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January 2017 • SMT Magazine 79 A NEW ORGANIZATIONAL MODEL USING LOGIC, PART 2 are rooted in the past, not because they are nec- essarily best. They certainly cost more than al- ternatives. If the traditional structure is not the closest to perfection, what alternative is? Plato believed we are born out of perfection and true reality—the World of Ideas. As we be- gin our human existence, all we have is a quick- ly fading memory of that perfection. It's as if we're tied up in a cave, watching only shadows flit about on the wall in front of us, projected from the World of Ideas. The shadows. We mis- take the shadows for reality. They ultimately be- come our reality. Aristotle, Plato's student, believed we start with a tabula rasa, a blank slate. What we think and perceive become impressed on that slate (our mind) and we are quickly corrupted by the reality of our surroundings. Pick your philoso- pher. So, many things have changed in our tech- nological world. One thing that hasn't changed is how we organize the personnel in high tech production operations. Our production reality is formed by centuries of doing things a certain way. Breaking this organizational paradigm is a daunting challenge. The Greek theater was therapeutic for the people (polis). It permitted all the bad human impulses to be cathartically dealt with, and re- inforced noble, virtuous behavior. Do we have a comparable, lesson-teaching method to- day? Most of the entertainment I see today has things blowing up or people rolling around to- gether—art, I guess. In Plato's world, juries were formed with an average of 501 members to ensure justice. Why? Because it is difficult to bribe that many peo- ple when conspiring to rig a jury verdict. Back then, if the Greek laurel wreath didn't fit, you must acquit. However, pure democracy could often re- sult in mob rule, so in Plato's mind the people should find a wise philosopher-king to rule ab- solutely. This person would be given total con- trol and the people must comply. Ideally, in- fants would be taken away from their families and raised by the government in camps. This was the way to ensue equality—no one getting a head start because they came from a wealthy family. In fact, it was the mistrust of the people that caused the founders not to elect the president by popular vote, but have an electoral college establish who would be President. Political campaigns have always been sav- age. The election of 1800 resulted in an elector- al tie between Aaron Burr and Thomas Jeffer- son and was filled with intrigue. Each of the 16 states had one vote as the election, according to the Federal Constitution, was to be decided by the states voting in House of Representatives. This would determine the third President of the United States. It took 36 separate votes of the 16 states to decide in Jefferson's favor. Even though political campaigns could be brutal, one's honor meant something. In those days, having one's honor challenged would sometimes result in a dual—witness Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804 that resulted in Hamilton's death. It seems we don't have that push-back today. Lying for many has become a way of life. Politi- cians lie with conviction. It's become a prereq- uisite for the job—a job that the Founders never thought of as a lifetime occupation. For them, serving their country was a drudge, a sacrifice— although a necessary and honorable one. Get- ting back to private life was their objective. Today, lying is only wrong if you get caught— and then, not really wrong because everybody does it and what do right and wrong mean any- way in a relativistic (not, Einstein's relativity), deterministic world? My DNA made me do it! Win at all costs is the message. Winning is the only option. The end justifies the means. What happened to using, It's not winning or los- ing it's how you play the game as the pole star that guides us on how best to compete? As mentioned above, Henry Ford helped es- tablish the current organizational hierarchi- cal model through the practice of assembly line specialization. Our educational system re- inforced the model by offering majors in engi- neering, economics, political science, anthro- pology, history, etc. based on the current state of thinking for each discipline. However, the laws of physics don't change. Our understand- ing of them changes, from believing the earth is at the center of the universe to Newton's laws of motion to Einstein's theory of relativity.