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May 30, 2004

Three Cars in Garage but the Tank's Empty - Part I

This is the first chapter in a story about a company I once worked with. Both the company name and all characters names have been changed. In this piece I am experimenting with Gareth Morgan's 'Images of Organisations' approach. I will describe the organisation in detail and attempt to bring its character to life. Then I will develop a metaphor for the organisation as a way of understanding it and possibly designing an intervention. This is a case study. Feel free to comment and suggest emerging metaphors you see as I post parts of the story...

Corner Publishing

As far as I know, Corner Publishing was established around 1984 by two young entrepreneurs, Red and Mike to publish the broadsheet AcornNews, a newspaper dedicated to the then new and exciting Acorn technology. They started with a staff of two or three enthusiasts working out of very cramped conditions. The company acquired two new titles over the next six years and established Books magazine. By 1990, Corner had moved to its present premises and was employing about 20 people.

In the early days of my business I advertised in AcornNews but I didn

Posted by chriscurnow at 10:42 PM

May 29, 2004

What is chriscurnow.com?

chriscurnow.com could be:

Posted by chriscurnow at 9:36 PM

May 24, 2004

A New Language

There is hardly a more deeply rooted in organisational tension than that of the relationship between men and women.

A few years ago I did a Graduate Diploma in Business at RMIT. One of the chapters I wrote for my final paper focussed on one part of this theme. As I discussed it with my fellow students it came to be known as 'The Sex Chapter.'

Here it is...

The second year of the program starts with a five day workshop around organisation level consulting skills held at the Melbourne Zoo and consequently referred to as the ‘Zoo Workshop.’

On the first afternoon of the Zoo Workshop Leisa remarked that she was missing Jonathan because he represented the male sexuality of the group.

The final morning of the workshop was devoted to discussing issues that arose from the previous four days. We returned to Leisa’s comment.

A lot of time was then spent around gender relationships in organisations and, in particular relationships between men and women in our group. The program consultants encouraged us to speak about our feelings for each other.

There was a rich atmosphere that morning, This is to the women present that morning.

To my friends who happen to be women

Some of you showed great courage and generosity in speaking honestly and openly. Barb, you told of having sexual dreams involving Steve and sending him poems via email. Cathy, you spoke about taking, for the first time in a long time, the risk of showing off your attractiveness and your feelings of rejection after being dismissed by Jonathan. It was a moving time.

We men, however, were silent.

At the time, I was aware of incredibly strongly conflicting feelings. In one way, I thought I could escape the dilemma of participating in this discussion because I had spoken at a previous workshop of my strong feelings toward Naomi and had reaffirmed them that morning. But I knew that was only an excuse and, there was a part of me that wanted to offer something of my self, my male self, to you, my friends in the group who are women. I could sense that you wanted something from us, some indication that we really did love you, we cared about you and respected you. And I wanted to give it. But I didn’t.

Speaking later about the workshop in a one on one with Naomi she said, “Where were the men in that discussion? Where were you? Where was your generosity?” At the time, I thought that I was holding back out of fear for what might happen if your pent up anger was released on us. I imagined a scene of carnage.

I wanted to be really honest, and to give something of worth. To do this, I, or any other of the men, would have to speak about our physical attraction to you, the women around us. We know only one way to talk about your bodies – the locker room language – where we emphasise our desire to have power over you by reducing you to objects to be graded, used and discarded by us. Even though this is not the way most of us actually think about you, it is the only way most of us know to speak about your physical beauty. It is vulgar, coarse and derogatory. It is also something for which most of us carry a great deal of guilt.

Gary Brooks has written about this in his book, ‘The Centerfold Syndrome’. Here is some of what he says

“One might think that since girl watching was such an emotionally draining experience, guys would spend considerable time talking about it, questioning its value, speculating about its causes, wondering about alternatives. This was far from true. Although I can remember countless hours spent talking about beautiful female bodies, I can’t remember a single conversation in which any of us seriously questioned the inevitability of girl watching. It would have been nice to have had a forum for open exploration of this and many other aspects of our lives, but asking questions and sharing insecurities was not a big item among my young male friends.”
So in speaking our thoughts, we are afraid of your anger towards us. The words spoken by ‘Christine’ at the story telling workshop we read about in the course readings, were the words I feared I might hear:
I chickened out.
You didn’t get the knife in the throat
Your hair ripped off your head
Your prick flung limp to the floor.
I didn’t even tip you off the chair
Where you sat
Cock sure
Soft Irish brogue still lilting
With your tale of travelling
Your man’s story
A so called hero’s journey
Into pus poverty.
Here you get your slick badge
Cheap with ‘different’ women
More easy going
Loosely inhibited lithesome
Childwhores
Serving, starving, conned and tricked
By tradition
Soft sister
I didn’t act
But you may strip the sham
Of European privileged aftershaven
Warriors
And swallow his raping pillaging soul
Along with the spunk
Do not jest thou pallid man
Beware of wounded women

