Replying to LO15811
Debbie Broome, Assistant City Manager, Plano, Texas , wrote of her
frustration at how people bring their issues to the public forum, and her
observation of what is missing "THERE IS NO DIALOGUE", and her observation
that opposing groups do not look at an issue from " A SYSTEM WIDE
PERSPECTIVE". I would like to add the observations by some keen
sociolologists and philosophers about what does not work for us in our
democracy and in our institutions. Robert Bellah , et al in their book
HABITS OF THE HEART, showed how the american mindset and character is
shaped toward extreme individualism, and that we lack a language of
community or a language of citizenship. So when Debbie says there is no
dialogue, she is confirming what sociologists have already diagnosed as
one of our social problems. Amitae Etzioni, the sociologist, in his newest
book "THE NEW GOLDEN RULE" proposes a new ontology of the self that
bridges the dimension of individualism and freedom with the dimension of
community and responsibility. Both of this sociologist would agree with
Debbie's assessment.
As an organization consultant and educator, like most of us in our
profession we get the chance to see first hand good corporate citizens who
lack the skills of civility and dialogue. That is why most of the
management courses aim to educate employees to good communication skills,
conflict resolution, building consensus, so that people can get along in
the corporation and be productive. In addition to those foundation
skills/interpersonal skills that every adult should have, again here we
have a failure of our institutions, high school, college, etc, we adult
educators and organization consultants try to bring new disciplines like
SYSTEMS THINKING, SHARED VISIONS, MENTAL MODELS, etc, These same
disciplines could/should be part of a CURRICULUM FOR EFFECTIVE
CITIZENSHIP.
So we have three interrelated problems :
1. An ontological problem. Extreme individualism, lack of the new golden
mean..
2. A sociological problem. failure of our institutions to educate us as
effective citizens.
3. Lack of skills: Dialogue, consensus building, systems thinking,
solidarity, Language.
Debbie don't give up, join Amitai etzioni's community building process.
Best,
Manuel Manga
Organization design Consultant
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>