Replying to LO23985 --
Perhaps another type of reason why organizational codes of conduct are not
as ubiquitously effective as they might otherwise be is the struggle many
of us have with the level of "personal mastery" required to live
consciously and consistently by any particular set of injunctions whether
desired by ourselves, imposed by others or some mixture of the two. Unless
of course some sort of gun (or its equivalent) is involved, or this
challenge is explicitly acknowledged and the journey towards the necessary
level of personal mastery required by each is effectively supported.
Without an honest acknowledgement of this difficulty I find it hard to
believe that most codes of conduct, corporate or otherwise, will ever be
anything other than largely meaningless gestures that only serve to
re-inforce peoples view that they are often wading through a sea of
bull****. Given that, as far as I am aware, this difficulty is not
explicitly acknowledged in most organizations, then my guess is that codes
of conduct are not generally taken too seriously my most people, other
than as something they need to remember in case they need to justify
themselves to someone with power over them at some point. So perhaps they
do have a useful function in this context as an aid to creative thinking?
Perhaps it requires the synergy that emerges from all 5 of PS's
disciplines, or all 7 of At's essentialities, to help people derive
meaning from such notions as codes of conduct on a day to day basis. In my
view the presently dominant civilisational worldview constantly erodes the
capacity of people in organizations to cultivate these types of emergent
synergies, so it is no surprise that curious people might come to question
the typical value of such fragments as codes of conduct.
Warm regards
Mark
Mark Feenstra
mark@strategiclearning.co.nz
SLS - bringing strategy to life
PO Box 99 193
Newmarket, Auckland, New Zealand
Ph. 64 9 373 3316
Fax 64 9 307 0891
--"Mark Feenstra" <mark@strategiclearning.co.nz>
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