Archive for Values

Towards a Learning Organization (A presentation by Carman De Voer Mais)

April 13, 2009 / / 2 comments

Carman De Voer Mais has developed a fresh and insightful PowerPoint presentation on learning organizations. He makes the important point that becoming a learning organization isn’t something that “patched on” to the existing organizational paradigm, but rather a transformation of both the paradigm and the players.  I’m going to try to share that presentation with you here.  This is my first attempt to provide a file link in WordPress, so it may take a few tries …

Carman, I hope your cold has lifted!

Lisa

Thinking Creatively, Building Effectively by Carman De Voer Mais

Category: All Posts, Change, Creativity, Culture, Design, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Rewards, Spirituality, Values /

We never know the impact we have on the lives of others

April 3, 2009 / / 3 comments

Partnership includes the values of care and compassion. It supports financial abundance but also recognizes that there are ends that are far more important and intrinsically valuable than economic ends alone.  Sometimes when we follow our hearts, we make a profound difference in the lives of others. 

One such extraordinary woman is Gina Gippner-Woods of Just Mom, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides comfort toys to seriously and terminally ill children at Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles.  Gina taught me that we never know the impact we have on the lives of others.

This is the story of how and why Gina founded, Just Mom, Inc.

“Once upon a time a woman named Gina Gippner-Woods was admitted into the hospital. There was no room for her in the adult ward, so she was placed in a room with a child. A little girl.

This young girl was recovering from surgery which removed a tumor from her brain. She had no family and her nurse developed a friendship with her and would bring her in gifts daily.  One morning the nurse brought this young girl a stuffed, plush puppy. The little girl took one look at the plush pup and threw it across the room. Gina, not understanding why she would throw it, got out of her bed and recovered the toy.

Taking it back to the little girl she asked, “Honey, what’s wrong? Why did you throw your puppy?”

“It’s not mine. It’s broken!” The young girl replied.

At that moment Gina looked at the plush puppy and realized that its ear was ripped. She looked at the young girl and then looked at the loose gauze which was lying on the table next to her bed. Immediately she grabbed the gauze and began bandaging the head of the broken puppy to match the little girl’s bandage. When she was done bandaging the plush puppy she looked at the young girl and said, “It’s not broken. It’s got an “owie” like you. It’s your ‘OwieBowWowie.'”  The little girl then took the dog in her arms and comforted it, and it became her friend, accompanying her through all of her challenges…

I was surprised and saddened to hear that there are many seriously and terminally ill children who don’t have any family or visitors.  So, Gina founded Just Mom, Inc., to provide comfort toys for these children so they don’t need to go through their ordeals alone.

Gina’s effort to get the word out is heroic.  For example, she is donating her time for projects, with the funds going towards the purchase of a comfort toy for a hospitalized child.  And this is a micro-charity, so it’s easy for any of us to make a difference.  You can see a heartfelt mission in action on her site: http://www.owiebowwowie.net/_mgxroot/page_10723.html

Category: All Posts, Partnership, Rewards, Spirituality, Values /

Life World vs. “Systems World” – A Tale of Two Employers

March 28, 2009 / / No comments

Hi Lisa,

My apologies for my slothful response: a cold came upon me like a highwayman, stole my strength, and left me a shivering mass of human impotence. I believe it was the symbiosis of sleep and flowers (Echinacea) that restored my soul.

I love your comment, “it is important to affirm and point out the deep – and, for myself, I would say spiritual – dimensions of the quality of subjective experience.” I think spirituality and self-identity are inextricably interlinked.

How tragic that the market system has achieved a global god-like status, a new theology-economics, and a new way of being in the world-largely defined as “consumerism.” The paradise it promises and the sacrifices it demands are taking their toll-as you and I are witnessing. I believe Dickens speaks to the erosion of the lifeworld in his magnum opus “A Christmas Carol.” It’s interesting to compare and contrast the two employers and to speculate on their success or failure in resisting the systems world. It would be fascinating to consider your comments on how the two ultimately defended the lifeworld Lisa.

Fezziwig and Scrooge-Lifeworld Versus Systems World-A Tale of Two Employers

Lifeworld: The unquestioned world of everyday social activity. The world of shared common understandings.

Lifeworld Characteristics: Spirituality, individuality, creativity, play, fun, morality, talking about differences, coming to a common understanding, who we are and what we value, ethical obligations to family, friends, and society.

