Re-vision business at virtual chautaqua

There's so much great stuff to read sometimes; I wish I could spend the whole day just taking it all in.

However my little bit of learning today comes from Virtual Chautaqua, where they're currently discussing Ginger Grant's book "Re-visioning the way we work".

The concept of the book is fascinating: Using Joseph Campbell's heroic journey as a prototype for business change.

I don't know whether it's my increasing interest in story and the movies, but it seems Joseph Campbell is everywhere I turn! It's interesting to see the direction Grant has taken the idea in.

Here are some quotes from the book:

"Using a broad definition of creativity, to provide a corporate structure that is innovative and open to expansion is no less an artistic act than the creation of a symphony or a body of literature."

"In a for-profit, especially stock-price-driven corporate culture, decades of hard-line, profit-margin mentality have eroded the possibility of a meaningful connection between corporate leaders and employees, as well as shared participation in a corporation's fundamental vision."

"As Jungian analyst James Hillman suggests, 'Ideas we have, and do not know we have, have us.' In other words, if you don't know the myth you are living, then the myth lives you. Is it possible that if organisations lose awareness of foundational stories which contain fundamental operating principles, such organisations will flounder when they encounter difficulty? Perhaps the loss of such a powerful mythic foundation creates the difficulty in the first place?"

Join the conversation at Virtual Chautaqua.

Tags: Joseph Campbell, Change Management, Myth, Organisational Psychology.