Jim Herrington said:
<<I lead a team of about 90 people where we are diligently seeking to
mastery the lo disciplines - and inevitably, I find that many people with
unresolved family of origin issues find authentic dialogue extremely
difficult. It seems that dialogue requires a certain amount of courage,
self-confidence, and trust. All of those attributes were missing in my
life until I got some specific help with my family of origin issues.
So, what does all that mean? If you have people in your organization with
unresolved family of origin issues, can you not create a learning
organization? How are others out there dealing with this issue? >>
These recent posts on the conflict between the theories of organizational
learning and the realities of individual personalities, backgrounds and
psychological make-up have struck a chord with me. In some of my research
in this area of organizational lea rning and knowledge management, I have
noticed that quite a few thinkers have approached this topic as almost a
type of religious revival in the workplace, where people find a sense of
place, meaning, and dignity.
But I have often asked myself, on a normative/prescriptive level, _why_
should we, as workers, look to organizations to provide the higher
echelons of Maslov's needs? I was raised to believe that fulfillment came
first from family and friends. Because we spend 40 hours or more at work,
it certainly should help mental well-being to feel empowered at work. But
it seems to me, that if we rely on work to provide roles which have
traditionally been filled by family and other social networks, we actually
weaken society. Organizations come and go with opportunities for profit
and the pains of unforgiving competition. Where do you grow up? Where do
you raise children? Where do you go after work? Who takes care of you when
work is over (retirement)? Who sits by you at your deathbed? More often
than, not these questions are answered with "home." Once home is secure,
we truly become empowered to participate efectively at work.
Perhaps as families have increasingly been letting us down we look more
and more for companies to fill these social roles? I am not sure, and
sociological questions are not really my strength. But I am curious to
generate other thoughts on this.
- --
Duru Ahanotu
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~iqduru
--Duru <iqduru@leland.Stanford.EDU>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>