Systems World: Money and power. People in command positions in systems use a form of reason that represses human norms or values.

Systems World Characteristics: efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.

Fezziwig’s Lifeworld

*Fezziwig is human: “laughs all over himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice”

*addresses employees by their names: “Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!”

*contributes to the happiness of employees by throwing a ball in his warehouse: “the happiness” Mr. Fezziwig gives “is quite as great as if it cost a fortune”.

Scrooge observes: “[Fezziwig] has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

Scrooge’s Systems World

*Working conditions are deplorable. Employees are intensely scrutinized: “The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.”

*Scrooge resents pay for public holidays: “And yet,” said Scrooge, “you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”

*Scrooge has uncoupled the Lifeworld from the Systems World: “It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.” “What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined. “A golden one.”

*Scrooge addresses his employee as “Cratchit.” He avoids his first name and sees him as a tool, a functionary.

Scrooge Ends The War Between Private and Public Life

*Scrooge received counseling and guidance from the Spirits

*Scrooge developed Personal Mastery by seeing his connectedness to his world, clarifying what was important to him, and learning to see current reality more clearly.

The Spirits, it seems, help Scrooge recover the Lifeworld. The impact on his employee and his family is holistic and impressive: “A merry Christmas, Bob,” said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I’ll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!”

Bye for now!

Carman

References

A Christmas Carol http://www.stormfax.com/5dickens.ht m

Peter M. Senge: “The Fifth Discipline”, ISBN 0-385-26095-4, Doubleday

From Motivations for change (on dairy cows, creativity, adaptability & effectiveness), 2009/03/28 at 7:07 AM

Category: All Posts, Ethics, Leadership, Partnership, Psychology, Rewards, Spirituality, Values /

More on humanizing systems (and the brain)

February 22, 2009 / / 2 comments

Hi Carman, As always, your posts are both intellectually enriching and poetic.

Years ago, Alfonso Montuori and I wrote an essay on how our philosophical paradigm and guiding metaphors have shaped organizations and leadership, and created the blind spots that now limit organizations. A very perceptive reviewer suggested the article would be all the more impactful if it was written from the voice that naturally emerges from the perspective we descibe. You write in that voice.

You make an excellent point about humanizing systems, and I appreciate your references to Weber and Havel. It raises the question: Are we meant to serve our systems, or are they meant to serve us?  There is so much more to be said here about human and social psychology in a “mechanistic system” or a “theocracy.”  But, for the moment, I, too, am drawn to explore more creative and fulfilling possibilities. ..

Towards that end, I would like to offer an additional perspective. In our essay, Alfonso Montuori observes that we tend to emphasize and value either the individual or the group — one in opposition to the other. For example, capitalism vs. communism; the lone hero fighting the oppressive organization.

However, Montuori also observes that sense of opposition itself reflects a worldview of separation (which I would loosely associate with our ideas of left brain cognition).  Rather, from a systems point of view, he suggests, it’s a matter of “both/and. ” The organization and individual are part of a single continuum. In a sense, each is in and shapes the other.  In a healthy organic system, groups exist to serve their members, and members serve the group so that it continues to sustain them. We could also add that a healthy organic system also recognizes that its own sustainability requires a healthy environment…    

A key distinction between a healthy organic system and bureaucratic systems is that, as rational systems, bureaucratic systems tend to make objects of their members. Using the machine analogy, the “subject” is the operator of the machine, and the experience of organizational members is not considered as important as the economic and other outcomes of the organizational machine. Often it could be said of these organizations that the experience of organizational members only makes a difference in so much as as it affects the bottom line.

This machine also exists inside many of its members — who learn not to value our own subjective experience.  For example, there have been times in my organizational career, where I had so much to do (produce) that I literally felt machine-like and disconnected from my feelings.

My perspective is that in a hierarchal, bureacratic system (which emphasizes external power relations), we are enculturated to feel primarily those emotions associated with our dynamic place in the pecking order: anxiety, anger, depression and for the lack of a better word, “glory.” But, in as much as we are encouraged to subordinate the quality of our experience to economic and other outcomes, there is an inclination to shut down other feelings, including empathy, which is considered to be “soft” and “feminine” and therefore, less appropriate to an organizational environment.

Being a biological organism myself 🙂 I believe that when one of my bodily subsystems is in distress (or very healthy), I feel it — either unconsciously or consciously.  Conversely, when I am happy or in distress, every system in my body is impacted by that.  In other words, I think that the quality of holism arises, at least in part, from mutual feeling (of parts and the whole).  [I’m very influenced in this train of thought by Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy.]

