Replying to LO27705 --
Dear Organlearners,
"Wirth, Ross" <RWIRTH@citgo.com> writes
>I am sorry that I missed the earlier explanation of the
>difference between energy and free energy.
Greetings Ross,
Our LO-dialogue on "free energy" has been going on intermittendly for
several years. The "free energy" (two words, one concept) of any system is
that part of its total energy not bound in maintaining the organisation
(structures and processes) of the system.
>However, being involved in the e-business side of the
>oil and gas industry it is my belief that Enron was in the
>business of market-making and they did not play
>well with others.
Since the early nineties Enron had been in some controversial projects in
many parts of the world (Asia, South-America, Africa). For example, you
may study an extensive report of Enron's dealing in India at:
< http://www.igc.org/trac/feature/india/profiles/enron/index.html >
>By this I mean that they would create a market in
>virtually anything and required Enron to hold one side
>of the transaction. They did not create a neutral,
>third-party market. This independence, that bordered
>on arrogance, also caused their downfall because they
>apparently hid their market positions in off balance sheet
>partnerships.
Its a complex tangle of free energy. They originally derived their income
by selling gas and electricity. They are two sources of free energy in the
physical dimension. They began to use this profit (monetary source of free
energy in the spiritual dimension) to make (subsidise ;-) markets in the
paper, electronic and other industries. It seems that during the
hype/bubble of e-commerce they spent too much on their dot.com markets,
even though they succeed in delivering breath taking sales. Thus it seems
that the heart of their evolution (selling gas and electricity) took too
much vampiring. To supply all this additional free energy the heart had to
give up too much of its organisation to sustain itself.
Hence tens of thousands of people lost their savings invested in Enron
stocks. They thought they had secured financial security at retirement,
and now many of them have nothing left over. This is a great tragedy.
>However, my bigger concern is the possible impact the
>Enron problems may have on some of the empowerment
>practices being adopted by others in the future. Many
>articles and books include Enron as an example of
>employee empowerment, especially self-leadership at the
>grassroots. How can we now continue to hold these
>references out as examples when the Enron name is so
>tarnished? To what extent might these exemplary practices
>now be tarnished by the actions at the top of Enron?
>Will this make our job of encouraging empowerment more
>difficult by top managers including all Enron practices under
>the same umbrella?
Ross, I have also noticed these references made to Enron. But I have never
have seen any document originating from Enron itself giving extensive
details of how it empowers its clients and workers. A search at their site
http://www.enron.com/corp/ on key words like empower and empowerment
brought nothing to light.
Should it be the case that Enron CEO Lay's claims to empower people (other
than selling commodities like energy and networks) are unsubstantiated,
then the authors of such text books and articles will have to explain why
they did not verify such claims. Should it be the case that Lay's claims
to empower people (by selling commodities like energy and networks) had
been misinterpreted for empowering people to take care of their own
future, then the authors of such text books and articles will be self in
the dock.
Some authors like to give weight to their claims by citing a great name.
In business it might be a name like Enron, in science a name like
Einstein, in arts a name like Beethoven or in religion a name like Jesus.
Whenever I myself use such a great name, I shudder at the consequences of
doing it. But I try to comfort myself by thinking how much in the past I
have stressed authentic learning and in depth questioning as perhaps its
most powerful tool.
My concern for learners world wide is that many businesses often survive
for years by selling dream after dream like the movie industry. When most
businesses in a country do it, sooner or later the people of that country
will wake up to a nightmare too awful to contemplate. We here in South
Africa had also been buying dream after dream, but now we have to wake up
to save our country from fortune makers..
By the way, empowerment has also been a topic from time to
time on our LO-dialogue for many years. You will find
delightful contributions to it by using a search engine like
< http://www.google.com/advanced_search >
and using as keyword in the top window ALL words
. empowerment
as well as
. learning-org.com
in the window DOMAIN low down to the right.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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