William Ashworth is the author of eleven books
predominantly in the field of ecological sustainability. Perhaps his best
known is The Economy of Nature.
Cliff,
The book's production appears to be well done - a cut
above most self-published endeavours. I leafed through it and recognized
much of the material from the incarnation in which I originally saw it.
My only criticism would be that the title and cover would appear to
point it toward the more fuzzy-thinking end of the New Age movement, and
I don't think your ideas belong there. People who could get a lot out of
it may never get beyond the cover - which would be a shame. Otherwise -
excellent job! Very few books I've seen do such a thorough and easily
understandable job of explaining systems thinking and how the lack of it
among managers hobbles society. I plan to recommend to people that they
DO get past the cover. My best,
Bill Ashworth
Arthur Jackson is a fellow author who explores the connections between
"meaning" and religion as we enter the new century. Havener
invites us to follow Joseph Campbell's challenge and take the "hero's
journey," by asking "why" until we get an answer that
causes us to say Aha! For me that is an exciting request and I think
Havener did a good job of following this advice.
Cliff Havener has written a seminal book that deserves to be read
by any who seek a way to better understand how and why the world works
as it does. He examines systems and lays bare their importance to human
life. Since systems define almost anything that interacts, they are
involved in essentially everything that matters to us.
Havener examines how and why systems change over time. He takes
the position that the process of civilization itself produced societies
which encourage obedience and conformity and have lost the purpose of
the system. These have set the tone for social life since that time. And
as he says, "It's unfortunate that the opportunity to champion the
others' pursuit of their self-actualization -- and, in the process,
champion our own 'rapture of being alive' -- has not been a real
opportunity until we began to recognize the nature of systems and,
specifically, the difference between formative, normative, and
integrative phases. But now that we have done that, it is. And there's
no confusion about the element most critical to realizing it --
people." Havener reminds us that in Western society a key figure
relative to meaning was Rene Descartes (French philosopher, scientist,
mathematician, genius, 1596-1650) who divided the universe into two
parts: the soul (where meaning is located), and everything else (where
we find cause and effect, but no meaning).
Since the foregoing has been just my goal for several years, I am
in wholehearted agreement with Havener's intent. In my manuscript, RELIGION
FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM: User's Guide for Homo sapiens sapiens, I
attempt to deal with the issue of meaning and the dichotomy Descartes
introduced. I tackle this by producing an empirical, experiment based
science of religion. In my mind Havener's efforts to clarify the goals
of systems by finding their common unifying principle helps to show what
needs to happen in all societies and to all systems. First and foremost
this must happen to religion and to science. And then with the help of
these areas all other systems especially business, but also everything
else from marriage to education, law enforcement, and nations must be
turned into integrative systems.
Copthorne Macdonald, author of The Wisdom Page.
"Especially interesting to us human beings are those systems
of which we ourselves are components. I refer to social systems —
societies, organizations, corporations, etc. A fascinating book that
focuses on the relationship between people and this type of system is
MEANING: The Secret of Being Alive (Edina, MN: Beaver’s Pond Press,
1999).
Havener writes about the life-cycle of social systems. He notes
that there is always a purpose behind the creation of a social system,
and that during the system’s formative phase, a materially-grounded
system is configured to satisfy the original "spiritual"
purpose. Once the system is up and running, it moves into the normative
phase, and most established corporations, organizations, and political
institutions are currently in this phase of their life cycle. Havener
notes that when this shift occurs, there is also a shift in goals:
"The goal of the formative phase was to figure out how to
materialize the system’s intent. The goal of the normative phase is to
maximize the efficiency of the forms and processes it created to do
that, whatever they were." In the normative phase, the system no
longer welcomes change — even change that would better fulfill the
original purpose. In this phase the system becomes both resistant to
change and increasingly distant from the original purpose that brought
it into existence. Havener gives many examples (most from business) of
how this plays out in the lives of organizations and their human
components. It is not a pretty picture.
If the normative phase continues to its usual conclusion, the
system eventually declines and dies. But Havener talks about another
possibility, the possibility of moving a system out of its normative
phase and into a phase of renewal that he calls the integrative phase.
In his words: "The integrative phase means unifying the fragments
of the normative phase by recognizing both the spiritual and material
states of the system, both its principle complements and its original
purpose. It doesn’t mean throwing away what exists. It means
discovering the meaning behind it. It often means redesigning the
system, based on its original intent, to fit current conditions."
MEANING: The Secret of Being Alive is an insightful,
thought-provoking book — must reading for anyone interested in bring
wisdom and renewal to societal institutions.
Wink Franklin, President, Institute of Noetic Sciences
I love nothing better than to read a well written book with
intriguing ideas, which yours is.......You bring a rich history of
personal experience in business with a sound understanding of systems
and human nature,