So, I think the restoration of feeling and the revalorization of the quality of our subjective and inter-subjective experience is key to a more cognitively balanced (Partnership) approach to organizations…  To come full circle, this is a quality I hear in your writing.

thank you so much for this inspiring conversation!

Category: All Posts, Communication, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Philosophy, Psychology, Rewards, Teams, Values /

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.

Category: All Posts, Culture, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Values /

Transformative, holistic learning

January 31, 2009 / / One comment

Carman, Sorry for the long delay! My executive and career coaching practice includes working with people in career transition, and, unfortunately, many people are needing this kind of support right now.

Regarding transformation, you wrote:  “It changes ‘how’ we know. Change thus appears to involve the re-perception of reality. [It…] involves the ‘deconstruction of a given world-view and its replacement by a new world view.’ […] I believe it is superfluous to talk about collective (organizational) transformation without first clarifying individual transformation.”

Yes, I agree whole-heartedly. I suspect the reason many change efforts fail is that real transformation hasn’t taken at the individual level, and for change to hold, leadership must be transformed as well (hence, of course, the term “tranformative leadership”).

And, yes, I would also agree that personal transformation involves a re-perception of reality, such that the desired changes can be seen as a natural and normal part of being in the world (or organizations).

For example, most people would agree that the value of charity — lending a hand to those who need it — is a good one. However, behaving charitably does not come naturally to everyone — otherwise, there would be less want in the world. If our perspective is that the world is a collection of separate beings in competition for scarce resources, and we feel fearful, we might publically endorse the concept of charity, but not live by it. Rather, this world view leads to a different value, which contradicts the espoused value. This creates a culture in which it is understood that we say one thing and do another.

Similarly, in organizations, it’s not uncommon for people to espouse one value and then act in a way that is contrary to the value.

So, it’s interesting to consider the dynamics of that transformation… how does it happen?

Another consideration is the system itself. In this blog, I’ve primarily emphasized change from the inside out. There is also change from the outside in. In a nutshell, every worldview generates values and a structure of living in accordance with that view. If we are able to create a change in the structure, we may find that experience, perspective and attitudes change as well. 

For example, when I entered the field of software engineering years ago, women engineers were still a rarity, and I experienced some pretty blatant discrimination. In retrospect, I’m sure I was an affirmative action hire. Still, I did an exceptional job, and so did many other women. Over the years, affirmative action created a climate where the presence of women was considered more normal, and discrimination dwindled. 

Another example is compensation or performance management systems. We may prefer to behave in one way, but the system may shape our behavior in another…

Usually, the problem with this outside-in approach is that the structure is not strong enough for the new behavior to hold long enough to cause a change in perception.  It comes back to the perspective of human beings.  

That said, ultimately, for change to be sustained, the entire system, inclusive of psychology, sociology, organizational structure, processes, performance management system, culture, etc. must shift to be in sync with that change. This is, of course, the broader topic of organizational learning. It’s the systemic nature of this transformative learning, which I attempt to capture in my transformational-holistic-learning model.

It’s another full week for me, but hope to connect again, soon.

Category: All Posts, Change, Culture, Design, Diversity, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Philosophy, Psychology, Rewards, Teams, Values /

To your fulfilling success

December 14, 2008 / / No comments

One of my mentor-coaches, Lou D’Alo www.powerupcoaching.com signs his emails with the phrase, “To your fulfilling success.” I really appreciate this phrase, because it expresses a Partnership approach to success that encompasses both our qualititative experience — happiness and fulfillment  — and our quantitiative results. It feels richer and more complete.

An activity or state of being is especially fulfilling when we are living according to our inspired purpose, which encompasses our special gifts — those activities that give us joy. 

Whereas the term success has come to mean a kind of material and social status, a kind of cultural goal, or “should,” the expression “your fulfilling success” involves thriving in your own particular way — living the life and making the contribution that only you can make. When this becomes our way of life, and when we support others in living their own fulfilling success, we are living in Partnership.

In this blog, we will be continuing to explore concepts and ideas that support your fulfilling success.

Questions for Exploration
* What does the term “success” feel like to you?  How do you envision it?
* How does the term “fulfilling success” feel like to you?  What does it look like for you?
* What are the differences between the two for you?
* What possibilities or concerns arise for you as you contemplate the difference?

