Dear Brian,
thank you for your concern. I neither agree, neither disagree with you and
Greg. I'd like to share what i've learned so far.
I've have learned that my world view, how i see, feel, hear, experience
the world, is the critical element in defining my decisions. These act
like a pair of glasses. The crucial step in the resolution of any process
is how i perceive a problem. A problem being the difference between
expectations and reality. Expectations as well as the experience of
reality are filtered by my glasses, the outlook on the world. It doesn't
have to be that way, they're just ideas. Ideas, however have real
implications.
My world view is largely a combination of seeing new ideas ("if i haven't
thought about it, it doesn't exist") and feelings ("if it doesn't matter
it doesn't exist"): i have a facilitative approach.
I suppose nowadays that the way a person perceives the world is developed
very early in the childhood, even before the autobiografical self, the
memories that tell you who you were, develop. The glasses are like the
colour of your eyes, standing between "you and the world", you are born
with it, so you mai call it your core self. So my world view also shaped
my autobiografical self, thereby reinforcing itself. It is even worse: i
can only "see" myself through my own mind, my own eyes, hear my own words,
feel what i feel. And to prevent creating internal problems, my way is the
way it is. I used to say "if there is a difference between expectations
and reality, change reality.". These, off course, are only ideas.
Learning, developed for better survival, is training in survival.
Therefore our self is shaped, trained, molded, stamped to survive, no
matter what. Also, there'll be some double binds, because asking
questions, doubting your parents
I've noticed that all people are different. So people tend to have
different expectation, perceive the problem differently, may have
different solutions for a situation. "Were you stand depends on were you
sit and" - my addition - "what you think matters" - as a facilitator, if
you see what i mean.
Now, as a map, a menu for the different world view i use a simplification
of the MBTI personality types, which (my map) is also an adaptation of the
reality map presented by McWinney in his briljant "Paths of Change" and
also in the more than briljant book by Peter Tufts Richardson, "Four
Spiritualities" and is also described by Nett Hermann in a book about the
human mind, the title of which i have forgotten. The map consists of, in a
way, archetypes belonging to the collective sub-consious. As if these are
building blocks, like Lego(r) brick, to build minds from.
Using a two by two matrix, four different archetypical outlooks, mostly to
be used in combination of two, and adding some colour, i arrived at a
picture most people can easily understand. It is a map, as in "the map is
not the terrain" and it is a special map: it is self-referential. So it is
as it if through the same map you are seeing the map. "What you see is
what you get", or perhaps better, "who you are you do not notice", like a
pair of glasses coloured red: red becomes gray and all other colours
change accordingly. If you are interested i might send you a copy.
The colours i use are
2. Blue: policies, rules, thruths, principles, order, justice,
T-Thinking
1. Red: actions, facts, data, material things, ritual, authority,
S-Sensing
4. Yellow: ideas, vision, symbols, meanings, artistery, wisdom,
N-iNtuiting
3. Green: feelings, values, what matters, purposes, guides, compassion,
F-Feeling.
Self-referential means, that when i hear about facts, i experience facts
like opportunities. I do not immediately see that there are rules and
principles behind facts, nor that some facts matter more to some people
than other facts, nor that facts is data. This is different from your
view.
To give an example: i worked as a production manager in a complex factory
and, as you may or may not know, shipments are usually too late. So
delivery reliability (the difference between expectations and reality) is
a problem. I asked a student to look into the matter (she was, at that
time, a very practical person, the daughter of a farmer, i always ask well
grounded people to look into a situation, because, well you know, i only
have ideas). She made some measurements, gathered some facts and came up
with a report: the deliveries from production steps which were on the
critical path, which had no slack, were more reliable than steps which
were not on the critical path. (There was another finding, but i will not
go into that). Now, working from a yellow/green perspective, i concluded
that the resolution was to make every step in the production process
critical. She concluded, from a red/green perspective, that we should
involve factory workers more in implementing these changes in the
production porcesses. However, as a student, she had also to report to her
professor. Now, this was a man of principle, working from a blue/red
theory and he insisted that we should add more capacity to the critical
steps in the process, because these bottle necks couldn't make up for lost
time. As he determined the study results of this student, his view won.
