Because the sales had been slipping, he was asked to
analyze the market and improve the products sales. He determined through
research that dogs didn’t like the food compared to that of the chief
competitor, Purina. His solution consisted of two parts. One a new
advertising campaign and second, a new formula for the dog food to make it
taste better to dogs. The first proposal was acceptable by management. The
second was rejected because it would “raise the cost of one particular
plant, throwing off the goals of the plant manager.” Gaines meal was
eventually bought out and disappeared as an independent market force.
The basic schema that Havener uses to explain these rigid systems is
borrowed from an important book by George Land with Beth Jarman entitled
Breakpoint and Beyond. Havener suggests we look at organizations as having
three stages of development, formative, normative, and integrative. The
formative stage is characterized by an idea - what Havener sees as the
spiritual component of what we do. This idea unfolds into some particular
forms and processes in order to create a useful product. In the beginning,
some experiments work, some don’t, so there is a constant trial and
error quality to the effort to create a sustainable business that serves
both the producer and the customer.
The normative stage follows, as the organization tries to clarify
and systematize the different forms that emerged in stage one. At this
point, various “rules” are established, fixed guidelines for doing
what the business was established to do. Here the danger emerges,
according to Havener. If the company begins to take the rules and
guidelines as ends in themselves, ignoring the original “spiritual”
purpose for which the business was created, the normative process becomes
dominant. The company then will eventually fail. The only healthy choice
is to enter a third stage which is called integrative. In the integrative
stage, every effort is made to keep the system open and flexible. It must
be able to respond to different conditions as they arise over time and not
be hampered by too tight a reading of the rules and regulations. The
essence of the integrative phase is that the organization recognizes both
the material - forms and processes - and the spiritual - ideas and
creative inspiration - which were born in the formative stage . The
openness of the integrative phase embraces rather than rejects diversity.
It encourages the independent development of subsystems, thus retaining
its dynamic character.
I am especially impressed by chapter four, in which Havener
summarizes the state of mind of the USA. As he puts it, in every
individual life and in every organization, the effort to retain openness
tends to be blocked by mental categories inherited from the past. One name
for these fixed, unexamined and unexaminable ideas is memes, coined by
biologist Richard Dawkins. Memes are ideas we inherit that fix meanings so
they are beyond analysis. Havener’s analysis of memes in the USA is
fascinating in its simplicity. He sees three basic foundation ideas that
form the US culture: Puritan Protestantism, Cartesian Science, and
Mercantilism. Puritan Protestantism rejects medieval suspicion of money
and wealth and identifies it with virtue. Cartesianism rejects
interrelated systems and posits a world made of simple discreet things
that are known by analysis, rather than knowing how systems and subsystems
are connected. Finally, Mercantilism, which sought always to win a
favorable balance of trade for the nation, evolved into the modern
corporation which seeks a profit at any cost. Worship of the “bottom
line,” despite protests to the contrary, blocks understanding of the
customer the product serves, that is to say, the usefulness of the product
to those it serves.
It follows from this mutuality of producer and user that a process
becomes effective only if the good of the “other,” those who are
served, can remain fully effective over time. Understanding the needs of
those we serve becomes the most important part of what the business needs
to understand. When Gaines dog food ignored the needs (wants) of the dog,
it failed. Havener sees this relationship as very ancient, defined in
Chinese philosophy as the identify of opposites. When opposites are seen
as the “enemy,” then no needs are served except those of the producer.
A few years ago a major company was heavily fined when it defined the
competition as its friends and the customer as the enemy. Every
organization, even every pair, such as a married couple must work with the
identity of their different needs and wants of the other.
The hard part follows from the need, once we decide to move toward
an integrative system, is to throw “what we think we know and start from
scratch.” “We can only know ourselves or another as a
system....Without that knowledge we can’t be relevant. We can’t
provide usefulness.” Understanding this process of understanding and “groking”
the other provides the concluding chapters of Havener’s book. Once more,
as in the beginning, he goes back to his experience of how organizations
succeeded or failed depending on how clearly they saw themselves as part
of a system that provided usefulness to some other. His case is
convincing. To complete the picture, I would be inclined go to Ken Wilber’s
efforts to develop an comprehensive integral system in which all elements
of human understanding and functioning can be seen in relationship. This
is yet another application of general systems theory, certainly one of the
most dynamic intellectual developments of recent years.
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Appendix: Shambhala Buddhism and the stages of system development
The Formative stage of Shambhala Buddhism was during the life of
Chogyam Trungpa, especially the early years from 1970 until 1980. He began
with an idea, an idea he had carried with him all the way from Tibet. He
wanted to bring the dharma to the West, but in a different way, a way that
would integrate western culture with dharmic truth. What he did is typical
of any formative stage. He experimented with different forms and
processes. He worked with people, defined and redefined administrative
structures, goals and intentions. This was a period of great flux, when
newly appointed administrators, reacting to their own conception of the
underlying idea in the mind of the teacher, set up a variety of systems to
administer the growing organization. Sometimes the results were splendid,
sometimes absurd. However, by allowing many different versions of his
inner project - the essential idea of a householder yogi path - he created
an intensely dynamic situation that had a broad appeal across a wide
spectrum of people.
After the death of the Vidyadhara in 1987, a period of uncertainty
set in. A tragic end to the guidance of his appointed successor, the
Regent, Osel Tendzin, added to the uncertain future course of the now
world-wide organization. Gradually, over the next ten years, the new head,
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, firmed the course of the organization and brought
in capable administrators to find the route into the future. We then began
to see a clear manifestation of a new normative stage. Guidelines for
practice and study became clearer, prerequisites for various assemblies
were made firmer. Study programs in centers began to receive guidance from
the central office. Meanwhile, the Sakyong introduced new study material,
new views of our directions and goals. Administrators, cooperating with
his leadership sought to set up programs that would introduce the new
teachings in the various centers.
The response among individuals in the centers was predictable for
this stage. Some joined in enthusiastically in what they saw as a new
direction. Others, feeling that their previous understanding was being
undermined, began to question the new directions. By now, after many years
of only loose affiliation with Shambhala International, the centers had
created for themselves their own directions and priorities. This was not
in any way rebellion but actually a healthy unfolding of programs and
views that served local needs and helped bring the dharma to people in
those communities. For, after more than thirty years, many who guided the
centers were now very senior practitioners who felt they had a clear idea
of the inner idea that had motivated Chogyam Trungpa originally.
Moving to the integrative stage should be the next healthy step for
the whole Shambhala mandala. By definition, that stage embraces diversity
and initiatives at the local level as long as that diversity remains in
active communication with the center. To make it simple, two dangers
confront us at this point as an organization. First, if in the effort to
create control from the center by creating hard and fast rules and
guidelines for every phase of actions in the various far-flung center, we
squelch initiatives that arise from legitimate local needs and an informed
idea of the original founding idea. The second problem would be the
opposite of that. If centers in their efforts to exert local control of
all their options lose connection with the center and the informing energy
of overall vision for the whole organization. In either case, the end
result would be damage to the health of the organization and possibly an
end to our efforts to realize the Vidyadhara’s original vision
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