Hurt in Organisations. LO30942

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 02/10/04


Dear Organlearners,

Greetings to all of you.

How often does it happen that a person gets hurt in any organisation?
I am thinking here of all kinds of organisations like families, firms
providing work and even nations. Safety measures are usually enforced
to prevent physical hurt. For example, think of wearing protective
clothing or the shielding of any dangerous apparatus.

But what about spiritual hurt? Can we enforce safety measures to
prevent it too? When the hurt gets too rough like in defamation we
have public laws to prevent it. But what about those tiny bits of hurt
which public laws do not forbid, but which add up to one very big
hurt. How do we prevent that?

I think we first have to look at what cause that hurt. I can think of
two main causes. Perhaps fellow learners can add to them.

The first cause is that a person gets hurt deliberately by another
person or a group of them. The reasons are many like trying to get rid
of a person or to manifest power over another person. The second cause
is that a person gets hurt through the ignorance of others. I have
experienced hurt through both causes and everybody whom I know have
experienced them too. Is there anyone among humankind who has not
experienced hurt through both causes?

Both causes are due to a lack of learning. In deliberate hurt the
"hurter" is unaware of all the consequences of such hurt. In ignorant
hurt the "hurter" is unaware of even causing such hurt.

Learning is needed to prevent this hurt. However, authentic learning
cannot be enforced like a law. It has to happen spontaneously. When it
does not happen, there is one and only one reason for it -- a lack in
spiritual free energy.

When any system lacks in free energy, physical or spiritual, the
system alone is not responsible for it. Both the system and its
surrounding systems with which it interacts, even indirectly, are
responsible for it. This interaction between the system and its
surrounding systems can be described best by the 7Es (seven
essentialities of creativity). They are liveness, sureness, wholeness,
fruitfulness, spareness, otherness and openness. When one or more of
them are impaired, the free energy dwindles away until nothing is left
over. In other words, the free energy landscape of the system has
become flat.

For example, it is according to wholeness that I claim that both the
system and its surrounding systems are responsible for the lack of
free energy in a system and thus the absence of spontaneous actions.

How can we restore the ruggedness of the free energy landscape of a
system? I am convinced that the initial adjustments have to be made in
the surroundings of that system rather than the system itself.
Furthermore, such adjustments have to be made spontaneously! As for
restoring someone's spiritual free energy, it means that only those
who are learning authentically can accomplish it. They have to take it
upon themselves to make such adjustments.

How can they do it when the hurt happens in an organisation? I think
there is only one way and that is for the organisation to become a LO
(Learning Organisation). The LO provides the immediate environment in
which the "hurter" can learn spontaneously about his/her hurting
practices, whether by deliberation or ignorance. Only afterwards can
the "hurter" stop with such practices. The LO also provides the
environment in which the "hurted" can find peace in body and mind.

I do not want to be judgmental. But I think that those in managerial
positions are often the most worse hurters. In fact, a particular
incident lately made me write this essay. The reason is that they have
learned how to engineer themselves into managerial positions, but
never how much hurt with all its consequences they have caused to
succeed. Furthermore, they keep on hurting as managers. But again, it
is because they did not had the benefit of becoming managers in a LO
as environment.

Fortunately, I also know managers who avoid hurting other people.
Three things about them struck me very much. Firstly, many of them
have experienced much hurt because of some or other reason like a
disablement. Secondly, they are authentic learners who do not shy away
from learning anything even up to the last days of their lives.
Thirdly, they do not know about the power of a LO. While my heart
aches for those who get hurt, it has immense gratitude and admiration
for those managers who avoid hurting other people and rather dignify
them. If only those managers knew how much more they could have
accomplished by guiding their organisations to become learning
organisations.

I am also thinking of bright people in the process of becoming senior
managers. Some of them know spiritual hurt and much of its
consequences. They often have bouts of seclusion, trying to live as a
Robinson Crusoe on an island. Should they have known more about
wholeness, they would have taken a different action. Sometimes they
hurt others too, hoping that it will have an effect for the better.
They should rather avoid hurt by learning how to it decrease without
any offence.

Lastly, I am thinking of religious people who hurt others in the name
and honour of God. If God is agape love, it is inconceivable to hurt
another person because of loving self God with agape. Agape love and
hurt cannot be mixed, except by God self. Only God self can endure
such a connection and not any human mortal. Only God self has the
wisdom how to do it for the benefit of us mortals.

I now want to plead to everyone reading this essay. Let us stop
hurting other people, especially in organisational relationships which
make it so easy because they are so important. Let us promote learning
among individuals and organisations. The lack of learning causes
humankind far too much pain. Let us understand what hurt involves.
Feeling hurt is just too much to endure endlessly.

I dedicate this essay to all who are experiencing hurt. I beg you to
keep up your vigour and composure. Life involves more than hurt. Seek
those things which cause joy. The most important among them are
emergences, i.e., to shift into a higher level of living. These
emergences are the opposite of death. Creeping death numbs the senses.
Please be patient with those who lack in learning and hence who will
cause hurt. It is the only way to avoid hurting them too and thus
amplifying the cycle of hurt. Keep in mind that the less you are full
of yourself, the more you have place in your heart for others. May you
all be blessed.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.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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