Category: All Posts, Coaching, Culture, Diversity, Partnership, Rewards, Values, Vision /

Becoming a “human being” takes time

September 7, 2008 / / No comments

Time has flown, as it does when our schedules are full.  For me, the past three weeks have been filled with a lot of work and a some necessary relaxation, or as some call it, “human being.”  Given that, in this blog, we have been in the midst of constructing our “wheel of creative freedom” and that I’m just now returning from taking a few weeks away from my blog, it seems timely to talk about the relationship between being and creativity.

Mainstream American culture has always valued industry, and this value is reflected in the process and culture of our organizations. As Americans, we tend to link our prosperity to hard work; further, we tend to think of work as a good in itself. Work is seen as virtuous. This value is rooted in religion: The Protestant work ethic, sometimes called the Puritan work ethic, is based on the Calvinist sensibility that hard work is godly and that success is a sign of design favor. On the other hand, sloth is considered one of the seven deadly sins.

We are a workaholic culture and proud of it. And so, when we are under threat, when we have an urgent problem to solve, we tend to work all the harder. The rational ego and will override our needs for rest, for play, for relaxation, and depending on our field, we might work 50, 60, 80, 100 hours a week.

This strategy can work well in the machine age, and it can work well in sprints; but how well does this strategy work in the innovation age? in a marathon? As it turns out, it works less well. We’ll talk more about this and its counter-intuitive implications in upcoming posts…

Category: All Posts, Creativity, Culture, Leadership, Values /

The Power of Situation – The Stanford Prison Experiment

August 19, 2008 / / No comments

The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo in 1971 at Stanford University to explore the question of the power of situation to shape the moral behavior of participants. The role play involved simulating a prison in the basement of one of the buildings at Stanford. The study recruited male college students in good mental health and no history of violence as volunteers and randomly assigned them roles as guards and prisoners. The simulation was made as realistic as possible: “prisoners” were arrested by actual police officers, the guards were given uniforms and the prisoners were made to wear prison attire. The professor assumed the role of prison superintendent.

The situation quickly deteriorated: When the prisoners rebelled on the morning of the second day, the guards asserted their dominance through increasingly sadistic punishments that prefigured the abuses later seen in Abu Garib. By the fifth day of the experiment, five of the students needed to be released due to extreme stress; the others collapsed into numbed and docile obedience.

Professor Zimbardo observes that his own perception also seems to have been distorted. It was only when a colleague, Assistant Professor Christina Maslach visited the “prison” and pointed out to him the awfulness of his actions in allowing the experiment to continue, that Zimbardo was fully able to appreciate its human cost. He had to pull the plug on the experiment after only six days.

As Zimbardo writes, “We had created a dominating behavioral context whose power insidously frayed the seemingly impervious values of compassion, fair play, and belief in a just world” (3).

This experiment demonstrates the enormous power of situation. We might notice that this situation included well-defined roles, characterized by a semi-permanent absolute power differential, established by a clear authority figure and reinforced with identifying uniforms. We can also notice how the setting itself also reflected and supported the roles and rules, and thus behavior.

Finally, we might notice how the setting, roles and uniforms helped to shape the perspectives that led to the behavior of both the guards and prisoners. 

So, at this point, we might observe that while it is true that perceptions shape roles, rules and settings, and it is also true that settings, roles and rules shape perception.  Together, they function as a self-reinforcing system or we can use the word paradigm. Because paradigms are “self-sealing” to borrow the term from Steve March’s blog, they seem obvious, commonsensical and “God-given.”

Our takeaway here is to notice another point of power that we have to shift off our wheel of fear and onto the wheel of freedom — to create a shift in paradigm — and that is to shift the settings, roles, and rules that shape behavior. 

Zimbardo, Philip G. “Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: A Lesson in the Power of Situation.” The Chronicle Review, 53, no. 30, p. B6. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i30/30b00601.htm

Category: All Posts, Culture, Design, Ethics, Leadership, Organization, Partnership, Rewards, Values /

The Body of Sustainability Includes an “I-Thou”

August 8, 2008 / / No comments

Another valuable post from Steve March that is pertinent to the philosophy and embodiment of Partnership: http://stevemarch.typepad.com/on_living/2008/08/the-body-of-s-1.html

Category: All Posts, Culture, Partnership, Philosophy, Values /
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