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Tag: generative

Management theory is reconsidering is philosophical rots

Offer your problems to God, and they may open opportunities that you never imagined.

I am not religious, and if they haven’t clicked away already, my friends who are ‘evangelical atheists’ will think I’ve taken leave of my senses

Management theory is reconsidering its philosophical rots

[Yes, I did mean roots but the typo is apt.]

I heard the idea of presenting one’s problems to God from a Rabbi on Radio 4 today and it is an idea that has been forgotten by management theorists for a long, long time.  It is being actively and vigorously revived though, and if you want to be involved in modern management education, “opening yourself to the imagination of the universe” is an idea that you have to get you head around.

Old school management sucked the life juices out of us

“Old school” management is goal-oriented, and fundamentally arrogant and negative.  It goes like this. “I define the goal and until you have completed it, you are not up to scratch.”

We might even say that old school management is evil. It is even evil even when we are setting our goals for ourselves and not others.  It’s  arrogant to believe that we know what is right, not only for today, but for tomorrow whose shape we barely know.  It is very arrogant to believe that we know and the other does not.  It is evil to undermine the worth of other people and to daily put ourselves and others in situations where we are not up to scratch.

But how do we open ourselves to the imagination of the universe?

For all my exploration of modern management theory, I am still a psychologist and I want to know “what am I going to DO?

“offering a problem to God”, as I understand it, does not mean letting go.  It means beginning where we are, with our sense that the present does not meet our sense of what is right and wrong.   We begin by accepting our negative evaluation, our arrogant assertion that on this matter we believe we are right,  and our overbearing willingness to judge others.  We accept that this is ground we stand on at this moment.  This is our reality at the minut.

Then, we put this evaluation on the table, probably privately, it is offensive after all.  And at last,  we listen to what the universe has to say.    What does the universe have to say about this problem?

We’ve raised the flag.  We’ve said we will hear.   Now we listen!

But are we predisposed to listen?

The difficulty is though, that in this mood, when we feel the world is wrong, and we are right and that we are allowed to tell others they are wrong, in this mood, listening to anyone is far from our minds.

Positive psychology, an overlapping school of positive organizational scholarship, kicks in now and has a lot to say on how to reach a point that we can listen and hear.

We begin by reminding ourselves that it is quite natural, housed in a human body, to feel alarmed when we notice something is wrong.   Our biology is programmed that way.  It is natural .  .  .  well .  .  . to exaggerate.  When times are rough, and we reel from trauma to trauma, or just from hassle to hassle, it is not long before we begin to shut down and focus solely on what threatens us, or simply annoys us.

Positive psychologists help us stay out of this zone of despair, cynicism and negativity.  We look to them to keep us in that positive space where we can notice that something is wrong (or a least not to our taste) and listen to the universe.  It is a tough balancing act.

Positive psychologists are not our only resource, though. Most world religions have rituals to manage this emotional housekeeping.   Balancing our ‘alarm systems’ and listening to others is such an important skill that all cultures have ways of explaining the challenge.    What is saying a brief prayer before a meal but a momentary regaining of balance where we take stock in an appreciative not panicky way?

In our secular world, we explain every thing more wordily but we are not necessarily wrong.  Just ploddy.   Two other very important factors in maintaining ’emotional tone’ are exercise and friends.

The contribution of positive psychologists

Positive psychologists advocate a simple ritual of a gratitude diary.  A few brief notes at the end of each day makes the difference between believing that we have to solve every problem ourselves and “hearing” what the universe has to offer.

Offer your problems to the universe and allow yourself to be delighted by opportunities you never imagined.

And to my evangelical atheist friends, if you are such an objective scientist, try it before you knock it.

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Which path did you walk today to meet up with the soul?

Self-Knowledge XVII

And a man said, “Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.”

And he answered, saying:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”

Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Khalil Gibran

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5 slides on positive organization design

Positive psychology, Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Organizational Scholarship, & Positive HR

Almost a year ago, I put together a set of slides to illustrate the concepts and process in Positive Organizational Design. If you are beginning to read around the field of positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, positive organizational scholarship, or positive HR, you may find them useful.

They are five slides, each with quotations, beginning with

  • David Cooperrider on Appreciative Inquiry
  • The link between appreciating your own unique contribution and possibilities emerging in the world around us
  • Conversations about strategy, affirmations of hope, and recognition of the possibilities in the present
  • Nonaka’s Ba and designing organizational spaces
  • Rilke’s Swan as a metaphor of the rightness of what emerges.

I am standing on the shoulders of giants here. The quotations are referenced but not my sources. Please do google the quotations to dig deeper into the original works.

I would welcome any feedback or elaborations.

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The best goal setting system in the world

Goal setting & wine

Seen at the Vesuvious Cafe 1t 139 3Colt Street in Canary Wharf in London. What brilliance! 13×4 = 52 weeks and 52 bottles of wine. Plan ahead and enjoy! A bottle of wine each weekend.

Goal setting in a bottle

I’ve been trying to distill (ferment?) the principles of this system.

1. It is SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time based).

2. It is also generative. You would set all this up a year in advance, buying the best wine. And placing in the right weeks depending on the season. And then you get to go down to the market on a Thursday evening or Saturday morning and buy fresh food to match the wine. It pulls you through to a better place.

3. It is expectant. Every week you have the pleasure of knowing that evening of cooking and eating is coming.

4. It is doable – not achievable. It is doable in a pleasurable way. Too many of these GTD systems are sweaty!

Is there something I am missing? And if you are in Canary Wharf, take a look. Have a coffee. They do English and Continental breakfasts. They have Italian wine for sale.

And they are nice.

vesuvio.jpg

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