John Zavacki answered to Winfried Deijmann's question:
>>John, can you explain what Deming (might) have meant by stating this? It
>>sounds illogical and logical at the same time.
>
>In the '80s, when Deming was finally recognized in American management
>circles, the notion of spirituality would have seemed frivolous to the
>MBAs and CFOs of America. (It probably still does) I don't know exactly
>what Deming meant, I still study his examples and find more hidden wisdom
>every day. I do, however, understand why we must be careful in how we
>present knowledge to management, in particular, industrial management.
Partly I agree with you John, but why do we have to be carefull?
>To many managers, business in the transformation of raw materials into
>profits. There is the Taylorist sheen on the production system:
>efficiency equals profit. The highest good is seen as maximum return for
>the shareholder. By bringing the V disciplines, Deming's 14 points and
>System of Profound Knowledge, Covey's Principle Centered Leadership, or
>some other principled discipline to bear on the organization, we need to
>teach in the language of the student. When the student is a COO, CFO, or
>CEO, they are usually reporting to a profit driven board. We must then
>teach them in terms of profits.
Aren't you abandoning the original spritual intention by doing so? The
words chosen to articulate a concept are the product of a spiritual
process. I don't see the link between teaching in terms of profit and
expecting a higher sense for spirituality.
>They will eventually understand the notions of systems and spirituality and
>the value such understanding adds to the organization. You can teach
>spirituality, you just can't call it that.
What you state here John, with all respect, doesn't make sence to me.
Spirituality is invisible, every thought we produce is in fact an act of
spirituality. Every word, sentence or idea written down in words is a
visualization (literally) of an spritual act.
So consequently every designed organizational model or system is in fact a
product of spirituality. But isn't the key question here: By what kind of
spirituality? Inspired by what kind of spirits? And this is where most
authors seem to keep silent. They don't come forward with their
inspirational background. Perhaps they aren't aware of their own spirtual
source? Spiritual sources can be a kind of confessional belief or religion,
like Budhism, Islam, Christianity, or smaller sekterian parts of these
religions or an abstract mix of all these beliefs ( New Age movement??).
But Science is also a spiritual beliefsystem. IMO Scientist also are
highly spiritual influenced although most of our scientists themselves
declare to be not spiritual at all.
The day I will e.g. meet Peter Senge, one of my key questions will be to
ask him what his spritual inspiration source is.
The concept of The learning organization is a brave attempt to explicitly
integrate spirituality into organizations. Every author, or lecturer
writing or talking on the issue of Organizational Learning is ispired by an
inspirational spirtual source. I never make a secret out of the fact that
my professional attitude is based in Anthroposophy. This doesn't mean at
all that I want to make small or great Anthroposophist out of my clients.
I often hear in feed back words like: "Winfried, you have easy talking
about these kind of things (leadership attitudes, culture etc.) because you
have a spirtual background, which I/we don't have!" I allways reply:
"That's not true, you too have a spirtual background, you're just not aware
of it."
My point is, that you can teach spirituality, but only if you teach
students ( CEO's, CLO's, or whoever) to discover their own spirtual
sources. And if they are not satisfied with what they discover, show them
the path to find alternatives, not subscribe or force the alternatives in
a tricky way through their throaths like you give medicine to a child. The
more clear we, as consultants, go public with our 'look at life' the
easier it will be for clients to benchmark and learn.
Winfried
--Mr. Winfried M. Deijmann - Deijmann & Partners - Zutphen - The Netherlands Artists, Consultants and Facilitators for Organizational Learning, Leadership and Action Learning Events Het Zwanevlot 37, NL 7206 CB Zutphen, The Netherlands <Winfried@universal.nl> Phone: +31-(0)575-522076 mobile: +31-(0)654 94 71 27 Homepage: <http://www.come.to/dialoog>
For information on our International Workshops: <http://www.universal.nl/users/winfried/workshopsuk.html>
"An educated mind is useless without a focussed will and dangerous without a loving heart" (unknown source)
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