Fred brings in an interesting thread here. First, I'll risk some
alienation by stating my position on "the end justifies the means".
If the end doesn't justify the means and the question has any
validity, then what does justify the means?
I doubt the question has any validity as posed. The ends and means
are constituitive of each other. They don't come in separate
bundles. The means justifies the ends as much as the ends justify
the means. The saying was generated to combat those who looked at
ends separate from means (and vice versa). By saying, "No they
don't" we just accept the original approach of separation.
The point that Fred's comments raises for me are frequently made in
ways that obscure an important point. (I wasn't at the meeting
referred to and can't comment from what Fred said on the consistency
of that particular meeting.)
However, Fred's expression contains the flaw. It is from his
perspective on what Stakeholder Capitalism means or stands for that
he makes the judgement. However, I have been involved in and
witnessed many instances where the integrity of presentation or
organisation was completely consistent with the title or purpose
*from the point of view of the presenters*.
I've seen this often in Learning Organisation disciples who think
that there are only certain acceptable ways of learning and decide
that a particular presenter or workshop are not being done "according
to the principles of Organisational Learning". What bothers me about
these assessements is that there is seldom any concern for
discovering what the models of organisational learning of the
presenters are.
To go back to Fred's example, does Stakeholder Capitalism, for those
organising the conference, mean that there are certain ways of
dealing with the specific issues of the conference that are
acceptable and others that are not?
Michael McMaster : Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk
book cafe site : http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
Intelligence is the underlying organisational principle
of the universe. Heraclitus
--Michael McMaster <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>