There is perhaps no conflict felt more deeply on the face of the earth than the conflict between us as men and women. Most of you and many of us attribute the majority of the blame for this conflict on our shoulders. This is why I thought I was afraid of on that last morning of the workshop.

A different view

However, now I think something a little different.

I have spent a great deal of my life feeling guilty about part of me. I have felt bad about the way I look at women. Gary Brooks breaks the male code of silence when he says

“I can remember times when driving around (or in my younger years, riding my bike) I’d go past a particularly attractive young girl in shorts or halter top and risk an accident through my efforts to visually follow her in my rearview mirror as she walked in the opposite direction.”

I would be surprised if the men around me aren’t nodding with embarrassed assent as they hear those words. I still catch myself trying to find vantage points to get a better view down a low cut dress, or perhaps, if I am lucky, a brief glimpse of a bra-less nipple.

When reduced to words on a page, these activities seem purile, and, if not for the resultant impoverishment of relationship that they cause, would be just plain hilarious. But they aren’t.

I have tried to make up for this by finding ways to be kind, gentle and compassionate. When I am with women, I talk your talk “Men are bastards.” I say. I surprise you by agreeing with you. I am aware of what other men are doing to you and I say so. So many times, one of you have said “I never expected to hear a man say that.” This makes me feel good. When you say that, I can believe for a moment that the other part of me doesn’t exist.

I have often said “I want to resign from the male gender.” I love being with women.

I realise now that I love being with women as a man. As Lisa once said to me, “There is that energy between us.” If I did resign from the male gender, my experience with you would be left empty. I now know that it is that other part of me, the part that I hide, that makes the experience so good – for both of us – but by hiding it, I deny both you and me the fullness of it. And I am sure that you find it frustrating that I hide it when I am with you

This is what I think you wanted at the Zoo workshop. You wanted to see our appreciation of you in its fullness. You did want to know that you are attractive to us. You wanted to know how we really feel about you. But you didn’t want the power laden locker room talk. As Di said in class one night “Perhaps we need to find a new language. A language that expresses how we feel but doesn’t offend.”

This is exactly what I think we need to find.

So what was I afraid of that morning? I think I actually could have withstood your scorn, although I was nervous about revealing that this caring compassionate man had the same base instincts as all the rest of ‘them’.

What I was afraid of was speaking a language that I had never spoken before. Speaking about the deep feelings inside me that the sight of your bodies arouses. Not the base feelings that you know about, but my need to be loved, to be known and understood and to be cared for. It doesn’t sound like much. From what I know, you women talk about these things all the time. But we men never learn this language. We know the feelings but learn to believe that we are alone with them – for no other men (or the boys we once were) we know ever talk of them. At least not in our everyday talk. Perhaps in poetry, or art or music, but not directly to each other.

So we come to believe that there must be something terribly wrong about ourselves. To open our mouths about these feelings in front of you would not be too bad – even though we do not know the words to use – we know that you know them. But to do so in front of other men, would be to stand naked before them and expose ourselves to their ridicule for being alone with such sensitive emotions. It is no excuse for the way we treat you, but it is the reason. I hope you come to see us as much psychologically impoverished victims of our actions as you are.

Naomi gave me this poem once –

All that I withhold diminishes me
and cheats you
All that you withhold diminishes you
and cheats me
When we hold back ourselves
for each other’s sake
That is no service to us either one
We only collude in the weakening
of us both.
(Herman & Korevich, 1977))

You did not withhold. We did. I hope you will encourage us to venture into understanding and relationship with you, to let go of that which we are afraid and share it with you.

Posted by chriscurnow at 10:55 PM

May 22, 2004

Australian PM John Howard on Iraq

Australian Prime Minister, John Howard made a presentation to the Institue for Public Affairs last Wednesday night. We believe it was a missed opportunity. PM Howard likes to see the world purely in terms of right or wrong. This might be morally upright but it is not going to solve the complex and seemingly intractable problems in Iraq.

