Organizing retrospective 23

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?
Last week, I mentioned that I need to clarify my direction going forward by identifying additional organizing questions. Here’s one question: What are the pathways to deeper generative organizing?

I think that the inquiry into organizing beyond requires that we enter into what Rosamund Stone Zander calls The Territory Beyond. Here is what she writes about this territory. And here is my review of her book Pathways to Possibility: Transforming Our Relationships with Ourselves, Each Other, and The World.

This week, I’ve also read If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business by Tom Morris. Here is my book review. The book is full of deep timeless wisdom about human life, but it also contains misinformation.

I’ve continued reading Bob Emiliani’s posts on Lean Leadership. Here is his blog. I plan to make an analysis of Lean. I had a conversation this week with a person who is involved in the introduction of Lean at a dental service. The Financial Manager has calculated how much time different tasks are supposed to take. The plan is also to split the work into smaller tasks, where the dentist initiates some work, while the dental hygenist or the dental assistant finishes it. This is done to increase the efficiency. The problem is that the variability in the time required to treat different dental patients is several hundred percent. The person I talked to was also deeply concerned with how these changes will affect the soul of the work. The Respect for People principle which Bob Emiliani writes about here seems to be missing.

What was good? What can be improved?
Jeff Loeb (@JDLoeb) recommended The Tree of Knowledge by Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela. The subject of the book is “knowing how we know,” which also is related to deeper generative organizing. I added the book to my reading list.

Related posts:
Organizing in between and beyond posts