Organizing retrospective 19

This is a post in my series on organizing ”between and beyond.” Other posts are here. This is a retrospective of what has happened during the week. The purpose is to reflect on the work itself. Here is my previous retrospective. Here is my next retrospective.

What has happened? What needs to be done?
This week I’ve read Coming Home to Story by Geoff Mead. It’s a book which takes the reader inside the experience of telling and listening to stories. Mead found his calling – to be a storyteller – when he was 56 years old. The trouble was that he wasn’t sure what he needed to do. The book is a personal oddyssey. The wisdom of Mead’s stories is that we can only find our way by being true to ourselves and by taking our rightful place in the world.¹

This week I’ve also participated in a workshop related to Integral Management. Here is my analysis of Integral Management.  One of the participants shared a story of how the management team discovered a gap between themselves and the rest of the organization, and how it was addressed. To make a long story short: Mind the gap! Beware the possibly large gap between top management and the organization.²

Next week, I need to finish my review of Malcolm Parlett’s book Future Sense.

What was good? What can be improved?
The sharing of experiences during the workshop was good. I see a connection between minding the gap and Geoff Mead’s storytelling in organizations. There is, for example, a huge gap between the short-term achievement of economic goals and the long-term considerations of human, and more-than-human, needs. The rational logic that underpins economic power and efficiency has a tendency to overwhelm the visionary logic of life through formalization, exploitation, regulation, and control. I believe that this gap only can be overcome if people come to come together on equal terms to share what really matters to them. Mind the gap!

Notes:
¹ Geoff Mead, Coming Home to Story: Storytelling Beyond happily Ever After (Vala, 2011), p. 199.
² This is inspired by the famous London underground “mind the gap” message. Beware the possibly large gap between the train and the platform.

Related posts:
Organizing in between and beyond posts