ABSTRACT
The problem can be seen everywhere. Here a manager tries to persuade a worker to do something, there a manager issues a reprimand, another worries over the performance of a group, yet another listens to a gripe. Meanwhile, someone else is designing a new control system, while a colleague contemplates redesigning a form. They all have something in common. Everyone is making assumptions about how people will behave. Here then is 'the' problem. We cannot look into the feelings and motives of our workforce, we have to work with the only clue available – behaviour. Whether we are aware of it or not, in everything that we do we are constantly making assumptions of cause (what lies behind it) and deductions about consequences (what it will lead to). In other words, everything in management, even when it doesn't involve dealing with people, involves making assumptions about how people will behave. There are a few guiding stars – experience is certainly one – but theoretical knowledge is another. The heart of the problem is not merely the fact that you can only work from behaviour but also the sheer complexity which lies behind that behaviour – people are impossible to understand!
