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Holism: A philosophy of organizational leadership for the future
HOLISM: A PHILOSOPHY OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE
James R. Carlopio* University
of New South Wales
The article identifies the need for less prescriptive and more philosophical approaches to organizational leadership. The deficiencies in traditional schools of thought are identified and the need for a holistic perspective is highlighted. A more holistic philosophy is applied to organizational leadership and some issues considered important within a holistic perspective that are typically overlooked by practitioners and theorists are also discussed. The article concludes with an illustration of several holistic principles applied to organizational leadership in the case of the cosmetics retailer The Body Shop.
The environment in which many organizational leaders are operating today may be characterized as being a dynamic, chaotic, and globally interdependent system. In such an environment, it is quite difficult to define the exact boundaries of the organization and the environment or to predict the relevant inputs and their likely effects on the system. For others, their environments may be characterized as being more stable and, therefore, organizational leaders can more easily identify system boundaries, the most likely relevant inputs, and their most likely effects. In this later case, the management sciences have been able to offer theoretical explanations that successfully account for past behavior and can somewhat effectively predict future behavior (cf. Miles & Snow, 1978; Porter, 1985). However, in the case where a business must operate in a boundaryless and turbulent environment, prescriptive theory has little to offer today’s leaders in terms of predictive ability or explanations of causality. For example, we can do no more than discuss how
*
Direct all correspondence School of Management,
to: James R. Carlopio, University of New South Wales, Australian P.O. Box 1, Kensington NSW 2033, Australia.
Leadership Quarterly, 5(3/4), 297-307. Copyright @ 1994 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1048-9843
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organizational leaders actually enact their environments (Starbuck, 1976; Weick, 1979) rather than successfully predict what are the characteristics of these environments, their significant inputs, and their likely effects on firms. In this case, where organizations are operating in seamless and turbulent environments, theorists seem to have two unattractive alternatives: either they can offer simple theories that will not reflect organizational reality or they can offer extremely complex theories with multiple contingencies based on sophisticated assumptions. In the first case, organizational leaders may be able to apply the principles, yet these would not likely prove useful as they do not realistically enough reflect organizations or their environments. In the later case, organizational leaders would not be able to fruitfully apply the theories due to their complex and technical natures. I propose that we can better help organizational leaders by offering them alternative guiding philosophies and premises rather than prescriptive theories and complex models.
THE PHILOSOPHY UNDERPINNING TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT Most of our existing leadership and organizational theories are based upon a philosophy that is grounded in the scientific, reductionistic model of the world. This model suggests that organizations, and indeed the entire world, are machines that can be separated into component parts and studied independently in order to achieve understanding. This belief has lead to the assumption that, like a simple machine, we can easily breakdown our world into its individual components or parts and relatively easily isolate and replace the defective pieces. These ideas have been carried over intact into the design of our social institutions and our attitudes toward leadership and solving complex problems. Bureaucracies and the “Fordist” assembly-line, for example, are designed in the image of the machine. Peoples’ jobs have been decomposed into supposedly simple, independent tasks. This model also translates into the assumption that an organization’s performance is determined by its managers’ ability to assess the external environment, pick and then implement the appropriate strategy. Little or no leadership is involved in this view of the world. Leadership roughly equates with a mechanistic, technical process whereby the organization is operated by a management technician in control at the top of the steep organizational hierarchy. The arguments against this mechanistic view of the world, and the school of organizational thought it spawns, are many and varied, coming from sociology, psychology, business administration, and physics (cf. Bohm, 1980; Bourgeois, 1984; Child, 1972; Mitroff & Mohrman, 1986). “New physics,” for example, has suggested that some phenomena can only be explained in their relation to other phenomena as a series of interconnections (Battista, 1985; Capra, 1982). In fact, Mitroff and Mohrman (1986) have suggested that “Everything everywhere now truly affects everything else” (p. 69). They related how the fate of Savings and Loans institutions in Ohio is tied to that of an obscure securities firm in Florida, and how the value of British oil stocks is, in turn, linked to what happened in both places. The ideas we have inherited from the Industrial Revolution are now totally inappropriate for leading organizations in today’s world. The basic trouble is that “most people are still trying to solve the problems of a complex system with the mentality and tools that were appropriate only for the
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world as a Simple Machine” (Mitroff & Mohrman, 1986, p. 70). People in today’s organizations need to think more broadly and radically differently than they have in the past. If what starts out seemingly confined to one part of the system and at one limited point in time quickly, if not instantaneously, spreads in unexpected and strange ways to have impacts on the entire system, practicing organizational leaders, as well as theorists, need to be able to handle vastly more complex, novel, and seemingly bizarre chains of reasoning than they have ever had to in the past.
THE ESSENTIALS
OF A MORE HOLISTIC
PHILOSOPHY
One of the elemental patterns that has recently been highlighted by the proponents of “New Physics” is that of self-similarity and holons. A holon is a system/ subsystem that is simultaneously a whole and a part (Capra, 1982). A holon has two opposing tendencies-an integrative tendency and a self-assertive tendency. It simultaneously attempts to function as part of the larger whole and to preserve its individual autonomy and wholeness. This may be viewed as the basic holistic principle. This quality of selfsimilarity, or a pattern within an identical pattern, has been identified as a fundamental occurrence in nature by scientists studying fractals (Gleick, 1987) and is what distinguishes a holistic-systems perspective from the more physicalist sociotechnicalsystems perspective (cf. Barko & Pasmore, 1986). These two tendencies are opposite and complementary. In a healthy system, they are in balance. A dynamic interplay results that makes the entire system flexible and open to change. Within the individual, we also find similar tendencies: the yin and yang, left-brain and right-brain, linear and nonlinear, analytic and intuitive. Both tendencies are necessary for harmonious social and ecological relationships. It is no surprise that we see both tendencies in effective leadership behavior and in organization and management theory. Problems occur when leaders emphasize one side to the exclusion of the other. Organizations wherein leaders are totally analytical are missing out on the direct benefits of the “other” side as well as the indirect benefits of their harmonious integration and balance that leads to higher levels of functioning. Mintzberg appreciates the need for balance and holism in leadership. In an article by Campbell (1991), Mintzberg is interviewed regarding strategy and intuition. He discussed the linear, rational, design school of strategy in contrast to the emergent school that suggests relying on intuition. However, Mintzberg suggested that both schools are just as extreme and are at opposite ends of the spectrum. To understand strategy, he suggested, you have to accept both extremes. He continuously alluded to the importance of both sides and to the importance of integration and holism for successful organizational leadership. “I am not saying that analysis is bad or unnecessary. There is the danger, though, that you can preclude synthesis with too much analysis” (Campbell, 1991, p. 109). Mintzberg suggested that intuition is discouraged in large organizations and that there are a great many forces in our society that drive it out. Many of us just switch off the right sides of our brains every morning. Mintzberg concluded his contrast of the “Porter” and “Peters” schools of thought by suggesting that leaders in great organizations do both and balance their mix of analysis and intuition.
