Golden Rule LO8534

Michael Erickson (sysengr@atc.boeing.com)
Thu, 18 Jul 1996 09:57:06 -0700 (PDT)

Replying to LO8526 --

hello all,

re: mis-interpretation of the golden/platinum rule....

I find that when most people learn a new thing, they first want to know
"what are the steps I need to take"-or what do I do (or in Winfried's
example-what do I NOT do). This of course is only a minimal understanding
of the subject at hand, and certainly doesn't get you to the WHY is this
so, much less inspire you to do anything.

In the organizational change arena, trying to get people past the minimal
understanding and INSPIRE them is the biggest chunk of the problem. I
have a friend who used to say... "They don't Understand all they know.."
meaning-they know the facts, but their heart doesn't understand.

I've wondered a long time how to get people through the learning curve
from "the list" mode of understanding to "the concept" mode of
understanding. I'm part of a small church that has undergone a fairly
revolutionary change in how it views certain ideas. What strikes me about
the changes are: to me little has changed... at least at the concept
level. To my surprise however, a lot of noise and objection has been
voiced because so many of the people in this church understood things only
in "list" mode. So now instead of "doing it this way" - the "do it that
way", and still a majority don't seem to get the WHY at all. The WHY is
what is really important. You can always find new ways to do the HOW.

Winfried compared the old dutch way of doing things to "a priest shaking
his finger in your face" and I can't help but see the correlation.

Religion seems to be the stronghold for this minimal thinking-when, in my
view, it ought to be the best example of Conceptual
understanding-especially the kind that inspires.

While we all have different views of religion, there seems to be a common
thread, that if viewed on the conceptual level, lifts human kind into a
much higher existance. But that same thread, if viewed in list
mode-becomes some kind of slavery, so we have christian fundamentalists
who are known for pretty strange behaviour, and moslem extremists, and
japanese terrorists all attempting to herd the human race into their
particular brand of living-or they'll kill you.

I'm hoping that we can come up with ways to show people the concept
contained in the golden rule. (and in many ways are just re-stated in a
different form by the Learning Organization concept). It's not a
performance metric, its an idea. If we as a society can get it, we can
grow in ways we haven't imagined. Otherwise we will just continue getting
ourselves embroiled in just another linear/procedural argument, and I'm
just flat tired of all that.

later....
Michael Erickson
sysengr@atc.boeing.com

On Wed, 17 Jul 1996, W.M. Deijmann wrote:
> Replying to LO8510 --
> While reading Bruce Winston's reply I suddenly had a kind of Flash Back
> where I heard my grandmother saying something to me with her forefinger
> lifted in the air. This made me write this reply.
-clip-
> For instance in Holland we have this old dutch saying which is directly
> related to the Greek Golden rule we are discussing here on the list. You
> find it still on many walls in dutch houses, ( Including my grandmothers
> house, yes!). In dutch it says: "Wat gij niet wilt dat u geschiedt, doet
> dat ook een ander niet!". When this is translated directly into english it
> becomes: "What you don't want to happen to you, don't do that to others!".
-clip-
> To me this doesn't feel any more like a Golden Rule with a positive value,
> but it feels like a commandment made by a teacher or a priest with his
> warning forefinger up in the air. And this is again typical old fashioned,
> traditional dutch attitude towards the way we treat and teach eachother.
-clip-
> reduced to a cheap warning that can prevent you from being punished.
> Looking at Organizational Develoment and Learning Organizations: Am I
> wrong when I state that it are these kind of purposefull misinterpreted
> Golden Rules that stands in between the development of meta-learning,
> creative flexibillity, personal mastery, authenticity and mutual respect?
> - --
>
> <winfried@universal.nl> (Winfried Deijmann)

-- 

Michael Erickson <sysengr@atc.boeing.com>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>