Dear Brian & Greg
A very interesting approach you both have, what you say about destroying
the planet is true and not true at the same time. There are many cases of
these problems you speak about. The sparrow problem in China in Mao's
reign, the raping of the seas, the oil dumping, poisoning of the land (our
natural water systems) yes all that is correct, but there are also many
things that are pleasant and not harmful. Hopefully if companies have a
systems approach this short sighted profit orientated behaviour will go
away. But if you don't make a profit that is also a major problem. Believe
me a learning approach will not solve these problems, because all learning
in business is generally about know-how and that is to meet customers
needs articulated and those not articulated. This will not solve the
problems you speak about. Profit might not be the cause of environmental
degradation and there is no causal or structural proof for this. In fact
even strong statistics cannot prove causality only association. So this is
a hotbed of differing values we are talking about. One needs to have a
systems approach here, see Senge on the tragedy of the commons.
Good luck if you come to any agreement with those on the profit and
environmental divide. Both are totally different values and they generally
don't seem to agree with each other. It's like the socialists and the
nationalists.
Kindest
Gavin
Brian Gordon wrote:
> Greg Haworth and I have been having an offline discussion about the
> dangers of organizations being primarily motivated by profit. Greg has
> made the point that LOs will simply make such organizations more efficient
> at destroying the planet (Greg, please correct me if this is not what you
> meant!). We agreed to send one of our messages the list in the hope of
> sparking a dialogue on ways that organizations can learn to focus on the
> common good, not just the bottom line.
--Gavin Ritz <garritz@xtra.co.nz>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>