To Jim and Duru,
I noticed your note and a very interesting thread about abuse and the
learning organization.
I would like to follow this up for a few moments.
Since I am working to complete my doctorate in leadership studies, I want
to offer you both a answer to Duru's note about why look to the workplace
for things our family lives should have given us.
James MacGregor Burns wrote in Leadership (1978) that transformational
leadership is when people raise each other to higher levels of morality.
Joe Rost in Leadership for the 21st Century wrote Leadership is a
relationship, Bill Foster wrote in Towards a Critical Practice of
Leadership (1989) "that leadership in the final analysis is about a
commuity trying to find meaning for itself".
Think about it. People engaged with each other are in fact a transforming
process. We have too often looked to the individual to better him or
herself on their own, by themselves. Yet everyday they come to work and
have an opportunity to be part of a transforming process. A process I
would call leadership (I believe leadership IS a relationship) and to be
with people who might very well provide the impetus to engage their own
lives problems. I mean you point about fixing one's own family issues is
only half right. I believe it must be done, but what working everyday can
give you, what you can find in the workplace that you might not have found
at home, is COMMUNITY. A place where you can start over and find value in
your work. This might be the first time that you are truly valued for
what you are and what you do. I have seen it many times, people get their
first set of values from working with others because they didn't get it
from home. It is this engagement with others, this acceptance, if you
will that provides the basis for a new beginning.
Making friends, have social relationships, being taken in as one of the
gang, all of this provides a basis for a person to start over. I think
Burns really hit on something when he spoke of people "raising each other"
it is in the relationship building at work that people may find what they
couldn't get at home. It is a simple word I have said it before,
acceptance.
I would also add that these ideas put forth by these authors, are also the
fundamental fuel that can run the learning organization. Senge has said
it right, we must change our conception of leadership from something
positional to something more collaborative. I have melded these authors
with senge's notions of purpose and vision and systemic thinking to
produce a concept of leadership I call "Collaborative Leadership".
I hope this provides at least one approach to your question. Good
question, Good Thread
My Best to you
John Dentico
Avatar Leadership Simulations
At 10:27 PM 10/6/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Replying to LO15220 --
>
>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 <iqduru@leland.Stanford.EDU>
--"John P. Dentico" <jdentico@adnc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>