and the things we should do cannot be claimed by individuals unless they have been empowered by a group which has deliberated these things in an explicitly collective process.
Political debates in informal settings are typically duelling projections of the "me" as if it were "we", when it isn't.
However, there are all kinds of other ideas supported by this observation that perceptions may be "fractal" or self-similar. Perhaps I shall get into that in a later post.
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Some fun and some serious follow-up comments. For fun, there is an interesting parallel between Adizes perceptions and the attributes of the god of Abraham. That god is said to be:
Omnipotent - Can do anything he wants to (power).
Omniscient - So one cannot hide anything from him. He always knows if you are doing what you should do (monitoring, knowledge, influence).
Omnipresent - He is, everywhere and forever.
That is a playful observation, but it does prompt some thought. It made me realize a few things:
Should is- or is revealed in, or arises from - a gap between want and is. It is a corrective to that gap, or is a force for maintaining that gap. This is the domain of ethics.
Is is - or is revealed - in the emergence of should or want. These arise due to the unwelcomeness of or dissatisfaction with what is, or in the preservation of a valued state of what is against forces of change. They become proxies for an is that is in question. It is the domain of epistemology, ontology and metaphysics.
Want emerges in the gap between is and should. It can be the grounds for a should, for the is, or for a third option. It is the domain of politics, rhetoric, and ethics again.
This is a little forced, but in case it is the stub for a future insight, I thought I'd put it here, in the context of the above diagram.
The most important thing I have just realized is that the We/Ours level is not just another sphere of perception. It describes how systems operating at one hierarchical level begin to exhibit macroproperties which make them available for selection at a higher level.
This comprises much of the key insight I was missing for understanding the Structure of Concern. I actually think I can crack the code now. I am looking forward to giving it a try.
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