Leadership and Technology LO21535

Steve_Kelner@cqm.org
Fri, 7 May 1999 09:10:32 -0400

Replying to LO21518 --

Greetings, At,

Your description of Julius Caesar is interesting to me, though I question
your attributions as to why he was made dictator, which was only
indirectly to do with his success in Gaul. (He was already a Caesar--that
was his family. Since later emperors were adopted into the family
starting with Octavian AKA Augustus, the family name became identified
with the position. Hence Suetonius' "the Twelve Caesars.") Incidently,
depending on how you define leader (again), Caesar Augustus comes out far
greater than Julius Caesar, though I think we could argue endlessly on
this.

As John notes elsewhere in the digest with your letter, there are a lot of
debates concerning language. Here we go again.

You wrote:
> In any case, it does not really matter to me. Your description falls under
> what I call the dynamics (physiology, semantics) of creativity. John's
> description falls under what I call the mechanics (morphology, syntaxis)
> of creativity. (Choose any of the other names in brackets if dynamics and
> mechanics do not ring a bell for you.) Comparing the dynamics of
> creativity with its mechanics is for me like comparing appels with pears
> to decide which are the best quinches.

I think you are using an inappropriate umbrella. I agree that John and I
were comparing apples with pears at one point (and indeed I said so,
contrasting the motive with the behavior), but motivation does not equal
creativity.

You wrote:
> Both you and John have focused upon very important facets of creativity.
> You focus on motivation which has to do with the free energy for
> organisation of self-organising systems, whether they are material or
> abstract. John focus on the the association of various "holons" (
> surrounding systems, system, subsystems) making up the whole hypersystem
> (universe). It has to do with the essentiality of wholeness.

I am not sure I understood your definition here, which seems to be more of
a physics definition than a psychology definition, but I believe that you
have redefined motives in a way which is not accurate.The specific motives
to which I referred are a source of emotional energy for any purpose, but
they are bound up with specific general goals--that is how we distinguish
one motive from another. It is not limited to the organization of
self-organizing systems. Indeed, motives can be quite destabilizing. I
also confess that I find the last two sentences completely
incomprehensible, especially since I thought I was defining a larger group
into which both motives and John's thoughts were included.

Steve Kelner
Director, Educational and Advising Services
Center for Quality of Management
http://www.cqm.org

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