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Balance
The concept of balance is a cornerstone of holistic philosophy. Balance is a process of the management of tensions. Bowles (1990) reminded us that a phenomena can only be recognized in relation to its opposite (e.g., day to night, tall to short). Jung (1964) discussed the tensions between the conscious and the “personal unconscious” or shadow, the Logos (i.e., masculine, active, objective) and the Eros (i.e., feminine, receptive, emotional). Similarly, the Taoist philosophy is characterized by the “whole power of interaction” between the two great forces of the universe (i.e., the yin and yang that are dark and light, negative and positive, female and male) that need “to be held in complete balance and equality of power” (Cooper, 1990, p. 30). The vast majority of organizational leaders are well over-balanced toward the rational, the male, the Logos, yang. People in organizations are crying out for a recasting of the scales that requires putting more value on synthesis and feminine qualities to achieve more of a balance. Recognizing the “other,” nonlinear side of organizational life, and bringing these forces into some semblance of balance with the rational and analytical side, are two distinct issues. Recognizing these nonrational forces has led us to pay lip-service to the importance of such issues as myths, symbols, rituals, intuition, metaphorical analysis, and so forth as a somewhat legitimate, but certainly small and secondary part of the leadership role (i.e., if we have time for that sort of nonsense once we have dealt with the really important technical analyses). Considering that organizational leaders must strive to keep a balance between the two sides in order to optimize outcomes for all stakeholders, however, takes us quite a bit further. Balance may also be seen as the ability to be adaptable and to handle ambiguity. The world is complex and wrought with inconsistency, contradiction, paradox, and surprise. Successful organizational leaders in the future need to come to terms with the fact that they must juggle the inherent tensions between the need for both organizational profits and community service, specialization and generalization, efficiency and ecological viability. We need to promote simultaneously loosely and tightly coupled systems. A holistic perspective is focused on getting the best of both worlds, not maximizing one to the detriment of the other. A holistic perspective suggests that there needs to be a recognition of, and a balance between, the extreme, juxtaposing forces within everyone and everything (e.g., analysis and synthesis, reason and intuition, inward-looking and outward-looking) across a number of levels. The Views Outward
and Inward
Organization and management theories are obsessed with the environment (e.g., government regulations, technology, markets). This is not considered in any way to be a problem. From one perspective, organizational leaders need to look outward to an even greater degree, not only at government regulations and markets but also at their effects on and interactions with communities and ecosystems. However, from another perspective, organizational leaders need to look within themselves as well. We frequently think that something from the outside is what we need to solve our problems. We do not believe we have what we need within ourselves or our colleagues. Of course every business leader needs to look outward-at competitive advantage, markets, social issues, and so forth. However, we look outward to such a great extent that we frequently
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forget to ever look inward. This also contributes to our cutting off from the “other,” more inner side of our lives. It has been suggested that “to investigate the world is to study ourselves; to investigate ourselves is to study the world” (source unknown). Applied in this context, we see that leaders can gain access to information and knowledge via the intellectual way of rational, scientific investigation based on external subject/object observation. We also have access via inward observation based on personal and trans-personal experiences. A reliance on either of these two methods of knowing remains partial and distorts that which there is to know. Both points of access are necessary, however, to achieve a holistic perspective. They are not mutually exclusive. They are actually both necessary to accurately reflect the whole that includes each of them in a state of balance. Although these thoughts risk dismissal as metaphysical voodoo or leadership by mumbo jumbo (Donaldson, 1993), these are not totally foreign conceptualizations within discussions regarding leadership and organizations. Zelney, Cornet, and Stoner (1990) suggested that today’s leaders need to engage in internal selfexamination and a continuous process of inquiry and discovery seeking to find organizational systems and structures that facilitate integration of effort and thought. Organizational leaders are now faced with the tripartite task of changing themselves, their organizations, and the greater community or society within which they exist at the same time. Mintzberg (1990) has stated: “Above all, the manager needs to be introspective in order to continue to learn on the job” (p. 175). A holistic perspective suggests that if there is anything that we wish to change outside of ourselves, we should first examine it and see whether or not it is something that must also be changed within ourselves. leadership
and the Structure of Organizations
Assembly lines, machine bureaucracies, and mechanistically based organizations and theories are not necessarily failing because of a lack of leadership. They are failing because knowledge is becoming the most important form of capital and these forms of organization and theory do not deliver integrated human knowledge to organizational leaders who need it now more than ever. They only deliver increasingly disconnected bits and pieces. A more holistic philosophy does not suggest that hierarchical structures are in any way inherently “bad,” however. Many whole systems (e.g., the body) have forms of hierarchical structures. A holistic philosophy does suggest that in order to increase the effectiveness of individuals and the organization as a whole, simple structures are preferred. This view assumes that overly bureaucratic, formal, or rigid structures hamper the natural tendencies of the organizational systems to operate. Simpler structures in some cases facilitate increasing complexity of culture (Bahlmann, 1990), allow people to be free from bureaucratic restraints, and empower people to act quickly in the best interests of the organization and its customers (Mills, 1991). In these cases, the organizational structures facilitate the leader’s tasks as there is maximal room for individuals to learn and be creative, a “collision of opinion” is cultivated, and “emerging strategies and creative interactions with the environment can happen” (Bahlmann, 1990, p. 255). A more holistic perspective also explains why an “upside-down” organizational pyramid is actually a better representation for a hierarchical structural arrangement
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within many organizations. A traditional pyramid is a good representation of a fairly rigid, mechanistically conceived system of domination and control in which orders are passed from the top down. The model of a tree as seen from the ground up, however, which can be encased within an upside-down pyramid, is more appropriate from a holistic perspective. The tree’s upside-down pyramid exhibits multilevel patterns of organization characterized by numerous intricate nonlinear pathways along which information and transactions propagate between all levels in all directions. Organizational members in leadership roles in this model may be viewed as the nodes in the tree. They are the information channels. Further, the holistic view suggests that an organization, as does a tree, takes “nourishment” from both its roots and leaves, that power flows in both directions with neither dominating, that all levels act as independent, whole subsystems and interact in interdependent harmony to support the functioning of the whole system. In terms of organizations interacting with their environments, Zelney, Cornet, and Stoner (1990) discussed how traditional mechanistic organization and management theory views a firm moving through its business environment as a separate, fixed, and rigid machine that scans its environment, calculates its options, and plans its responses. It relies on information feedback, forecasting and prediction, calculations, contingency planning, and rationality. This artificial separation of an organization from the community and greater society within which it is embedded and dependent, is quite dysfunctional. A more holistic view sees a successful firm as an integrated, flexible, adaptive organism, as a self-restructuring system, or as a cluster organization (Mills, 199 1) capable of self-reshaping and adapting to a variety of environmental variations and needs. These organizations are expected to rely more on flexible response patterns, distributed sensing and scanning, and a continuous process of integrating with its surroundings. Such as organization is viewed as an integral part of its environment, simultaneously creating it and being created by it, taking from it and giving back to it. Organizational
Intervention
