Tricia wrote:
>I have been asking myself why it is that organisations seem to be getting
>more and more toxic as time goes on. Is it just because I didn't notice
>earlier, when I was younger and less experienced? Or is there something
>else at play here?
This is a big question. I think part of the cause lies in the ageing
process and the resulting increased field of awareness. There has been
talk in other threads about levels and, my understanding of Gillian
Stamp's work, is that a persons time horizon increases with age and peaks
in their 50 / 60s. This increased time horizon would mean that we start
to see things differently as our increased time awareness leads to the
identication of different possible cause/effect explanations.
To suggest that it is all down to the individual, would imply that there
have been no changes in the environment. I do not believe that this is
true. In a conversation with my accountant on the subject, we came to the
general conclusion that over our working lives of some 30 years, that
there had been a change in ethics and values of employed managers.
Today's managers had a similar set of ethics and values that had been
common in self-employed people 30 years ago, ie much greater self interest
and much lower community interest. The difficulty is that we have both
aged, so is there is the question as to whether this is a result of our
increased time horizons or whether it is an observation of changes in the
environment.
>What I do think, is that at the end of the day, our role is to help people
>de-toxify organisations. We need to do this with deep creativity. Find
>new ways, together, to shift the organisational paradigm away from the
>toxic pain to the healthy pain of learning, growing and becoming.
Well said. I am sure that profits would accrue just as fast, if not
faster, if we there was an element of making life pleasanter for people as
well as more efficiency.
Roy Benford
Fulmer, UK
--"Roy Benford" <roy@benford.demon.co.uk>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>