Reflecting upon the related problems of Covid-19, racism, and climate crisis, integrating thoughts from a few previous postings ( i.e. here; here; here; here; and here ) could offer some perspective. Continue reading
Progress
On Management in Crisis
In these times where the emergence of crises is seemingly unending, it might be instructive to step out of the chaos, just for a moment, to critically think about and reflect upon what we’ve experienced for a good number of years in organizations, institutions and society in regard to the phenomenon we call management. I purposefully avoid the use of the term leadership here simply because it is so misunderstood and too often self-ascribed in an attempt to elevate status. We’ll keep to the use of the term management consistent with that found in W. Edwards Deming’s Out of the Crisis, where he concluded, management is the problem! Continue reading
Who’s for Business?
It seems opposition to proposals intended to help the greater mass of people, such as providing a livable wage or ensuring healthcare for all or having regulations that ensure a healthy and safe environment, quite often is that they would not be good for business. It does seem that business is opposed to being helpful to people in society, which is consistent with Milton Friedman’s (neoliberal) contention that a business enterprise has no responsibility apart from maximizing profit and shareholder value (over the next quarter).
So, who’s for business? Continue reading
Avoid Change in the Extreme
The only thing constant in life is change—Heraclitus. With change being constant in life, change is not avoidable through life.
With this in mind, denying (the need for) change, is denying life. Refusing to deal with it in the present is refusing to be life affirming in the present. This way of being doesn’t stop change from arising—given its constancy—it only ensures having to deal with it in its extreme later. Continue reading
Presence of Fear Requires Courage
Fear is an emotion, a type of energy we all have available to us to help protect us against threats and danger. Thus the emotion of fear can be quite useful, unless of course it is the only or predominate energy that animates us. A fearful person—one largely motivated by it—will likely see danger and threats to him/her self everywhere and in most every other person. Moreover, when every other person is a potential threat to ones’ success toward fulfilling one’s goal in life, then fear of others—especially those not like oneself—inevitably emerges. Continue reading
Globalization Delivers
Globalization has delivered, as it was intended, for the 1%. Globalization is not so much a paradigm, as some frame it, as it is a strategy of corporatist. It has preserved the gains of capitalism’s elite upper class by affording worldwide exploitation and extraction. Continue reading
Common But Misaligned
The common—and very popular—understanding of leadership among the business minded is misaligned with the very human needs of people. A recent HBR article Reflections on leadership from Gettysburg provides a case in point. Continue reading
In The Larger Scheme of Things
What happens when the larger-scheme-of-things is ignored and denied out of existence? Continue reading
Roll The Dice or Cause a Game Change
The worldview underlying the capitalist system requires a way-of-being-in-the-world that has us believing that we each are independent competing entities each destined to pursue as much material gain as one can in our individual lifetime—the measure of life is the material gains accumulated. Accordingly we are led to think of our self and each other as separate independent entities, each seeking his/her own gain—there is no ‘We’ just a bunch of ‘Me’s’ consumed by getting and spending. Accordingly we seek dominance and control over everything out there in order to exploit them in service to the satisfaction of our immediate wants. It is all in the name and game of material self-interest gain and wealth accumulation. According to this worldview the only significant value is material value. Consequently, when value means material value, it is no wonder the reality we’ve created is one of strife, chaos and suffering. Continue reading
Destruction Ahead: Addicts with Instruments
We blame corporations for contributing to climate change and governments for not taking action against the threats to sustainability and our very (continued) existence. But it is not our corporations or governments that exploit both people and Nature in pursuit of ever increasing profit and growth. Continue reading
Gregory Gull 