Nowhere are the tenants of a holistic philosophy more well developed and widely practiced as they are in the health fields. Several holistic health principles can fruitfully be applied to considerations of organizational health and intervention by organizational leaders. For example, a holistic approach to health, as practiced by some modern homeopaths, suggests that the actual presenting, physical symptoms are of little if any concern when considering what remedies to prescribe. A noted homeopath (Jones, 1991) has said that the causes of physical symptoms of illness are the last thing he considers when prescribing after he has looked at such factors as the individual’s constitution (e.g., organizational structure, core technology and processes, industry), the person’s modalities (e.g., how s/he reacts to various environmental stimuli), mental attitude and temperament (e.g., organizational culture, personality), and the likely associated miasm (e.g., inherent instability and weakest link in the system). Therefore, he is concerned with the totality of symptoms across the body, mind, and spirit levels. When he treats the individual holistically, therefore, he does not directly treat the symptoms of the acute condition. That is, he does not prescribe a single arthritis remedy for arthritis, or a liver remedy for poor digestion. He treats the entire system across various levels by
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selecting a remedy that matches the totality of symptoms across various levels. Therefore, he chooses his longer-term curative treatment based on systemic considerations. This corrects the systemic imbalance(s) and indirectly cures the disease and relieves the original presenting symptoms. Although he may directly address a severely debilitating acute condition on the physical level to relieve immediate pain, this is not expected to be curative. Applied to organization intervention, a holistic approach would suggest organizational leaders be less concerned with directly addressing the manifest, presenting symptoms of organizational dysfunction, such as high absenteeism and staff turnover, with a noncurative, quick fix, and be more concerned with identifying the totality of symptoms and treating the entire system across a number of levels. This is not new within the study of leadership behavior and organizational theory. Mitroff and Mohrman (1986) for example, have convincingly suggested that modern nations and organizations need to stop treating the symptoms of their most basic problems in a piecemeal fashion and begin to deal honestly with their true problems. What is new is the theoretical framework that suggests why we need to do this and how we should go about doing it. So, holistically how would organizational leaders deal with organizational dysfunction and problems? First, they must look underneath the presenting symptoms for their underlying, systemic conditions. If poor quality is identified as a problemthat is, there are more defective parts being shipped than we expect or desire-what needs to be done is to realize that this is a symptom of a deeper process. Examples of core organizational problems that may cause these symptoms are such things as a pervasive condition of mistrust inhibiting communication and performance, an essentially addictive or co-dependent orientation among employees, or unsafe working conditions. Exploring beneath the presenting symptoms reveals the actual core organizational issues that must be identified and addressed. This is the essence of true leadership, having the awareness and presence of mind not to get caught up in fire fighting but to take the time to look beneath the surface and address the heart of the matter. Another holistic concept that can be applied to the treatment of organizational dysfunctions is that health and illness are not seen as distinct, separable, or discrete states. Holistically, illness and health are not thought to be opposing, all or nothing, states. Traditionally, you are considered healthy until an intruding agent enters the system and makes you ill. In holistic terms, it is considered natural for a system to go in to and out of balance. When the system is out of balance, it does not operate as well as it does when it is more in balance. Holistically, illness and health are relative, continual processes that are seen as part of a continuum. Therefore, a leader with a holistic perspective would not expect an organization to be operating perfectly forever. Perfection, in this sense, would never be a goal and one’s attitudes toward cycles of non-peak performance would be that they were expected and not catastrophic. Leadership efforts, in this case, would be concentrated on bringing about balance within individuals and organizational systems to quicken the process of moving out of the illness part of the never-ending cycle and, therefore, spend as much time as possible in health. Within this holistic intervention perspective, the role of consultants is significantly altered compared to the traditional view. Holistic health management includes two
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concepts that define people’s response to problems, self-care, and self-healing. To speak of an outsider coming in to heal, fix, or prescribe for the ills of the firm, holistically, makes little sense. The individuals within the firm are believed to be the only ones to have the capacity to solve their own problems. What outsiders bring is process consultation. Consultants come in to facilitate the process of reorienting and rebalancing, not to conduct strategic analyses, compose strategic plans, and provide the “right solutions” for existing problems. Holistic Leadership in Action In order to see some of the elements of a holistic philosophy as practized by successful organizational leaders, we can look at the case of The Body Shop in Australia. The Body Shop is a cosmetics franchise retailing organization with headquarters based in the United Kingdom. The Australasian franchise is currently comprised of over 43 stores across Australia and New Zealand. It employs over 235 people full-time. This number almost doubles during the November/December holiday period with the addition of part-time staff. The franchise has averaged yearly increases in sales volume and profits of over 70% and 160% respectively during its 11 years of operation (i.e., 1983 to 1993). The first element of a holistic philosophy that can be illustrated is that the task of holistically minded organizational leaders is not to provide specific answers, direction or control but to focus on organizational processes. It is suggested that holistic leaders have a systems view of organizations and groups as processes of interacting people in various roles and interrelationships. This perspective suggests that the main leadership task is to keep this big picture in mind and to empower people. In The Body Shop, the senior managers and franchise headquarters staff refer to themselves as “retail support staff.” They do this to reflect the fact that they actually operate as if the traditional hierarchical, pyramid structure of the organization were turned upsidedown. Senior managers consider what the staff in the stores do to be more important than what they do. These organizational leaders consider themselves support staff to the store managers and sales advisors. For example, senior managers do not telephone the stores during the busy lunch period because the shop staff would be taken away from dealing with their customers. In the performance review process, senior managers continually ask store personnel about the support they, and franchise headquarters staff, provide and how they can improve this service. Another illustration is that the two franchise directors both reported their most important leadership role, and the one in which they reported actually spending the majority of their time, was a people-oriented, transformational leadership role aimed at motivating employees. In this role, they seemed to fulfil the three factors of the transformational leader’s role as described by Yammarino, Spangler, and Bass (1993). They reported trying to: (1) provide inspiration and encouragement to all staff (i.e., the charismatic and inspiring factor), (2) build morale and confidence by coaching and mentoring (i.e., the individualized consideration factor) and (3) challenge and stimulate employees regarding relevant social issues and responsibilities related to the community service projects discussed next (i.e., the intellectual stimulation factor). A second element of a holistic philosophy that is reflected in leadership at The Body Shop is the belief that you can only take out of a system if you continue to put in
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to it. This view is suggested to promote harmony within the system as well as between the organizational system and other more macro systems such as communities, nations, and our planet. The Body Shop gives two employees from each store, on a rotating basis, two hours per week during working time to participate in a community service project. These projects range from helping elderly citizens do their shopping to working with existing organizations dedicated to helping the homeless or chronically unemployed. Interviews with senior managers revealed the following: We do the environment and community service projects because we believe in them. I want to do things, bring about change and help people. I have the opportunity at work to generate a profit and make these things happen. Community organization organization their deepest
service is about the shopfloor people getting something out of it. The supports giving something back to the community in which it exists. Our allows its employees to fulfil some of their core personal values and act upon beliefs.
