Humanizing Systems — from Carman de voer

February 22, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,  Thank you for enriching and expanding the Organization as Theocracy metaphor. I especially enjoy the way you integrate the concepts into your own educational and industrial experience. I am excited by the potential praxis of reflection and action we’ve ignited which demonstrates the power of thought to “negate accepted limits and open the way to a new future,” to quote Richard Shaull.

Lisa, you may always ask me whatever you like.  Refreshingly, and unlike Theory X organizations, we are not consigned to a ‘culture of silence’. As regards theological studies—No. I have no background in theology or religious studies. I threaded my essay from strands of thought furnished by Max Weber. I inclined to inquire into the origins of psychic prisons. I do, however, read a range of secular and sacred material, which leads me to conclude that the greatest literature is the literature of leadership.

To illustrate: When Vaclav Havel speaks about humanizing systems that ‘serve the individual rather than vice versa.’ I see a parallel in the New Testament (‘dissident intellectual’ Jesus washing the feet of his rabbis in training—apostles—and directing them to do likewise to ‘one another’). It’s curious that such a potentially powerful educative act can transmogrify into the caricature annually enacted by the Vatican.

Thank you for discussing ‘absolute hierarchies’ Lisa. I tend to think of my theocracy metaphor as a continuum of organizations—exhibiting an array of colors from white to grey to black—depending upon the unique profile or idiosyncratic nature of the ‘entity’ (i.e., mission, vision, values). Economic and survival stressors can, I believe, expose the organization’s location on the continuum. The touchstone would be the extent to which the system serves the individual rather than vice versa—to invoke Havel. We might put it this way: ‘If an organization was arrested for consistently treating employees humanely, would there be enough evidence to convict it?’

 Your question, “what does it look like to take a more hemispherically balanced approach to organizations?” transits us from organization as Instrument of Domination to Organization as Brain. I’m excited about that. By the way Lisa, your comment “traditional bureaucratic organizations were substantially shaped by a theory x worldview.  This stymies the highest aspirations of many leaders who are effectively driving with the parking brake on…” is brilliant! Beautiful analogy too.

Bye for now!

Carman

p.s.  I saw a seal swimming close to Lion’s Gate Bridge yesterday. I stopped, looked at it, and said, “I see you!…” Indifferent to my presence, it gracefully disappeared into the water.

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Reply to Organization as Theocracy

February 21, 2009 / / One comment

Carman, What a creative essay! It sounds like you have a background in religious studies or theology. May I ask if that is true? 

The organization as theocracy metaphor is a potentially useful one in that it’s been multiply observed ( I hope my readers will forgive me for not looking up the references) that our understanding of the Divine (or Sacred) order shapes our understanding of the ideal social order.  As you mention, although Western culture has its deep roots in a more organic worldview, it has been strongly shaped by Protestant ideas and ethics. 

For example, conservative theologians interpret the maleness of Jesus to affirm God as male, and therefore, as an endorsement of male dominance (patriarchy) in the human social sphere.  Alice Miller, author of For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-rearing and the Roots of Violence, observed that in pre-World War II Germany, children were raised to be reflexively obedient to the father. This was understood to socialize them to be obedient members of the larger societal hierarchy, and therefore, in correct relationship to God. 

Throughout history, political leaders have often claimed divine endorsement.  In secular culture, God may not be imagined to be at the top of the social pyramid, but those at the top may still be seen as God-like.  I have heard the religious metaphor used within organizations. For example, in one institution, it was said that the president and founder reported to the board, and the president’s spouse, who was also involved in the business, directly reported to God. In another, a colleague would remark dryly, “I’m on a mission from Ray…” (the CEO). 

There’s a sense in which our understanding of power per se is derived from our understanding of divine power. (It follows that a shift in worldview can also shift our understanding of the nature of power…).

