Joe Katzaman wrote Replying to LO11302 :
<snip-a-di-snip>
>> I have worked with an organization that begins their staff meetings with
>> a verse, usually spiritual in nature, often from great literature. .
>> They end their meetings with a song...often 'rounds' that swell and
>> recede, and create harmonies. When these folks are 'on', it is a
>> wonderful thing to see.
>
>No doubt. Which organization is this? I assume it's a religious
>organization of some sort, as outside of certain Japanese corporations and
>perhaps Southwest Airlines this is not behaviour one usually finds in a
>corporate setting.
IMO this has less to do with religion but much more to do with the arts
because arts always have a spiritual component. Including arts in daily
live I think is already more common then we think.
Throughout the world there are for example some thousand of
Waldorffschools that begin and end each day of the week with their pupils
in the above mentioned way. (Waldorffschools have no specific religious
confession). Weekly staffmeetings in these schools always have three
parts: a 'development' part where one of the teachers has prepaired a
small presentation about a chosen subject: f.i. "trust"or "development -
growth and ripening (maturety)",or "the four seasons" etc.. The
presentation is followed up by a dialogue about the subject and is linked
to the daily practice of each one at presence. Part 2 is practical
decision-making about daily routines, special issues etc. Part 3 is always
an artistic exercise: recitation, painting, drawing, drama, choirsinging,
eurythmy, etc. In this way 'Head, heart and hands' are taken care off.
In some minor industrial organizations where I worked and conducted
meetings, this procedure has been adopted as a 'Model of Good Practice".
Who dares trying it in his own organization? You'll only find out by
experience. Give it a 3 month period of trial and error. Invite an
artist/consultant to help you start up. If it works in your unternal
conferences, why should'nt it work for your clients.
greetings from a still very cold Holland!
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)
==========================================================================
--winfried@universal.nl (W.M. Deijmann)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>