The community service projects have helped to change many peoples’ perceptions of the sales assistants position from being demeaning to providing the opportunity to make a difference in the world. The pay-off for the firm is substantial. The Body Shop does not advertize to promote sales or to generate applications for sales positions. They routinely have over onehundred unsolicited applications on file. Even in a recession, this is remarkable. Organizations are part of society, not separate from it. It is this artificial separation of organizations from the rest of society that contributes to people feeling disconnected and alienated. When work is not separate from the rest of our lives, it can become a balanced part of life, not something we have to do simply to make a living. It is suggested, therefore, that organizations providing people with avenues for the fullilment of their personal values will attract and retain better people. Leading holistically also means living one’s life motivated by a set of core values that place a high priority on integrity, service, and spiritual as well as monetary profit. This is a third element of a holistic philosophy that is evident at The Body Shop. Fifteen respondents were asked to rate, on a scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important), how important they thought (1) making a profit, (2) making social change, and (3) providing opportunities for the growth and personal development of employees were for The Body Shop. The average responses were 3.53,4.33, and 4.67, respectively. Therefore, we can see a profile of people who are highly committed to employee personal growth and to making a difference in society. Although over half of them spontaneously related that making a profit is a necessary prerequisite, otherwise they would not be able to stay in business and achieve their goals, the data suggested that they did not seem to think making a profit was the sole reason for the existence of their organization. Senior managers were quite clear that personal and social values were equally important as making a profit for the firm. They did not believe it was necessary to sacrifice one for the other. I cannot as an individual really care about something, and then go to work and do something that is contrary to that belief.
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I was tired of working where people equated business with making a profit and nothing else. Business has to provide some value to society.. . I [am] working in a company in which people are happy, we are making a positive difference in society, and we are making a profit for shareholders and for me and my family. The Body Shop is not perfect, but we are committed. We have our hearts in the right place and we care about being responsible citizens in the world.
Of course, The Body Shop is not perfect. No system or individual is. However, because of the way The Body Shop is managed in Australia and worldwide, many of its members seemed excited. They were motivated to do extra work, to complete extensive training courses outside of normal working hours, and to be flexible in terms of where, when, and how they worked. For example, many of the administrative support staff spend considerable time in the retail shops during the December holidays as needed. Sales Advisors in the stores reported that they routinely did what ever was needed in order to get things done. They reported that they were enthusiastic about their work because they believed that they were making a difference in the world by directly helping with community service projects and more indirectly by what their larger organization stood for and in what it was involved.
CONCLUSION Many leaders now sense pressures for quick solutions to rapidly broadening sets of problems within an increasingly more turbulent environment. Unfortunately, many have respond to this pressure by narrowing their vision and by focusing on even smaller aspects of the overwhelmingly large picture. The promise and value of a more holistic perspective comes from a fuller awareness of yourself and of others, and from a greater sense of balance among the important elements in one’s life. A holistic philosophy suggests that we should become as aware as possible of the full range of human and organizational potential-that is, we should develop and employ both our rational and nonrational sides. Once we have acknowledged, explored, and become more familiar with both of these sides of the human condition, we can begin to learn how to balance them and to manage the tensions between these powerful forces. Achieving this promises to result in physically and mentally healthier, happier, more whole individuals who are capable of positively contributing to a whole organization that is in harmony with its social and ecological milieus.
REFERENCES Bahlmann, T. (1990). The learning organisation in a turbulent environment. Human Systems Management, 9, 294-256. Battista, J. R. (1985). The holographic model, holistic paradigm, information theory and consciousness. In K. Wilber (Ed.), 711e holographic paradigm and other paradoxes (pp. 143-150). Boston: New Science. Barko, W. & Pasmore, W. (1986). Sociotechnical systems: Innovations in designing highperformance systems. Applied Behavioral Science, 22, 195-360. Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the implicate order. London: Ark.