What I’m hearing you say in your essay, is that, in a sense, that absolute social hierarchies, create or reinforce the objectification of others.  An absolute social hierarchy would be one in which one person is understood to be superior (rather than differently gifted, knowledgeable or skilled) than another. A theocracy is an absolute social hierarchy, with some members considered closer to God (or an absolute standard of Godliness as interpreted/embodied by the human at the head of the divine hiearchy).  We also know that  absolute hierarchies have historically led to the exploitation and abuse of those considered “less than fully human.” I would include lots of examples here, but they are all grim, and I am aiming for a lighter tone! 

In my experience — at least in the high technology industry –knowledge-based organizations often can’t be described as theory x organizations. At the same time, I don’t see many knowledge-based organizations as fully expressing a theory y orientation. I think this is because traditional bureaucratic organizatons were substantially shaped by a theory x worldview.  This stymies the highest aspirations of many leaders who are effectively driving with the parking brake on…

Your post also ties in the strategies of rational control. The left brain gives rise to and is analogous to the structures of the control in the bureaucratic organization. It is also that part of us which seems to make objects of “things” so as to manipulate them. The right brain takes the world in as a gestalt, without sealing the self off from it.  It is holistic and inclusive.  http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2008/03/22/experience-of-right-and-left-hemispheres-of-the-brain/

As humans, we have both capacities for experiencing our selves as separate and as continous with the world. However, Western culture emphasizes the former and subordinates the latter. If we were to use our brains in a more balanced way, we might expect to be more creative and innovative, individually and collectively.  I’m wondering, what does it look like to take a more hemispherically balanced approach to organizations?

http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2009/02/21/organization-as-theocracy-metaphor-from-carman-de-voer/

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Organization as Theocracy Metaphor

February 21, 2009 / / One comment

Hi Lisa, I had fun originating the “theocracy” metaphor. Your question, ‘What are the dynamics that can lead us to imagine other people as objects?’ guided me throughout. As with all metaphors it both illuminates and obfuscates.

Organization As Theocracy

Theocracy: government by men claiming to know the will of God.

Etiology of Error

The Messianic [Christian] Scriptures are a record of rabbis disciplining rabbis. In-groups were those rabbis who accepted Jesus as Jewish Messiah; out-groups—rabbis who rejected Jesus as Jewish Messiah. “The world”—ancient Jewish society—was the arena of reclamation. All discipline was lateral –rabbi counseling rabbi–and only after the completion of the biblical canon became hierarchical [leader controlling “laity”].

Replacement Theology

In the ensuing centuries, an institution emerged calling itself “Christianity” borrowing concepts from the Jewish worldview and organic culture contained in the sacred scripts. Rather than leaders [rabbis] disciplining leaders and furnishing them lateral training, it conceived a learned group of [non-Jewish] men [clergy] communicating ‘higher’ learning to powerless men and women [laity].

In-groups became those who accepted the institutional interpretation of the Scriptures; out-groups became those who rejected such. The catholic [universal] leadership and institution became “the saved’’—“the world” became those outside of and [often] opposed to “the church.”

Protestant Ethic

A paradigm shift: from individual within the corporate to corporate within the individual.

Dimensions:

• Bi-polar partitioning of people into classes [“superior” and “subordinate”-“saved” and “unsaved”]
• Isolation
• Impersonality
• Systematic and detailed planning of activity
• Efficient and effective “good works”
• Motion economy with corresponding disdain for relaxation and “idleness”
• Time=money
• Patriarchy
• Wealth confirms divine favor
• “Spiritual” slavery to god

Implications for Organizations

The impersonal organization is exalted to divine status and becomes the unconscious projection of human needs and neuroses. Organization has a psychological profile: mission, vision, and values. It is feared and obeyed because “it” controls the material bases of life. Activity un-related to its “business” [idiosyncrasies, laughter, social interaction] is disloyalty to the deity. Object is supreme; subject is slight.

