Lin -- I'm hoping for some more thoughts from the list, also. This issue affects us on a difficult level, because most of the consulting work that is available comes from a perspective that only takes into account the immediate internal needs of a client. This affects the way we make money. It is the unusual client that moves to a higher level in its thinking. Some of our icons like Meg Wheatley have decided to stop practicing for this reason, but they are at a point in their career when they can either afford this or attract plenty of other kind of work. I'm noticing how many of my colleagues accept whatever work is available and get good at it and then periodically melt down feeling like what they are doing is not feeding them. Some even get confused and surprised and not sure what to do when a client comes along that is willing to take a broader perspective.
As world citizens, it is an issue for us about how we are going to carry the dialog about the future of the planet forward in our work. After all, where else does this work get done than in our everyday lives. And yet as hired consultants, the system seems to place the decision about how this conversation is focused in the hands of the people hiring us, people who have a very rarified interest and who are financially driven to look at the situation with a different priority than that of the global system. This is especially important for those working predominantly in a business setting as business is having a greater and greater influence on the future of everyone and everything. It is not as though business goes on in one place and then the work that affects our futures goes on somewhere else. This is it. Kenoli
Hi Kenoli: you have given me so much to think about. I don't have the time today to really think through your comments or to add anything - however I thought it important to post with you that the issue of putting walls around the ' whole ystem' of a company (a contradiction in terms) so that it can exclude issues like environmental degradation and exploitation of local populations has sat brewing with me for some time and I've pushed it to one side. So now its out ! I'll get back on line in a couple of days - in the meantime, I'm looking forward to hearing from our OS colleagues. Lin Grist Chrysalis Consulting UK * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
-- Kenoli Oleari, Horizons of Change, http://www.horizonsofchange.com 1801 Fairview Street, Berkeley, CA 94703 Voice Phone: 510-601-8217, Fax: 510-595-8369, Email: ken...@igc.org (or click on: mailto://ken...@igc.org) * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
