Category Spirituality

Entries 3 Total Description

Content related to the human being’s spirit as opposed to mind and body.

Management Science and Medieval Christianity

Jul 21, ’11 1:53 PM

As much as I love simple and straightforward phenomenon, I really love it when a concept or idea has multiple layers of meanings. Interesting that Drucker points out the depth of the Scriptures in his essay on Management Science:

This however means, that ultimately “Management Science” may have to develop a logic which assumes that no statement is meaningful unless it is valid on several different levels of meaning. At the very least a way will have to be found to “translate” from one level to another, or to “transmit” from one model to another. There are developments in modern mathematics that seem to tend in such a direction. And the attempt has a distinguished precedent from which we might learn a good deal: Medieval “symbolical” logic with its assumption that every statement in Holy Writ has equal and full validity on four levels of meaning: as a historical account, as an allegory of Christ’s coming, as a moral precept and as spritual experience (Drucker, Management Science and the Manager, p. 125).

Comments (0)

Invisibility of Systems

May 12, ’09 6:28 PM

I believe that one of the most significant developments in systems thinking is the recognition that human beings can never see or experience a system, yet we know that our lives are so strongly influenced by systems and environments of our own making and by those that nature provides … We can never see or experience this totality. We can only experience our personal pathway through a system.
Richard Buchanan, Design Research and the New Learning, p. 12

Albert Speer’s work, Inside the Third Reich, is a memoir of his life as an integral participant of the Nazi system. Speer was remorseful following WWII and served 20 years in prison. He had much time to think about the pathway he chose as a young man and found himself writing the memoir to discover why he did the things he did.

The film, Finding Forrester, ends with Sean Connery’s character’s (William Forrester) realization of the need for true friendship and meaning in life. Forrester, a one time Pulitzer prize winner who only published one book before leading a reclusive life, finds inspiration through an unexpected friendship and the film ends with a quick glimpse of a second book drafted on the deceased writer’s table.

I’m fascinated by the phenomenon of not being able to experience a system but being able to look back later and having one’s experience make sense – that in some stories, “things happen for a reason.” This is a common theme in spiritual realities. For example, an autobiography I just finished is titled, God In the Shadows, where the author shares about his struggles as a young person and how he came to know God on a hospital bed following an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Since then, Ravi Zacharias has led a rich life, impacting many people all over the world. At rocky moments in his life, he did not understand the “big picture,” but in retrospect, he claims to have had providential guidance all along – hence, God in the shadows. The Book of Esther in the Scriptures is also well know for this form of detached guidance where the God of the Hebrews is never mentioned (as in other Books) but is quietly overseeing His people.

One of my favorite poems is "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne. When the speaker tries to console the love he is leaving behind, he assures her that their love is not the superficial love that many in the world experience – instead, he says to look to the planets as a metaphors of their love. The “movement of the spheres” is not something you can see or even experience, but it is something more powerful than the things we can see or experience through our senses. He ends with the metaphor of the compass (drafting tool) where one leg of the compass (likens to her constant love) must stay while the other leg moves. But what is unseen on the final paper is a manifestation of an activity – the process of separating the tool’s legs so that the legs lean on each other which is needed to create the ultimate circle (symbol of perfection and eternity).

What is meant by not being able to experience a system? Perhaps we cannot experience a system, but maybe one can still understand a part of the system once time has passed? What can designers do in an invisible system detached from the senses, especially if one of our core qualities is having a grasp of the senses (polysensorial aesthetics)? How do you preserve the dignity of an individual (and sanctity of “the soul”) when our territory and discussions expands to systems?

Comments (0)

A Painting of a Dying _____

Mar 10, ’08 1:16 AM

Today, I heard a story. A group of church elders commissioned an artist to paint pictures of a dying church. I suppose they wanted to move their congregation members by showing what they don’t ever want to be. However, when the artist produced a set of paintings, they were shocked to see a nice cathedral with towering steeples, expensive chandeliers in the auditorium, an extravagant “fellowship hall,” recreation room, and everything fanciful. The paintings even had groups of people all dressed up nicely coming in and out of the building.

When asked why he didn’t have an image of a run-down building with weeds and broken windows, the image they had had in mind, he responded that the type of death for a church is not such a deterioration, but a spiritual decaying. A church may have it’s people, activities, and nice facilities, but if the spirit is lost, all is lost.

I think about how this relates to the enterprise of design and what some in the design world call “4th order” design, that is, the design of organizations and ideas/thoughts. George Nelson, the renown designer, believed that organizations were the greatest design products of the 20th century. As much as designers create “posters” (graphic design) and “toasters” (industrial design), these products are made possible by organizations and corporations. Can we drive around our Toyota Camrys without the colossal organization (whatever organization means) that “builds” it?

Like the image of a dying church, have many organizations have already lost their soul, their essence? Is there a need for change, and can designers play a role in such change?

Thoughts to consider:

  1. Managing Design : companies have been doing this for quite some time, managing the various creative departments of their organization.
  2. Designing Management : Oooo. Sounds so much more interesting, doesn’t it? I’ll post more on this later …
Comments (0)