Management: Enacts the business [busy-ness] of the controlling entity. A priestly class “above” mediates between the “deity” and those “below” or “down” the hierarchy. These systematically plan the lives of “workers” to the last detail. Credentials, honor, status, and remuneration confirm their calling as a priestly aristocracy of labor.

Separation and secrecy [hence, ‘secretary’] sanctify them away from the potentially contaminating operatives. Workers are objects to be ‘reconciled’ to the deity [organization]. Management’s success is judged by melding the will of the organization and the will of workers. Obedience, submission and commitment are paramount.

Management Assumptions:

Non-managerial workers are in deficit [“sinners”]. Non-managerial workers exhibit the following characteristics:

• Dislike work and attempt to avoid it
• Have no ambition, want no responsibility
• Would rather follow than lead
• Are self-centered and therefore do not care about organizational goals
• Resist change
• Are gullible and not particularly intelligent

In fine, “workers” are “slaves of god” in that they experience a symbolic ritual of dishonor (social death) inflicted by both themselves and the enslaving organization. As slaves they are deprived of freedom of decision and action by means of force or enforced solidarity with a view to the utility of the enslaving organization. Self-manumission obtains when leaving an enslaving organization; slavery resumes when entering another. The brutal and brutalizing relationship is masked by a thin veneer of civility that is mitigated only by State “protection.”

The antagonism between “leaders” [shepherds] and “led” [sheep] can only be remedied by workers being “born from above” and “saved” [e.g., from unemployment]. Workers must “perform”—demonstrate unequivocal commitment [“everything not out of faith”—commitment—“is sin”] to the divine order—no matter how odious its dictates.

Servitude is insufficient–workers must repent of their own knowledge, repudiate their own identities, and adopt the new identity espoused by their “teachers.” As objects or instruments, workers must “demonstrate” complete and unequivocal submission [slavery] by surrendering to the higher power. In fine, they must “transform by making their minds over” [Romans 12:2] to prove to themselves what is the good and perfect will of the Power. The social pattern is re-enacted within each organization.

From What prevents us from regarding others as whole human beings?, 2009/02/21 at 6:32 AM

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What prevents us from regarding others as whole human beings?

February 17, 2009 / / 2 comments

Carman, I am so enjoying our dialogue and appreciate your posts here. The small details you add about your experience paints a picture of someone who already lives the experience of Partnership.  I am looking forward to reading your post on “Organization as Theocracy.” These guiding metaphors really shape our realities, don’t they?  Have a good week! Lisa

From Carman de voer:

Hi Lisa,  Your compliment is both gracious and generous. It is such a privilege to share this sacred space.  I love our ‘creative communion,’ if I may put it that way.

As I expected, your response to my post ignited a paroxysm of contemplation into which I was baptized while walking the Sea Wall today—(as an employee of the provincial government I am granted an extra day off every second weekend).

Actually, I experienced a wonderful synergy between the Sea Wall and your implied question, ‘What is it that prompts us to regard other people as objects?’ Or, to re-frame the question, ‘What is it that prevents us from regarding others as whole human beings?’

I expect to explore these issues when I hop off the hamster wheel this weekend (unfortunately, however, I will still be in the Iron Cage, according to Weber 🙂

When return I hope to create a new metaphor: “Organization as Theocracy”. As a ‘template of transmogrification’ I hope it will speak to the subject/object dichotomy ubiquitous in modern organizations.

Bye for now!

http://www.freewebs.com/mythologyoforganization/index.htm

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Response to “Towards the Re-Humanization of Work”

February 15, 2009 / / One comment

Carman, You are a prolific writer and thinker!  You make several points in your post that all deserve some reflection and response. 

Yes, the Cave metaphor seems to “work” for world views/paradigms in general, and it can, therefore, certainly be applied to the worldview which shapes traditional organizations.  And, a — perhaps the — guiding metaphor of that worldview is world (and hence organization) as machine.  And you rightly point out that that philosophy and the social structures which stem from it are frequently dehumanizing, and therefore degrading.  Philosophically, this is the natural outcome of treating people as objects rather than subjects in themselves.  

