A Christmas Carol LO11506

W.M. Deijmann (winfried@universal.nl)
Thu, 19 Dec 1996 11:53:09 +0100

Replying to LO11480 --

David Hurst wrote in A Christmas Carol LO11480:

>Here's a brief piece with some seasonal thoughts on change:
>
>Words and Looks: Leadership Lessons from "A Christmas Carol"
>or
>Marley Dead: Scrooge Visited By Consultants!
>
>Management gurus have drawn lessons on leadership from diverse sources,
>ranging from the practices of Attila the Hun to the fictional events in
>Star Trek. Yet they seem to have missed one of the finest accounts of
>transformation and change familiar to us all. It is Charles Dickens'
>best-loved story, A Christmas Carol. He said that he himself laughed and
>cried over it more than anything else he wrote, and it can still have that
>effect on us today. For there is a little bit (perhaps more than a little)
>of Ebenezer Scrooge in each of us and Dickens' penetrating observation of
>the condition of our "shut-up hearts" is as relevant now as it was 153
>years ago. As everyone knows, it is the story of personal renewal, of the
>conversion of a grasping, joyless taskmaster into a public benefactor and
>caring friend. Dickens also outlines a process of change which many modern
>organizations might try to follow. Indeed, as a story of personal and
>organizational transformation, it reports results that would delight any
>change consultant. Of course Scrooge had three consultants.

...big, big snip...

Thanks for sharing this with us David! To me it's a splendid example of
how arts inspire us. In a possible Fieldbook of Arts in LO this one fits
IMO under the header: "Storytelling in LO's."

Is it possible for you David to re-produce the prosess you've gone through
that gave this result? Perhaps it helps others to experience similar
prosesses for the benefit of their own development. But why not make it an
exercise for Leaders? I suspect that many of us has one favourite story
that guides us in a magical way through (periods) of our Lifes.

greetings

Winfried

--

Winfried M. Deijmann Deijmann & Partners Artists and Consultants for Organizational Learning Het Zwanevlot 37 NL 7206 CB Zutphen Netherlands Email: Winfried@universal.nl <http://www.universal.nl/users/winfried/eurythmy.html> tel.: +31 (0)575-522076 fax.: +31 (0)575-527310 "An educated mind is useless without a focussed will and dangerous without a loving heart" (unknown source)

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>