How Is It Ok? Or Is It ?!
One of the world’s management gurus, Gary Hamel, asked at last year’s Peter Drucker Forum:
- “How did we become so inured to the inhumanity of our organizations?”
- “How is it OK that a scant 13% of employees around the world are emotionally engaged in their work?”
- “How is it OK that only 12% of employees in Europe say they’re always consulted before objectives are set for their work?”
- “How is it OK that in a global survey, 79% of respondents from large companies said new ideas get greeted with skepticism or hostility?”
- “How is it OK that the average first level employee in a large organization is buried under 8 or more layers of management?”
Well, if your interest drew you to this site, chances are that you, like us, would say, no, it’s not OK at all. Then what?
A student living in an authoritarian country in the 60s, and experiencing its oppressive reality as a personal insult, I couldn’t remain silent. Seeing millions of my brothers and sisters suffering in oppressive and obsolete systems of organizing work in today’s world, makes me ask, then what is that we’re doing about it?
Fortunately, I’m not alone to ask that question; there are more and more movements in more and more sectors and countries, which are actively engaged in the work for shifting organizations out from the depressive, dominant paradigm.
Not only that, but there are also thousands of local, regional and international conferences, bookshelves full the organizational and systems transformation books (and new books are coming out every day), dozens of YouTube playlists and thought leaders with their lifework to dedicated to charting a course of path forward. There are also a slowly growing number of business leaders trying to follow the principles of Reinventing Organisations. Then what is missing?
It depends on the lens through which we are looking at the picture. Looked at through one, you can see that everything is getting better and better, the train of evolution has left the station and we’re on it.
If we look at our present-day reality through a lens that I call “r.evolutionary,” we see the continuing waste of human talents and working lives still crippled by bureaucracies and boredom. We also see the need and potential for skillful, holistic transformation facilitation everywhere to accelerate the transition to the new.
Then the “what is missing” becomes what is missing to realize that potential? It is a large enough number of leaders and facilitators of the requisite, deep transformations, with a holistic view, who are well-trained in the arts of expanding one’s awareness, coherent behavior, cultivating transformative communities of practice, and turning complexity from a foe into a friend.
To fill that gap we created Campus Co-evolve. We are aware that it will take much more than what we can accomplish on our own. Come join us in the Four Rivers course.
If our reason for being resonates with you and you have an educational program to offer, then apply for doing it by using the facilities of the Campus and our online methodology support.
Connect us with like-minded institutions of higher and adult education.
Spread the word about our work. Join our Enabling Circle.
Donate.
Be creative in expressing your solidarity.
There are many ways to participate in the best game on Earth, closing the gap between our human, organizational, and social potential, and our present conditions. Invent yours and let us know about it.
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About the Author: George Pór