I appreciate Morgan’s use of the prison analogy, in that there is a real sense in which we tend to be limited by our own perspectives and patterns of thought and by the social structures we create based on those perspectives.  It is potentially instructive to observe the parallels between prisons and traditional organizations. Prisons are, after all, traditional organizations, in which most of the organizational members are not free volunteers.  (Perhaps in the same way that you and Morgan are suggesting is the case with organizational members who may have very limited options for employment, families to feed, etc.)  Therefore, the dynamics of absolute hierarchy and pervasive ethic of control are seen in a clear and harsh light.     

That said, every metaphor has it’s limitations. In my view, the prison metaphor risks reinforcing the sense of disempowerment that Dominator systems (Systems based on absolute hierarchy and command and control cultures) cultivate.  Fortunately, most of us are not in prisons to which others hold the keys. Rather, we have the power of perspective and some measure of creative freedom to shape our circumstances, including our organizations.  (Yes, in some cases our measure of creative freedom is small, and change is slow…)  I personally like the hamster wheel analogy, because it offers the possibility of jumping off!

I appreciate your bringing in Eleanor Roosevelt and her question, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world.”  Riane Eisler would also add that most of us learn about power relationships and human rights in our first and most intimate relationships – that of our families.

As you write, “The Fifth Discipline calls for ‘a new organization … that is more consistent with human nature.”  It recognizes human rights. In the language of philosophy, this new organization would not see some members as “subjects” and others as “objects” but treat all members as subjects in their own right.

So, there’s a natural circling around to our inquiry on the nature of this transformation at a personal leadership and social/organizational level, perhaps beginning with psychological dynamics in the context of social relationships (and the larger environment).

We could, for example, inquire into the dynamics that can lead us to imagine other people as objects. As one professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, asks his classes, to stimulate reflection, “What’s up with that?”  🙂

http://www.creativeleadercoach.com/2009/02/15/towards-the-humanization-of-work-from-carman-de-voer/

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Towards the Re-Humanization of Work

February 15, 2009 / / One comment

Hi Lisa, Two elements that strike me about the Cave allegory are:

1) Dehumanization
2) Degradation

Interestingly, The Free Dictionary links dehumanization with mechanization:

1. To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility: slaves who had been dehumanized by their abysmal condition.

2. To render mechanical and routine.

Given the resurgence of Scientific Management with its systematic reduction of the human being to the status of automaton I would agree with Morgan’s characterization of most organizations:

“it may seem more appropriate to talk about organizations as prisons rather than as psychic prisons, since the exploitation and domination of people is often grounded as much in control over the material basis of life as in control over ideas, thoughts, and feelings” (p.248)

I believe Morgan referring to a state of bondage or control from which people cannot easily escape—especially with families to feed. However, I would characterize most organizations as both psychic and literal prisons. We routinely hear about “minimum” wage, and union and legal “protection.”

It thereupon occurred to me that a pre-occupation of the Ideal Cave Leader would be human rights and freedom. Interestingly, The Fifth Discipline calls for “a new organization…that is more consistent with human nature” (p.351). The implication being most organizations are not “consistent with human nature.”

In Plato’s allegory the Leader strives to enlighten and emancipate those immured in the Cave. As the aegis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ( http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html) I believe Eleanor Roosevelt exemplifies Plato’s Ideal Leader.

Article 23 (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

Article 26 (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Mrs. Roosevelt declared: Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world.

Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood s/he lives in; the school or college s/he attends; the factory, farm or office where s/he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. (pronominal changes mine)

How beautiful! However, it seems to me that many of the chained prisoners are more captivated by the shadows cast by puppeteers like Frederick Taylor (“You are not supposed to think. There are other people paid for thinking around here.”—Morgan p. 25) since they “are in the habit of conferring honors among themselves” (to quote Socrates) and derive material benefit within such self-sealing environments.

