Compassion & Sense of Beauty LO14874

Scott Ellliott (scotte@sonic.net)
Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:05:58 -0700

Replying to LO14833 --

David Lyle-Carter struck a sensitive note on this topic, to which there
are several thoughtful replies. This subject affects and disturbs me
deeply as well.

An organization learns best and performs best when it is able to best
align its' collective vision, goals, standards of conduct, culture and
methods with those of its' individual contributors -- in a sense, it
attempts to "align souls" with the group members. As for the individuals,
we all know how much people can become identified with their occupation or
workplace. In Western culture, most people will tell you what their job
is much faster than they will describe their family, philosophy, religious
beliefs, etc. In fact, many times they will tell you their job in order
to give you some idea about their philosophy: "well, I'm a construction
worker, so I believe that. . .".

High-performance work-teams capitalize on these tendencies to further
cement this co-identification of individual and team. I have seen
high-performance members actually grieve after losing a member to another
job or retirement! The "soul" of the team is changed.

Why does this fact disturb me? Because the "soul" of the organization,
which may be bent toward quite artificial meaning and goals, such as
making money for already rich investors, also alters the "souls" of its
individuals. This effect is even more evident in Japanese society, where
people often approach the values and goals of their employer with nearly
religious zeal.

I am ultimately worried that, as we attempt to approach perfection in the
workplace, we may be paying a terrible price in individual intellectual
freedom.

Thoughtfully Yours,
Scott Elliott

-- 

Scott Ellliott <scotte@sonic.net>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>