>> I've been strongly influenced by Max DePree's "Leadership Is An Art", (it has
>> been posted to the Reading List, although it took some time). Thanks to your
>> comment I started to browse again and I would like to quote from page 9:
>>
>> "(to understand corporate life) ... it is fundamental that leaders endorse a
>> concept of persons. This begins with an understanding of the diversity of
>> people's gifts and talents and skills."
Jan, I have known Max for a long time and I am a great fan of his thinking
(and his writing). However, for all of us interested in organizational
learning, there is an object lesson to be learned from the recent goings
on at Herman Miller (where Max was CEO for many years). The object lesson
seems to be this: All of the stuff Max talks about in his books is fine in
theory and perhaps even in practice--so long as the company is 'making
money'. I use the scare quotes because enterprises, even non-profits,
must make money in order to survive and, even more important, in order to
grow, whether this growth is financial or spiritual. However, I don't
think that 'management' understands or, if they do understand, accepts the
fact that the 'return' one gets from running a company in a traditional
way might be _very_ different than the 'return' one gets from running a
company as Max has suggested. In other words, there is an 'opportunity
cost' involved in being a learning organization (although I don't believe
that Max used this word in any of his books and I don't know if he would
agree with much of the rhetoric of 'organizational lerning'). It may well
be that there is a balance involved in being a learning organization; a
balance between traditional measures of performance such as ROI, ROA, etc
and measures that take into account "people's gifts, talents, and skills"
(and the growth thereof) as Max so eloquently suggests.
-- Duncan Sutherland dsutherland@gc.net