What do you see when you peer into the “Cave” Lisa?

Bye for now!

References

Morgan, G. (1997). Images of Organization. Second Edition. Sage Publications. London.

Senge, Peter. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: the art and practice of the Learning Organization. Doubleday: New York.

From The Ideal Leader, 2009/02/15 at 5:58 AM

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The Ideal Leader

February 11, 2009 / / 2 comments

Carman, Thank you for another exceptional post. Yes, all the thinkers you mention shape the lens through which we perceive our environment and the implicit assumptions we have about leadership and organizations. I  look forward to continuing this invigorating conversation, as our time allows. Have a great day! – Lisa

Hi Lisa, Proceeding on the assumption that a sub-theme of the cave allegory is the search for the ideal leader I would like to explore two dimensions of the cave allegory:

• The prisoners: who are bound to the floor and unable to turn their heads to see what goes on behind them.

• The puppeteers: who above and behind them are casting the shadows on the wall in which the prisoners are perceiving “reality”

The cave is diagrammed at the following site:

http://normanrschultz.org/Courses/graphics/Platocave.JPG

Your blog’s Mission Statement says:

“According to Montuori, the bureaucratic structure and the modern management style, still used by many organizations, is an historical creation, developed and adapted by men for a particular purpose and environment. As a historical creation, it reflects the assumptions its creators held about about the nature of the world, and us as human beings.” Too true!

 I see both leaders and led chained to the floor of the cave. Behind them are pupeteers Democritus and Leucippus, and Aristotle  who posited that –the Natural world can be understood as mechanical interaction, Rene Descartes—the separation of mind and body, Isaac Newton—who understood the universe as a celestial machine, and more recently, Adam Smith (mass production) Charles Babbage (line of authority) and Frederick Taylor (Management).
 
 I believe Taylor’s Scientific Management has been most influential in shaping our conception of “leadership” (which is, in itself a metaphor).
 
 As we know, Taylor posited:

• Separation of task conception and execution
• shifting responsibility for organization of work to management
• scientific methods for efficiency and precision
• training
• matching job and person

Perhaps we can discuss the above when we find some time Lisa.

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Psychic Prisons – Metaphor of Plato’s Cave (from Carman de voer)

February 9, 2009 / / 2 comments

More compelling contributions from Carman de voer! 

Hi Lisa,  With predictable perspicacity you observe that we cannot “un-ring the bell” –we may be “drawn back into comfortable, habitual ways of thinking and being.” Your comments afford a splendid segue into the Organization as Psychic Prison metaphor.

Morgan says, “all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or metaphors that lead us to see, understand, and manage in distinctive yet partial ways,” (p.4) One such metaphor is the psychic prison–Plato’s Cave.

Plato’s Cave

In many respects, Plato’s allegory reminds me of a movie theatre. The following site reproduces the extended metaphor:

http://www.fdl.uwc.edu/faculty/rrigteri/Allegory.htm

I notice that the cave allegory contains some of the following elements:

• Cave people are chained so that they cannot move
• They can see only the cave wall in front of them
• The fire behind them throws shadows of people and objects onto the wall
• The cave dwellers equate the shadows with reality
• The shadow reality of the cave is the only reality they know
• One of the cave dwellers leaves the cave, experiences another world, and returns to the cave to explain the new perspective
• The cave dwellers resist and ridicule the revelation.

To echo your observation, “favored ways of thinking can be so strong that even the disruption is often transformed into a view consistent with the reality of the cave” (Morgan, p.219).

Perhaps we could integrate the allegory into our experience of organizations Lisa?

Reference

Morgan, Gareth (1997). Images of Organization. Sage Publications.

P.S. While writing this entry KUWY played Ravel’s Minuet Antique. During the piece I became like Icarus hovering between heaven and the sea. Rapturous! Thank you for creating this Lyceum Lisa– a wonderful ‘place’ of refreshment and renewal.

