On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Ben Compton wrote:
> Christianity is felt to have a divine origin, and
> therefore to question its structures and systems is to become a heretic
> (just as our good friend Galileo. . .). This raises an important issue for
> many practitioners of Los: How do you switch between questioning the
> assumptions behind what you do at work, but then avoid questioning the
> assumptions of your church/religion?
To me, there is a parallel between practicing LO and what I consider the
healthy practice of religion. (I realize that not everyone will treat
religion as I do, but here goes...)
In both cases, there *are* decisions about what to examine and what to
hold as true without examination.
For example, it was once dogma that everything in the universe revolved
around us at the center. I'm glad that this was examined and that most
people have concluded that the universe works differently. Sorting out the
divine from the falsely-purported-to-be-divine is, to me, part of a
healthy approach to religion. "The Grand Inquisitor" story in _The
Brothers Karamazov_ is the best statement of this point that I know.
Of course there are tenents in each religion that cannot be demonstrated
(that is, proved) from the data of our experience in the world.
I think the same is true for org learning. There are some elements that we
hold provisionally, using them in our work, but always with a watchful eye
to understand better their limits. And, there are other elements that we
take as more fundamental.
As a personal example, I hold as fundamental the notion of real respect
for every human being (as Deming talks about this). Once you decide to try
to operate based on this principle, you don't keep asking, "How do we know
this is 'right'?"
To me, this is parallel to "Love thy neighbor."
Today, an NPR segment talked about the discovery of fossil evidence that
there was once bacterial life on Mars. I like the comment of the religious
spokesperson, "If we do discover life on Mars, it will be like when we
learned that we are not at the center of the universe. We'll see more
clearly the marvelous intricacy of God's creation and we'll understand
better our own place in his universe."
> Everyone has to resolve this issue on their own. It's a personal thing, I
> think.
Yes, I think it's a matter of personal resposibility.
There's lots of room for error if we put an idea in the wrong category,
e.g. by seeking data to confirm a fundamental or by marshalling the forces
of coercion for an idea whose time has past.
-- Rick
--Richard Karash ("Rick") | <http://world.std.com/~rkarash> Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer | email: rkarash@karash.com "Towards learning organizations" | Host for Learning-Org Mailing List (617)227-0106, fax (617)523-3839 | <http://world.std.com/~lo>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>