Ends and Means LO8069

Matzdorf, Fides (F.Matzdorf@shu.ac.uk)
Mon, 24 Jun 96 10:14:00 0BS

In reply to LO8011-
On 20 June 1996 18:05, Mike McMaster wrote:

>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.

*scratches head and sighs with resignation*
I guess I'll just have to take it like a man... ;->

Thanks for putting it this way, Mike - this is really what I was on
about, and maybe it wasn't as clear as that. That was what my
'conference experience' was about.

>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.

First: I don't think there is a 'right' or 'wrong' way of learning.
Second: Maybe I found this conference so striking _because_ it was about
stakeholderism and the idea of _involving_ stakeholders in decisions and
processes relevant to them. (That's not _my_ idea, that's the idea of
any stakeholder approach.)

>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?

I don't think that question was raised. The way the conference was
organised was not _all_ consistent with the organisers' intentions/purposes
- for example, the response had been so overwhelming that they had to
get the largest rooms available to fit all the participants in. As the
event took place at Sheffield University, that meant lecture theatres;
and lecture theatres are usually built for one-way communication only...
So there were restrictions. But generally from their point of view they
achieved their aim - I don't think they saw the conference particularly
as a 'learning event'. They were thinking about 'a content that makes a
difference'; not about 'a process with a difference'. I talked to two of
the organisers, and they had not looked at the conference from that
angle at all.

Don't get me wrong - I was not talking about whether the organisers got
it right or wrong. (From their point of view, they got it right anyway.)
It was just that what I perceived as an inconsistency made me look at
the conference from a different angle. It also made me think about the
possible purposes of conferences in general... *bites pen and thinks
some more*

Fides Matzdorf
Research Assistant
Sheffield Hallam University
f.matzdorf@shu.ac.uk

-- 

"Matzdorf, Fides" <F.Matzdorf@shu.ac.uk>

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