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Bourgeois, L.J. (1984). Strategic management and determinism. Academy of Management Review, 9, 586-596. Bowles, M.L. (1990). Recognising deep structures in organisations. Orgunisation Studies, 11, 395412. Campbell, A. (1991). Brief case: Strategy and intuition-A conversation with Henry Mintzberg. Long Range Planning, 24, 108-l 10. Capra, F. (1982). The turningpoint: Science, society, and the rising culture. New York: Bantam Books. Child, J. (1972). Organizational structure, environment and performance: The role of strategic choice. Sociology, 6, 2-22. Cooper, J.C. (1990). Taoism: The way of the mystic. London: Mandala. Donaldson, L. (1993). The Weick stuff: Managing beyond games. Organization Science, 3, 461466. Gleick, J. (1987). Chaos: Making a new science. New York: Penguin. Jones, A. (1991). Personal communication regarding Homeopathy and Holism. Sydney, Australia, December 19. Jung, C.G. (1964). Men and his symbols. London: Arkana. Miles, R.E., & Snow, C.C. (1978). Organisational strategy, structure, and process. New York: McGraw-Hill. Mills, D.Q. (1991). Rebirth ofthe corporation. New York: Wiley. Mitzberg, H. (1990). The manager’s job: Folklore and fact. Harvard Business Review, 68, 163176. Mitroff, II., & Mohrman, S. (1986). The whole system is broke and in desperate need of fixing: Notes on the second industrial revolution. International Journal of Technology Management, I, 65-75. Porter, M.E. (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superiorperformance. New York: Free Press. Starbuck, W.H. (1976). Organizations and their environment. In M.D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizationalpsychology. Chicago: Rand McNally. Weick, K. (1979). me social psychology of organization (2nd ed.). Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Yammarino, F.J., Spangler, W.D., & Bass, B.M. (1993). Transformational leadership and performance: A longitudinal investigation. Leadership Quurterly, 4, 81-102. Zelney, M., Cornet, R., & Stoner, A.F. (1990). Moving from the age of specialization to the era of integration. Human Systems Management, 9, 153-171.
James R. Carlopio* University
of New South Wales
The article identifies the need for less prescriptive and more philosophical approaches to organizational leadership. The deficiencies in traditional schools of thought are identified and the need for a holistic perspective is highlighted. A more holistic philosophy is applied to organizational leadership and some issues considered important within a holistic perspective that are typically overlooked by practitioners and theorists are also discussed. The article concludes with an illustration of several holistic principles applied to organizational leadership in the case of the cosmetics retailer The Body Shop.
The environment in which many organizational leaders are operating today may be characterized as being a dynamic, chaotic, and globally interdependent system. In such an environment, it is quite difficult to define the exact boundaries of the organization and the environment or to predict the relevant inputs and their likely effects on the system. For others, their environments may be characterized as being more stable and, therefore, organizational leaders can more easily identify system boundaries, the most likely relevant inputs, and their most likely effects. In this later case, the management sciences have been able to offer theoretical explanations that successfully account for past behavior and can somewhat effectively predict future behavior (cf. Miles & Snow, 1978; Porter, 1985). However, in the case where a business must operate in a boundaryless and turbulent environment, prescriptive theory has little to offer today’s leaders in terms of predictive ability or explanations of causality. For example, we can do no more than discuss how
*
Direct all correspondence School of Management,
to: James R. Carlopio, University of New South Wales, Australian P.O. Box 1, Kensington NSW 2033, Australia.
Leadership Quarterly, 5(3/4), 297-307. Copyright @ 1994 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 1048-9843
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organizational leaders actually enact their environments (Starbuck, 1976; Weick, 1979) rather than successfully predict what are the characteristics of these environments, their significant inputs, and their likely effects on firms. In this case, where organizations are operating in seamless and turbulent environments, theorists seem to have two unattractive alternatives: either they can offer simple theories that will not reflect organizational reality or they can offer extremely complex theories with multiple contingencies based on sophisticated assumptions. In the first case, organizational leaders may be able to apply the principles, yet these would not likely prove useful as they do not realistically enough reflect organizations or their environments. In the later case, organizational leaders would not be able to fruitfully apply the theories due to their complex and technical natures. I propose that we can better help organizational leaders by offering them alternative guiding philosophies and premises rather than prescriptive theories and complex models.
THE PHILOSOPHY UNDERPINNING TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT Most of our existing leadership and organizational theories are based upon a philosophy that is grounded in the scientific, reductionistic model of the world. This model suggests that organizations, and indeed the entire world, are machines that can be separated into component parts and studied independently in order to achieve understanding. This belief has lead to the assumption that, like a simple machine, we can easily breakdown our world into its individual components or parts and relatively easily isolate and replace the defective pieces. These ideas have been carried over intact into the design of our social institutions and our attitudes toward leadership and solving complex problems. Bureaucracies and the “Fordist” assembly-line, for example, are designed in the image of the machine. Peoples’ jobs have been decomposed into supposedly simple, independent tasks. This model also translates into the assumption that an organization’s performance is determined by its managers’ ability to assess the external environment, pick and then implement the appropriate strategy. Little or no leadership is involved in this view of the world. Leadership roughly equates with a mechanistic, technical process whereby the organization is operated by a management technician in control at the top of the steep organizational hierarchy. The arguments against this mechanistic view of the world, and the school of organizational thought it spawns, are many and varied, coming from sociology, psychology, business administration, and physics (cf. Bohm, 1980; Bourgeois, 1984; Child, 1972; Mitroff & Mohrman, 1986). “New physics,” for example, has suggested that some phenomena can only be explained in their relation to other phenomena as a series of interconnections (Battista, 1985; Capra, 1982). In fact, Mitroff and Mohrman (1986) have suggested that “Everything everywhere now truly affects everything else” (p. 69). They related how the fate of Savings and Loans institutions in Ohio is tied to that of an obscure securities firm in Florida, and how the value of British oil stocks is, in turn, linked to what happened in both places. The ideas we have inherited from the Industrial Revolution are now totally inappropriate for leading organizations in today’s world. The basic trouble is that “most people are still trying to solve the problems of a complex system with the mentality and tools that were appropriate only for the
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world as a Simple Machine” (Mitroff & Mohrman, 1986, p. 70). People in today’s organizations need to think more broadly and radically differently than they have in the past. If what starts out seemingly confined to one part of the system and at one limited point in time quickly, if not instantaneously, spreads in unexpected and strange ways to have impacts on the entire system, practicing organizational leaders, as well as theorists, need to be able to handle vastly more complex, novel, and seemingly bizarre chains of reasoning than they have ever had to in the past.