Given Mr Howard's obvious belief system and world view it would be unrealistic to expect him to have announced that he was going to pull Australia's troops out of Iraq anytime soon. But the situation in Iraq has gone way beyond an argument about whether the troops should stay or come home. The argument is, having got ourselves involved in the mess in Iraq what do we do next. Just to say we are going to keep our troops there until the job is done is totally inadequate to the current situation. Just keeping on doing what we have been doing, just harder, is not going to solve anything.

Mr Howard had the opportunity to outline a new strategy for Iraq. That might have involved some original thought on how the UN could be incolved. It might have involved a greater role for Australian diplomats. Our diplomats have got the runs on the board in nation building within our region.

The PM had a responsibility to show intellectual as well as moral leadership on this issue. It is a matter of national regret that he missed that opportunity.

Posted by chriscurnow at 9:32 PM

Learning Moveable Type

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Posted by chriscurnow at 9:05 PM

May 19, 2004

Globalisation

I've just put a new entry in my amazon wish list - In Defense of Globalisation by Jagdish Bhagwati.

As a leftist liberal, I used to be very much against globalisation. And I still believe that it has an ugly face. But I am starting to see a distinction between 'globalisation' the phenomenom and 'globalisation' the goal of large corporations to be the new empire builders.

From my reading of the reviews, Bhagwati defends globalisation as the only opportunity for the reduce global poverty.

I have thought quite a lot about this over the last twelve months as I have dreamt of what it would be like to produce a global software product. I could gather a team of developers here in Melbourne and write the new killer app. Or I could gather a team of analysts here in Melbourne and get a team of Indians (or Russians or Malays) to write it.

Why shouldn't we in the West be prepared to purchase skills from the East? Why should we consider people from our own country? We are incredibly wealthy. Surely it is greedy of us to want to keep all the work in our own country? Just as much as it would be greedy to want to keep all the work on our side of town or our local neighbourhood.

There are people on the other side of the world who need to be fed. Is there not enough work to go around for everyone in the world.

It seems now that the greatest oponents of globalisation are people who oppose it not on the grounds that it is exploitative, but on the grounds that it is likely to them or people they know losing their jobs. If we skill ourselves appropriately, and keep skilling ourselves we can find the global market niche where we are competitive. If we rest on our laurels and build protectionist bariers around ourselves we will eventually become a third world country ourselves.

Posted by chriscurnow at 9:48 PM

Alexandra Kerry

Honestly how can Alexandra Kerry's decision to, or not to wear a bra be newsworthy? What is with this obsession with voyeurism where we have to catch every glimpse of a nipple and publish it all around the world?

She was wearing a black dress without a bra. Well maybe that's something 15 and 16 year old boys might get excited about - but newspaper editors all over the world?

Well, I guess if that's all they've got to get a kick out of who am I to criticise?

And just finally, can someone tell me why the country that gave us Playboy, Penthouse and a naked breast in every movie is so prudish?

Posted by chriscurnow at 9:15 PM

May 17, 2004

Kindergarten - the purest form of Education

I like to think back to the times when my children were happiest at school.

As I remember all the experiences of my four girls, I invariably think of their time at Kindergarten. This is where they learnt to explore the world outside home in any sort of formal environment. They learnt about getting up with anticipation and expectation to the day's activities at kinder. What would be in the room today? What will I paint? What colours will I explore today? What will I make? Who will I play with? Of course four year olds don't have words to put to these thoughts but they have the thoughts anyway.

Kinder looks very messy and haphazard. But behind everything that happens is a plan. Put out a new coloured paint this week. Encourage Elissa to explore different shapes today. Someone noticing what each child is doing and taking notes about their progress and things they need to do to challenge them.

All these things prompted by a view of education in which children are voracious learners eager to explore the world around them without being told hour by hour, day by day, week by week what they should be learning.

Kindergarten is our childrens' last opportunity to learn freely whithin a formal enviornment.

In these days of standards and national curriculum guidelines let's celebrate this one year where children can just be children.

Posted by chriscurnow at 9:24 PM

May 13, 2004

Boys, oh Boys

I am growing increasingly tired and irritated by the continuing calls for "something to be done about boys in school." I wonder about the underlying motivation of the movement. I think it is really a desperate attempt to hang on to male domination?

