>From two recent C&SoB posts:
> Because the "soul" of the organization,
> >which may be bent toward quite artificial meaning and goals, such as
> >making money for already rich investors, also alters the "souls" of its
> >individuals. This effect is even more evident in Japanese society, where
> >people often approach the values and goals of their employer with nearly
> >religious zeal.
Depends, perhaps, on how we are interpreting soul. The more serious
literature and research (though some will argue with that term, no
doubt!), writers such as Wilber, Sinetar, Vaughan, Moore and Fox for
example, I think would suggest that in such situations as the above, the
soul is not so much altered as it is covered, denied, crushed, etc. It is
when the soul is denied (e.g., closed, unrecognized, disallowed, deadened)
that we see such dysfunctions as cynicism, hopelessness, or despair. The
erupting workplace symptoms include such things as high absenteeism,
violence, apathy, or simply twisted sense of self. The soul of an
organization, likewise, can be neither bent or twisted, it simply is. It
becomes dysfunctional when it is relegated to dark and swampy depths.
>From another post,
> Scott refers to "artificial" meaning and goals but I am really not sure as
> to what those actually are. Is feeling good about accomplishing business
> goals and making money something to be concerned about? Yes if it is
> accomplished in immoral and illegal ways but most certainly NO in the vast
> majority of situations in my opinion.
Again, I think it depends... Making money should be a concern, in my mind,
if that's the end purpose. Everything else being a means to this end.
Making money just to be making money seems to have a strongly immoral
aspect to it. As far as other goals, I think it depends upon what those
goals are.
> Think of the positive reactions when one's pick-up basketball team "wins"
> in a hard-fought game. Isn't this good for the "soul" of the players?
> Isn't the pride that results from even losing but playing well a positive
> outcome?
It's no doubt good for the ego of the players, but may or may not be for
the soul. Again, what are we talking about here, with soul? What is good
for one's soul is less about winning or losing, or any naming we give to
outcomes in terms of positive or negative, and more about expression and
quality of a self or an experience. The capacity and opportunity to
rejoice or to cry, that is good for the soul. To live fully. As I
understand it, when we talk of working with soul, or a soulful workplace,
that is what is being talked about.
> I would hope that more organizations would develop collective visions and
> goals and provide people with an understanding of the key issues in
> alignment. To me, that most certainly has a higher balance of positive
> outcomes than the more typical situations we so often discuss.
Agreed
--Terri A Deems tadeems@aol.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>