THE ESSENTIALS
OF A MORE HOLISTIC
PHILOSOPHY
One of the elemental patterns that has recently been highlighted by the proponents of “New Physics” is that of self-similarity and holons. A holon is a system/ subsystem that is simultaneously a whole and a part (Capra, 1982). A holon has two opposing tendencies-an integrative tendency and a self-assertive tendency. It simultaneously attempts to function as part of the larger whole and to preserve its individual autonomy and wholeness. This may be viewed as the basic holistic principle. This quality of selfsimilarity, or a pattern within an identical pattern, has been identified as a fundamental occurrence in nature by scientists studying fractals (Gleick, 1987) and is what distinguishes a holistic-systems perspective from the more physicalist sociotechnicalsystems perspective (cf. Barko & Pasmore, 1986). These two tendencies are opposite and complementary. In a healthy system, they are in balance. A dynamic interplay results that makes the entire system flexible and open to change. Within the individual, we also find similar tendencies: the yin and yang, left-brain and right-brain, linear and nonlinear, analytic and intuitive. Both tendencies are necessary for harmonious social and ecological relationships. It is no surprise that we see both tendencies in effective leadership behavior and in organization and management theory. Problems occur when leaders emphasize one side to the exclusion of the other. Organizations wherein leaders are totally analytical are missing out on the direct benefits of the “other” side as well as the indirect benefits of their harmonious integration and balance that leads to higher levels of functioning. Mintzberg appreciates the need for balance and holism in leadership. In an article by Campbell (1991), Mintzberg is interviewed regarding strategy and intuition. He discussed the linear, rational, design school of strategy in contrast to the emergent school that suggests relying on intuition. However, Mintzberg suggested that both schools are just as extreme and are at opposite ends of the spectrum. To understand strategy, he suggested, you have to accept both extremes. He continuously alluded to the importance of both sides and to the importance of integration and holism for successful organizational leadership. “I am not saying that analysis is bad or unnecessary. There is the danger, though, that you can preclude synthesis with too much analysis” (Campbell, 1991, p. 109). Mintzberg suggested that intuition is discouraged in large organizations and that there are a great many forces in our society that drive it out. Many of us just switch off the right sides of our brains every morning. Mintzberg concluded his contrast of the “Porter” and “Peters” schools of thought by suggesting that leaders in great organizations do both and balance their mix of analysis and intuition.
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Balance
The concept of balance is a cornerstone of holistic philosophy. Balance is a process of the management of tensions. Bowles (1990) reminded us that a phenomena can only be recognized in relation to its opposite (e.g., day to night, tall to short). Jung (1964) discussed the tensions between the conscious and the “personal unconscious” or shadow, the Logos (i.e., masculine, active, objective) and the Eros (i.e., feminine, receptive, emotional). Similarly, the Taoist philosophy is characterized by the “whole power of interaction” between the two great forces of the universe (i.e., the yin and yang that are dark and light, negative and positive, female and male) that need “to be held in complete balance and equality of power” (Cooper, 1990, p. 30). The vast majority of organizational leaders are well over-balanced toward the rational, the male, the Logos, yang. People in organizations are crying out for a recasting of the scales that requires putting more value on synthesis and feminine qualities to achieve more of a balance. Recognizing the “other,” nonlinear side of organizational life, and bringing these forces into some semblance of balance with the rational and analytical side, are two distinct issues. Recognizing these nonrational forces has led us to pay lip-service to the importance of such issues as myths, symbols, rituals, intuition, metaphorical analysis, and so forth as a somewhat legitimate, but certainly small and secondary part of the leadership role (i.e., if we have time for that sort of nonsense once we have dealt with the really important technical analyses). Considering that organizational leaders must strive to keep a balance between the two sides in order to optimize outcomes for all stakeholders, however, takes us quite a bit further. Balance may also be seen as the ability to be adaptable and to handle ambiguity. The world is complex and wrought with inconsistency, contradiction, paradox, and surprise. Successful organizational leaders in the future need to come to terms with the fact that they must juggle the inherent tensions between the need for both organizational profits and community service, specialization and generalization, efficiency and ecological viability. We need to promote simultaneously loosely and tightly coupled systems. A holistic perspective is focused on getting the best of both worlds, not maximizing one to the detriment of the other. A holistic perspective suggests that there needs to be a recognition of, and a balance between, the extreme, juxtaposing forces within everyone and everything (e.g., analysis and synthesis, reason and intuition, inward-looking and outward-looking) across a number of levels. The Views Outward
and Inward
Organization and management theories are obsessed with the environment (e.g., government regulations, technology, markets). This is not considered in any way to be a problem. From one perspective, organizational leaders need to look outward to an even greater degree, not only at government regulations and markets but also at their effects on and interactions with communities and ecosystems. However, from another perspective, organizational leaders need to look within themselves as well. We frequently think that something from the outside is what we need to solve our problems. We do not believe we have what we need within ourselves or our colleagues. Of course every business leader needs to look outward-at competitive advantage, markets, social issues, and so forth. However, we look outward to such a great extent that we frequently
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forget to ever look inward. This also contributes to our cutting off from the “other,” more inner side of our lives. It has been suggested that “to investigate the world is to study ourselves; to investigate ourselves is to study the world” (source unknown). Applied in this context, we see that leaders can gain access to information and knowledge via the intellectual way of rational, scientific investigation based on external subject/object observation. We also have access via inward observation based on personal and trans-personal experiences. A reliance on either of these two methods of knowing remains partial and distorts that which there is to know. Both points of access are necessary, however, to achieve a holistic perspective. They are not mutually exclusive. They are actually both necessary to accurately reflect the whole that includes each of them in a state of balance. Although these thoughts risk dismissal as metaphysical voodoo or leadership by mumbo jumbo (Donaldson, 1993), these are not totally foreign conceptualizations within discussions regarding leadership and organizations. Zelney, Cornet, and Stoner (1990) suggested that today’s leaders need to engage in internal selfexamination and a continuous process of inquiry and discovery seeking to find organizational systems and structures that facilitate integration of effort and thought. Organizational leaders are now faced with the tripartite task of changing themselves, their organizations, and the greater community or society within which they exist at the same time. Mintzberg (1990) has stated: “Above all, the manager needs to be introspective in order to continue to learn on the job” (p. 175). A holistic perspective suggests that if there is anything that we wish to change outside of ourselves, we should first examine it and see whether or not it is something that must also be changed within ourselves. leadership
and the Structure of Organizations
