Morality in Learning Organisations LO17794

Winfried Dressler (winfried.dressler@voith.de)
Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:57:11 +0100

Replying to LO17776 --

After defining an LO as:

>A LO is an organisation in which people
>at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually
>increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about.

At de Lange asks

>Is it possible for an organisation to be a LO and persist in acting
>immoral?

I would love to answer with a a clear "No - a LO cannot persist in acting
immoral." But this would be the statement of a truth, a being. Such truths
always have a taste of tautology to me (R => R), thus, if a specific
organisation persists in acting immoral, it just is not "really" a LO.

Some dangers of becoming have to be considered:
- Is it not possible to destroy the base one is living from, while doing
what one "really care about"? For instance due to a lack of systemic
overview?
- Is such self-destruction always immoral?

Since human societies left the magical bindings to nature behind them, the
success of these societies depend mainly on the ability to incorporate
specific rules of social interaction - socalled morality (Do not kill -
respect for life, do not steal - respect for property etc.), some are
common to most cultures, some more specific to only few cultures.

What I usually mis in such moralty, restricted to social interaction, is
the link to the biosphere, which provides for the basis of human life. In
analogy to At's extension of human "creativity" to "deep creativity"
involving all levels of becoming new order, I could extend moralty to
"deep moralty", including responsibility for the biosphere.

Meanwhile, as long as "really care" does not include "deep moralty" thus
leading to a tautology, even the best LO may contribute to the execution
of the biosphere as the base of human life.

Best regards,
Winfried

-- 

Winfried.Dressler@voith.de

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