In reply to Willard Jule's reflections on the STIA Conference, I support
his thoughts with the following verses from Rumi, who lived 500 years ago:
Think of how phenomena come trooping
out of the desert of non-existence into this materiality.
Morning and night they arrive, each taking over,
"It's my turn now, get out!"
We seem to be sitting still, but actually we're moving,
and the fantasies of phenomena are sliding through us
like ideas through curtains.
They go to the well of deep love in each of us.
They fill their jars there and leave.
There is a source they come from, and a fountain inside here.
Be generous. Confess when you're not.
We can't know what the Divine Intelligence has in mind.
Who AM I, standing in all this thought traffic?
The shift in comprehension and sensitivity should, I suppose, come from
the heart, or go to it, before "change" can be called change. Otherwise,
yes, as I think others pointed out in recent postings this transformation
stuff doesn't have a grounding.
Imagine the organization as an organism analog where top management or
leadership management are not the "convinced" heart, and the rest of the
organs fail to transform, shuck off, grow, "mutate" (as some recent
postings have mentioned), or whatever. Each of these words launches a
polemic, doesn't it? What a trail we have behind us of supermarket
checkout pamphlets about the power of positive thinking. So, where are
all the positive thinkers who live, as Willard says, "happily ever after"?
We are all very different in our manifest capabilities although we share
the same fundamental Heart. The rules we conceive, the seven steps,
fourteen trials, 3 points of knowing, twelve centers, etc., may not
manifest themselves in the same way when wielded by us humans of different
"intelligence," physical and emotional strength, means and resources of
all kinds.
The gnarly complexity of personal life is not left behind at the
receptionist's desk of the employee entrance. Organizations in some way
have to cope with that fact. In the U.S., culturally derived attitudes
color group work for transformation. Fear, risk taking, shallow and quick
takes or decisions, are but a few of the overlays informing the processes
of organization interacting with organization.
And yet...and yet, the voices speaking here and there are boldly
describing these overlays, these veils for what they are; that
fundamentally we have a deeper well to go to shared in common with all
humankind. Amazing how we lost out taste for, or conscious recollection
of, the clear water. I think in this list we are trying to steer people
in a paradoxical way: while we express thoughts about how people should
"open up", while we profess to discern a reasonable way to marshal the
best of humanity in humane endeavor toward positive ends, the very notion
that we know better or best is potentially dangerous or suspect at the
beginning, middle, or throughout the course of the attempts.
Don't misunderstand me. I try to practice many of the things we type
about on this list. I always will experiment, try to persuade, instruct,
lead, push, cajole, pull. But I'm always wary of broader implications and
deeper obstacles.
I'll stop here.
Optimistically,
-- Barry Mallis bmallis@markem.com