Assembly lines, machine bureaucracies, and mechanistically based organizations and theories are not necessarily failing because of a lack of leadership. They are failing because knowledge is becoming the most important form of capital and these forms of organization and theory do not deliver integrated human knowledge to organizational leaders who need it now more than ever. They only deliver increasingly disconnected bits and pieces. A more holistic philosophy does not suggest that hierarchical structures are in any way inherently “bad,” however. Many whole systems (e.g., the body) have forms of hierarchical structures. A holistic philosophy does suggest that in order to increase the effectiveness of individuals and the organization as a whole, simple structures are preferred. This view assumes that overly bureaucratic, formal, or rigid structures hamper the natural tendencies of the organizational systems to operate. Simpler structures in some cases facilitate increasing complexity of culture (Bahlmann, 1990), allow people to be free from bureaucratic restraints, and empower people to act quickly in the best interests of the organization and its customers (Mills, 1991). In these cases, the organizational structures facilitate the leader’s tasks as there is maximal room for individuals to learn and be creative, a “collision of opinion” is cultivated, and “emerging strategies and creative interactions with the environment can happen” (Bahlmann, 1990, p. 255). A more holistic perspective also explains why an “upside-down” organizational pyramid is actually a better representation for a hierarchical structural arrangement
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within many organizations. A traditional pyramid is a good representation of a fairly rigid, mechanistically conceived system of domination and control in which orders are passed from the top down. The model of a tree as seen from the ground up, however, which can be encased within an upside-down pyramid, is more appropriate from a holistic perspective. The tree’s upside-down pyramid exhibits multilevel patterns of organization characterized by numerous intricate nonlinear pathways along which information and transactions propagate between all levels in all directions. Organizational members in leadership roles in this model may be viewed as the nodes in the tree. They are the information channels. Further, the holistic view suggests that an organization, as does a tree, takes “nourishment” from both its roots and leaves, that power flows in both directions with neither dominating, that all levels act as independent, whole subsystems and interact in interdependent harmony to support the functioning of the whole system. In terms of organizations interacting with their environments, Zelney, Cornet, and Stoner (1990) discussed how traditional mechanistic organization and management theory views a firm moving through its business environment as a separate, fixed, and rigid machine that scans its environment, calculates its options, and plans its responses. It relies on information feedback, forecasting and prediction, calculations, contingency planning, and rationality. This artificial separation of an organization from the community and greater society within which it is embedded and dependent, is quite dysfunctional. A more holistic view sees a successful firm as an integrated, flexible, adaptive organism, as a self-restructuring system, or as a cluster organization (Mills, 199 1) capable of self-reshaping and adapting to a variety of environmental variations and needs. These organizations are expected to rely more on flexible response patterns, distributed sensing and scanning, and a continuous process of integrating with its surroundings. Such as organization is viewed as an integral part of its environment, simultaneously creating it and being created by it, taking from it and giving back to it. Organizational
Intervention
Nowhere are the tenants of a holistic philosophy more well developed and widely practiced as they are in the health fields. Several holistic health principles can fruitfully be applied to considerations of organizational health and intervention by organizational leaders. For example, a holistic approach to health, as practiced by some modern homeopaths, suggests that the actual presenting, physical symptoms are of little if any concern when considering what remedies to prescribe. A noted homeopath (Jones, 1991) has said that the causes of physical symptoms of illness are the last thing he considers when prescribing after he has looked at such factors as the individual’s constitution (e.g., organizational structure, core technology and processes, industry), the person’s modalities (e.g., how s/he reacts to various environmental stimuli), mental attitude and temperament (e.g., organizational culture, personality), and the likely associated miasm (e.g., inherent instability and weakest link in the system). Therefore, he is concerned with the totality of symptoms across the body, mind, and spirit levels. When he treats the individual holistically, therefore, he does not directly treat the symptoms of the acute condition. That is, he does not prescribe a single arthritis remedy for arthritis, or a liver remedy for poor digestion. He treats the entire system across various levels by
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selecting a remedy that matches the totality of symptoms across various levels. Therefore, he chooses his longer-term curative treatment based on systemic considerations. This corrects the systemic imbalance(s) and indirectly cures the disease and relieves the original presenting symptoms. Although he may directly address a severely debilitating acute condition on the physical level to relieve immediate pain, this is not expected to be curative. Applied to organization intervention, a holistic approach would suggest organizational leaders be less concerned with directly addressing the manifest, presenting symptoms of organizational dysfunction, such as high absenteeism and staff turnover, with a noncurative, quick fix, and be more concerned with identifying the totality of symptoms and treating the entire system across a number of levels. This is not new within the study of leadership behavior and organizational theory. Mitroff and Mohrman (1986) for example, have convincingly suggested that modern nations and organizations need to stop treating the symptoms of their most basic problems in a piecemeal fashion and begin to deal honestly with their true problems. What is new is the theoretical framework that suggests why we need to do this and how we should go about doing it. So, holistically how would organizational leaders deal with organizational dysfunction and problems? First, they must look underneath the presenting symptoms for their underlying, systemic conditions. If poor quality is identified as a problemthat is, there are more defective parts being shipped than we expect or desire-what needs to be done is to realize that this is a symptom of a deeper process. Examples of core organizational problems that may cause these symptoms are such things as a pervasive condition of mistrust inhibiting communication and performance, an essentially addictive or co-dependent orientation among employees, or unsafe working conditions. Exploring beneath the presenting symptoms reveals the actual core organizational issues that must be identified and addressed. This is the essence of true leadership, having the awareness and presence of mind not to get caught up in fire fighting but to take the time to look beneath the surface and address the heart of the matter. Another holistic concept that can be applied to the treatment of organizational dysfunctions is that health and illness are not seen as distinct, separable, or discrete states. Holistically, illness and health are not thought to be opposing, all or nothing, states. Traditionally, you are considered healthy until an intruding agent enters the system and makes you ill. In holistic terms, it is considered natural for a system to go in to and out of balance. When the system is out of balance, it does not operate as well as it does when it is more in balance. Holistically, illness and health are relative, continual processes that are seen as part of a continuum. Therefore, a leader with a holistic perspective would not expect an organization to be operating perfectly forever. Perfection, in this sense, would never be a goal and one’s attitudes toward cycles of non-peak performance would be that they were expected and not catastrophic. Leadership efforts, in this case, would be concentrated on bringing about balance within individuals and organizational systems to quicken the process of moving out of the illness part of the never-ending cycle and, therefore, spend as much time as possible in health. Within this holistic intervention perspective, the role of consultants is significantly altered compared to the traditional view. Holistic health management includes two
