Creative Leadership Coaching

Hi Carman, As always, your posts are both intellectually enriching and poetic. Years ago, Alfonso Montuori and I wrote an essay on how our philosophical paradigm and guiding metaphors have shaped organizations and leadership, and created the blind spots that now limit organizations. A very perceptive reviewer suggested the article would be all the more impactful [...]

Hi Lisa,  Thank you for enriching and expanding the Organization as Theocracy metaphor. I especially enjoy the way you integrate the concepts into your own educational and industrial experience. I am excited by the potential praxis of reflection and action we’ve ignited which demonstrates the power of thought to “negate accepted limits and open the [...]

Carman, What a creative essay! It sounds like you have a background in religious studies or theology. May I ask if that is true?  The organization as theocracy metaphor is a potentially useful one in that it’s been multiply observed ( I hope my readers will forgive me for not looking up the references) that our understanding [...]

Hi Lisa, I had fun originating the “theocracy” metaphor. Your question, ‘What are the dynamics that can lead us to imagine other people as objects?’ guided me throughout. As with all metaphors it both illuminates and obfuscates. Organization As Theocracy Theocracy: government by men claiming to know the will of God. Etiology of Error The [...]

Carman, You are a prolific writer and thinker!  You make several points in your post that all deserve some reflection and response.  Yes, the Cave metaphor seems to “work” for world views/paradigms in general, and it can, therefore, certainly be applied to the worldview which shapes traditional organizations.  And, a — perhaps the — guiding [...]

Hi Lisa, Two elements that strike me about the Cave allegory are: 1) Dehumanization 2) Degradation Interestingly, The Free Dictionary links dehumanization with mechanization: 1. To deprive of human qualities such as individuality, compassion, or civility: slaves who had been dehumanized by their abysmal condition. 2. To render mechanical and routine. Given the resurgence of [...]

Carman, Thank you for another exceptional post. Yes, all the thinkers you mention shape the lens through which we perceive our environment and the implicit assumptions we have about leadership and organizations. I  look forward to continuing this invigorating conversation, as our time allows. Have a great day! – Lisa Hi Lisa, Proceeding on the assumption that [...]

Carman, Your example of the transformation of Scrooge in the Christmas Carol, illustrates how third parties can stimulate transformation by helping a leader see the current situation and dynamic more clearly, and consider new perspectives and possiblities. This whole area of the process of transformation is intriguing. By definition, it involves some kind of diversity [...]

Wow, Carman, your discussion of sudden and radical transformation throws open some doors that would be interesting to follow! Yes you draw an apt and fruitful comparison between transformation per se and spiritual transformation. In addition to the Christian concept and experience of metanoia that you discuss, this kind of spiritually transformative experience is found in other religious [...]

Scrooge’s Metanoia and Organizational Conscience Hi Lisa, Wikipedia describes metanoia (changing one’s mind) as “embracing thoughts beyond its present limitations or thought patterns.” Ebenezer Scrooge’s metanoia seems to support this definition. But Scrooge’s “shift of mind” also appears to have been a group experience. Could metanoia have occurred apart from the Spirits? To illustrate, Scrooge [...]