ABSTRACT
Several days after the publication of an internal note by B.T.J., ‘Some Crew Development Ideas’, I was shown the following critique via internal corporation mail. It is a rather novel form of professional critique in two ways. First, it is unsigned. Secondly, although it is obviously aimed at professional readers at large, it is a hand-typed and written copy and there is reason to doubt that anyone but the anonymous writer, B.T.J., and the few people B.TJ. showed it to, have seen it. But since the problem posed in the critique is important, I think it is worth while to present the critique to the professional body within the corporation * for their consideration and then attempt to answer it to some extent. The critique bears no title and is reproduced below verbatim:
We were perusing some ‘incunabula’ a few days back when we came accross (sic) a fine specimen by a Mr. J.
Mr. J. had gone to a great deal of trouble to tell us that when a group of people has to do something, the personalities of the individuals within the group will interact and affect the solution that the group will use to do the ‘something’. Since there are so many ‘personalities’ that the combinations of such approach infinity, the number of solutions is limited only by the environment and some of the previous experience that the individuals might have with it. Even when such a large number of solutions occur, it is possible to rank them according to any criteria we might set up such as efficiency or speed of performance of the task to be accomplished. We will find then that, according to these criteria, some solutions are preferable to others. The factors that lead to the development of each solution are such that when it becomes desirable to lead the group into changing the solution, we find it a difficult task. So difficult, in fact, that we as yet have not been able to even analyse what factors there are. However, Mr. J. feels that one of them seems to be that the group’s solution is that one that takes least effort for the group, regardless of how inefficient it may seem to an outsider, and therefore, the group thinks it impossible to improve upon it.