> The response of Bob Watson
>
> >The problem is, I think, that people without "painterly souls" want to
> >become painters, that people without "managerial souls" want to become
> >managers, and that people without "leadership souls" want to become
> >leaders. As the saying goes, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's
> >ear.
I was talking to a friend who works successfully in a successful Wall
Street firm here in NYCity. He said that everyone, yes everyone, in his
firm expressed the feeling that they were not doing what they really
wanted to do in life. That it was for money pure and simple. I asked
what he thought this said about the quality of being, that this brought to
the business and he said that it didn't seem to matter. How's that for
the Peter Principle?
As for sow's ears, it has been my experience that a flexible
psycho-physical personality can learn just about anything of the teaching
is wise and technically proficient. The issue is that "Mental Model"
thing and the willingness to spend the time in development.
In the Classical Performing Arts, if you don't bring your whole being to
the psycho-physical pursuit of values in text and sound then you are
simply a bad artist. There is no such thing as being successful for the
sake of money. Anyone would be crazy to put this much time, energy and
life's blood into a professional artistic career if money was the reason.
What does this WSB's statement portend for the future of American
Enterprise? Is it possible to get people to do the kind of complex work,
that the future is planning, for the goal of making a lot of money? Or if
I may reverse it, can companies afford to pay enough to make people do
this kind of complex work if they are not paid like WSBs, professional
athletes or movie stars?
Might there be a little too much over-simple thinking going into the
examination of just what kind of future world our businesses are creating
for ourselves with the sole emphasis on a cash bottom line? There were
10,000 jobs cut today and WS said it wasn't enough to raise the company's
stock.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
mcore@idt.net
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>