From Additional examples of radical transformation & on bells staying rung, 2009/02/08 at 7:59 AM

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Perspective & transformation

February 7, 2009 / / No comments

Carman, Your example of the transformation of Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, illustrates how third parties can stimulate transformation by helping a leader see the current situation and dynamic more clearly, and consider new perspectives and possiblities.

This whole area of the process of transformation is intriguing. By definition, it involves some kind of diversity — an encounter with a different perspective through dialogue or “cognitive diversity.” For me, cognitive diversity, in practice, means accessing our holistic, creative, “right brain” as well as our analytical, sequential “left brain.”  Transformative spiritual experience, creativity, imagination and vision, seem to strongly involve “right brain” processes. (A neuropsychologist would, no doubt, point out that this is a gross oversimplification).  

The process of coaching involves both aspects — the holding of the mirror, to help a person see more clearly what is otherwise too close to see — to see lens with which we see the world, so to speak,  and the facilitation of imagination, to experience a new perspective.  

When we are able to see the lens with which we see the world, we have already experienced a cognitive shift in that we have separated who we are (the observer) from a particular perspective, and we have freed ourselves to more readily explore perspectives that are healthier, more effective, etc.

The act of imagination, envisioning other possiblities, is extraordinarily powerful and taps a vast intelligence. Because in the West, we so strongly identify with our rational egos and our analytical, sequential thought processes, that we overlook the genius within each of us — that intelligence that creates entire worlds in our dreams, for example. It’s not always completely rational, but it contains all the connections that are not always visible to our sequential thought processes.  

In discussing spiritual transformation, William James makes the point that when we’ve exhausted our usual resources, when our rational-analytical processes fail us, we then, often in despair, throw ourselves open to other possibilities, and experience a shift and illumination. And Zen koans operate on a similar principle: the left brain lets go and there is a shift in perspective. 

Transformative leadership need not, in my opinion, involve complete illumination, but I think the inherent humility of recognizing that “we are not our thoughts and perspectives” and our consequential ability to imagine new possibilities — to dip into our own creative potentials, is key to personal and organizational transformation. 

Carman, I enjoy your notes about the environment, there. It sounds beautiful. It’s been raining heavily here; we need it!  Best wishes, Lisa

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Additional examples of radical transformation & on bells staying rung

February 7, 2009 / / 2 comments

Wow, Carman, your discussion of sudden and radical transformation throws open some doors that would be interesting to follow!

Yes you draw an apt and fruitful comparison between transformation per se and spiritual transformation. In addition to the Christian concept and experience of metanoia that you discuss, this kind of spiritually transformative experience is found in other religious contexts and outside of them, as well, suggesting that it is a universal human experience.  Some examples are: the themes of birth-death-rebirth or descent and emergence in the Mysteries, shamanic experiences of dismemberment and reconfiguration as a “new person”; Eastern enlightenment experiences, and also the sponatneous “cosmic consciousness” described by Burke. Also, there are rites of passage in many cultures that lead to new roles and ways of being in the world. No doubt I am omitting many other important examples.

This kind of reordering or “re-membering” is sometimes understood to be literally healing, and also reflects an improved and more “appropriate” (for the lack of a better word in the moment) relationship the context or larger whole.  This process or whole “event” is compellingly interesting in itself.

From what I understand, these kinds of radical transformation are not always “sticky” in that it can be easy to revert to former ways of thinking and being. However, as much as we are drawn back into comfortable, habitual ways of thinking and being, one cannot entirely “unring” the bell.  And, thus we create a vision or carve out a space for a new way of being, and we can begin to create new habits in that space. I’m reminded of the famous face/vase illusion. After seeing the new perspective, we can still revert to our original perspective; however, having seen it’s complement, we can more easily find it again.

http://www.uic.edu/com/eye/LearningAboutVision/EyeSite/OpticalIllustions/FaceVase.shtml 

Would you agree?

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