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concepts that define people’s response to problems, self-care, and self-healing. To speak of an outsider coming in to heal, fix, or prescribe for the ills of the firm, holistically, makes little sense. The individuals within the firm are believed to be the only ones to have the capacity to solve their own problems. What outsiders bring is process consultation. Consultants come in to facilitate the process of reorienting and rebalancing, not to conduct strategic analyses, compose strategic plans, and provide the “right solutions” for existing problems. Holistic Leadership in Action In order to see some of the elements of a holistic philosophy as practized by successful organizational leaders, we can look at the case of The Body Shop in Australia. The Body Shop is a cosmetics franchise retailing organization with headquarters based in the United Kingdom. The Australasian franchise is currently comprised of over 43 stores across Australia and New Zealand. It employs over 235 people full-time. This number almost doubles during the November/December holiday period with the addition of part-time staff. The franchise has averaged yearly increases in sales volume and profits of over 70% and 160% respectively during its 11 years of operation (i.e., 1983 to 1993). The first element of a holistic philosophy that can be illustrated is that the task of holistically minded organizational leaders is not to provide specific answers, direction or control but to focus on organizational processes. It is suggested that holistic leaders have a systems view of organizations and groups as processes of interacting people in various roles and interrelationships. This perspective suggests that the main leadership task is to keep this big picture in mind and to empower people. In The Body Shop, the senior managers and franchise headquarters staff refer to themselves as “retail support staff.” They do this to reflect the fact that they actually operate as if the traditional hierarchical, pyramid structure of the organization were turned upsidedown. Senior managers consider what the staff in the stores do to be more important than what they do. These organizational leaders consider themselves support staff to the store managers and sales advisors. For example, senior managers do not telephone the stores during the busy lunch period because the shop staff would be taken away from dealing with their customers. In the performance review process, senior managers continually ask store personnel about the support they, and franchise headquarters staff, provide and how they can improve this service. Another illustration is that the two franchise directors both reported their most important leadership role, and the one in which they reported actually spending the majority of their time, was a people-oriented, transformational leadership role aimed at motivating employees. In this role, they seemed to fulfil the three factors of the transformational leader’s role as described by Yammarino, Spangler, and Bass (1993). They reported trying to: (1) provide inspiration and encouragement to all staff (i.e., the charismatic and inspiring factor), (2) build morale and confidence by coaching and mentoring (i.e., the individualized consideration factor) and (3) challenge and stimulate employees regarding relevant social issues and responsibilities related to the community service projects discussed next (i.e., the intellectual stimulation factor). A second element of a holistic philosophy that is reflected in leadership at The Body Shop is the belief that you can only take out of a system if you continue to put in
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to it. This view is suggested to promote harmony within the system as well as between the organizational system and other more macro systems such as communities, nations, and our planet. The Body Shop gives two employees from each store, on a rotating basis, two hours per week during working time to participate in a community service project. These projects range from helping elderly citizens do their shopping to working with existing organizations dedicated to helping the homeless or chronically unemployed. Interviews with senior managers revealed the following: We do the environment and community service projects because we believe in them. I want to do things, bring about change and help people. I have the opportunity at work to generate a profit and make these things happen. Community organization organization their deepest
service is about the shopfloor people getting something out of it. The supports giving something back to the community in which it exists. Our allows its employees to fulfil some of their core personal values and act upon beliefs.
The community service projects have helped to change many peoples’ perceptions of the sales assistants position from being demeaning to providing the opportunity to make a difference in the world. The pay-off for the firm is substantial. The Body Shop does not advertize to promote sales or to generate applications for sales positions. They routinely have over onehundred unsolicited applications on file. Even in a recession, this is remarkable. Organizations are part of society, not separate from it. It is this artificial separation of organizations from the rest of society that contributes to people feeling disconnected and alienated. When work is not separate from the rest of our lives, it can become a balanced part of life, not something we have to do simply to make a living. It is suggested, therefore, that organizations providing people with avenues for the fullilment of their personal values will attract and retain better people. Leading holistically also means living one’s life motivated by a set of core values that place a high priority on integrity, service, and spiritual as well as monetary profit. This is a third element of a holistic philosophy that is evident at The Body Shop. Fifteen respondents were asked to rate, on a scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important), how important they thought (1) making a profit, (2) making social change, and (3) providing opportunities for the growth and personal development of employees were for The Body Shop. The average responses were 3.53,4.33, and 4.67, respectively. Therefore, we can see a profile of people who are highly committed to employee personal growth and to making a difference in society. Although over half of them spontaneously related that making a profit is a necessary prerequisite, otherwise they would not be able to stay in business and achieve their goals, the data suggested that they did not seem to think making a profit was the sole reason for the existence of their organization. Senior managers were quite clear that personal and social values were equally important as making a profit for the firm. They did not believe it was necessary to sacrifice one for the other. I cannot as an individual really care about something, and then go to work and do something that is contrary to that belief.
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I was tired of working where people equated business with making a profit and nothing else. Business has to provide some value to society.. . I [am] working in a company in which people are happy, we are making a positive difference in society, and we are making a profit for shareholders and for me and my family. The Body Shop is not perfect, but we are committed. We have our hearts in the right place and we care about being responsible citizens in the world.
Of course, The Body Shop is not perfect. No system or individual is. However, because of the way The Body Shop is managed in Australia and worldwide, many of its members seemed excited. They were motivated to do extra work, to complete extensive training courses outside of normal working hours, and to be flexible in terms of where, when, and how they worked. For example, many of the administrative support staff spend considerable time in the retail shops during the December holidays as needed. Sales Advisors in the stores reported that they routinely did what ever was needed in order to get things done. They reported that they were enthusiastic about their work because they believed that they were making a difference in the world by directly helping with community service projects and more indirectly by what their larger organization stood for and in what it was involved.
CONCLUSION Many leaders now sense pressures for quick solutions to rapidly broadening sets of problems within an increasingly more turbulent environment. Unfortunately, many have respond to this pressure by narrowing their vision and by focusing on even smaller aspects of the overwhelmingly large picture. The promise and value of a more holistic perspective comes from a fuller awareness of yourself and of others, and from a greater sense of balance among the important elements in one’s life. A holistic philosophy suggests that we should become as aware as possible of the full range of human and organizational potential-that is, we should develop and employ both our rational and nonrational sides. Once we have acknowledged, explored, and become more familiar with both of these sides of the human condition, we can begin to learn how to balance them and to manage the tensions between these powerful forces. Achieving this promises to result in physically and mentally healthier, happier, more whole individuals who are capable of positively contributing to a whole organization that is in harmony with its social and ecological milieus.
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