(but i implemented the "make everything critical" solution: release an
orderline as late as possible. This worked perfectly, but nobody from the
university wanted to come and see the results. They, and others, keeped
saying: "it can not be done").
Now, what has this to do with profit motive vs LO?
I suspect that the different world views have been developed in order to
survive. Evolving shaped and shapes our outlook on life.
In the old days, long before we were born, in order to survive, we had
better be practical, strive, compete, fight, control and make a profit.
The dominant colours were red, blue, and a little bit of vision, not too
much, and green was for the home, greenpeas, green, peace. So the dominant
way to solve problems, the dominant way to focus on the common good is,
for most people, the bottom line. This is in our cultural outlook, in the
way we perceive things and during our infancy it has been knotted into our
survival mechanisms. For most people it is a scary, scarce world out
there. If i doesn't make a profit, i will not survive, so it can not be
trusted if it doesn't make me a profit.
So your choice of words is perfect: profit is a motive, a drive, a voice,
a cry if you like, for survival. Only, over the last few decades, the last
time, one thing has changed: we've become so successful in using this
strategy, that we've created a world of plenty. We must adapt as we're
spiralling from a hunting and gathering culture (hunt, fight, gather in
small groups for food day in day out in order to survive - green/red)
trough argiculture (grow, plan, order and store for the winter in order to
survive - red/blue) through prodiculture (compete, invent, grow outcomes
in order to survive the depression - blue/yellow) to idiculture (share
ideas, co-operate, learn in order to survive the world crisis -
yellow/green) and into spiriculture (hunt, fight, gather in small groups
and store what matters for the idividual in order to develop - green/red)
Now i think that our cultures run one step behind. Because we learn from
our parents, and they learned from their parents, with the best of
intentions, our managers, our leaders have learned how to survive in a
world that moves from agriculture to production - or, to put it
differently, that making a profit matters. They will tell you that making
a profit will solve every problem, from running trains to health care,
from social development to putting a man on the moon, from solving family
conflicts (home economicus) to restructuring economies of hugh scale (like
the Russian). They'll expect that they contribute to the best of humanity
in that way. And that is true. In a world of scarce resources.
So i'd say: do not pay attention to the men behind the curtain. They've
learned to survive operating pulls and levers, that is their way and
they'll only feel treathened when confronted. (I once, unknowingly, did
and was fired. I couldn't imagine the fear they felt as i facilitated the
change into a new culture, a culture rich in service and commitment to
learning, a learning organization. In the process, an external consultant
once observed a meeting of our board of directors in which i participated.
Later he told me, he had never seen managers so afraid of one person - me.
I said to him: "Why? i hardly said anything". To which he responded: "That
was the strangest thing"). Besides, it did create a world of plenty,
spoiling us.
The solution is in the next generation. I'd expect new managers, new
organisation with new managers, very, very young. Different cultures. Not
only will they be able to operate from their prefered reality, they'll
also be able to accept different world views in a creative, productive,
cooperative way. Hear: i'm coaching ("the manager as coach") through the
internet somebody i haven't met.
Learn to live; Teach your children well, that's the way.
Kind regards
Jan Lelie
Brian Gordon wrote:
> Greg Haworth and I have been having an offline discussion about the
> dangers of organizations being primarily motivated by profit.
-- With kind regards - met vriendelijke groeten,Jan Lelie
Drs J.C. Lelie CPIM (Jan) LOGISENS - Sparring Partner in Logistical Development Mind@Work est. 1998 - Group Resolution Process Support Tel.: (+ 31) (0)70 3243475 or car: (+ 31)(0)65 4685114 http://www.mindatwork.nl and/or taoSystems: + 31 (0)30 6377973 - Mindatwork@taoNet.nl
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