As a boy at school I wasn't "a body in perpetual motion" (see Peter West's article in Melbourne's 'The Age'). Yes Peter, the boy culture does say "be tough, have muscles, don't do anything girly." But what if you are a boy and you're not tough, you don't have muscles and some of the things you like doing (like playing classical piano) are regarded by the tough minority as being "girly". I can tell you from personal experience it is awful. Yes "Boys energy was once validated" and, I add, given relatively free reign to the detriment of many. Let's kill this romantic fantasy that schools in the 60s were a nice place to be. Bully's ruled and bastardisation was rife.

Thinking about my early high school days, there were probably only about four boys in each class who fell into the typical "boy" stereotype that West describes. That left about 12 of us who were intimidated by the big strong, muscly, tough, macho non-crying boys.

No we don't need a return to the past and we don't need to stereotype our boys and our girls.

I'm sick of this notion that we need more male 'role models' for our boys. A good female teacher can engage in boys banter just as well as a male. She can challenge boys to excel at everything they do whether that be by being part of the coaching panel at the football or by teaching him to dance. I've many times seen a magical relationship between my female colleagues and a group of boys.

During the late 70s and early 80s I tought high school physics for about ten years in a row. The boys were always in the majority in those days. One year I had a class with about 12 boys and one girl. Lisa was one of the brightest people I ever taught and the boys didn't like it. Every time she answered a question correctly she got ribbed by the boys. She ended up getting a creditable but not brilliant result because it was just too hard.

I believe that girls have always done better at school than boys, but in the past we put artificial barriers in the way of girls' success. Girls were only 'allowed' to do the soft subjects. They were positively discouraged from staying on through the later years of secondary school and view their fulfillment in terms of marriage, motherhood and home making. As these barriers have been torn down, mainly by determined and courageous women over the last century, girls natural superiority at the game of schooling has shone through. Just as my year 12 physics boys didn't like the one girl to show them up, now hoards of men are trying to put the lid back on Pandora's box.

Of course we must be concerned wherever we find a group of people underperforming at school. But the answer doesn't lie in encouraging our boys to be more macho, more tough, more muscly and more insensitive. Besides the fact that there are lots and lots of boys for whom this stereotype simply doesn't fit, these approaches will never lead to academic success - let alone to developing good citizens. Just as certainly we don't want to try to turn our boys into girls. While finding legitimate outlets and validation for the excess energy that some boys have, we want also to encourage thinking people who can see the broader issues facing our fractious world, who can contribute to the development of a strong community, who can love and be loved and can have fun without taking it from others.

This leads us to seek a new vision for education. Schools where every child and young person can find self expression regardless of gender, race, interest or academic ability. We need schools where we encourage and support our teachers to walk up and down the classroom, look into the eyes of every student and ask "are we doing everything we can to develop the spirit of this young person?" Will only that our macho male dominated society will let it happen.

Posted by chriscurnow at 11:15 PM

May 4, 2004

Let's Never let it happen again

For months now Australia's two largest football codes have been racked with accusations of 'sexual misconduct'. Let's call it for what it is - rape! The saga started back in February when several players from the Sydney based Rugby League club the Cantebury Bulldogs, on a training weekend in Coff's Harbour invited a woman back to the team hotel on the last night. The woman claims she was gang-raped and assaulted by the hotel pool.

A few weeks later, the other major code, the Aussie Rules AFL was rocked by a scandal of it's own. Two players from the Melbourne based St Kilda club were accused of being involved in a rape. Reportedly a woman went back to the house of one of the players and consented to having sex with him. Apparently her accusation is that the other player then had sex with her without her consent.

In the meantime, one of the AFL's high profile players, Essendon captain James Hird caused a stir by describing the umpiring of the teams weekend match as 'disgraceful' and naming an umpire with whom the club had felt badly done by for quite some time. It was reported at the time that AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou's staff said they had never seen him so angry. The AFL threatened to cancel or suspend Hird's players licence. In the end he narrowly missed this punishment but was instead fined $20,000.

This morning we read in Melbourne's broadsheet daily (The Age) that the case against the Bulldogs players has been dropped due to lack of evidence.

I am sickened by the reported comments of Cantebury Bulldogs chief Malcolm Noad (The Age 28/4/04). "Let's believe that nothing happened in Coff's Harbour." It was a "true vindication" and reportedly he said he was proud of his players.

Have the Bulldogs learnt nothing from this sad affair? Nothing happened? From all accounts the players took a woman back to their hotel in clear breach of their code of conduct and apparently they do not deny that several of them proceeded to have sex with the woman that night. That's the sort of conduct that gives Mr Noad reason to be proud of his players? That's it for league for me.

The AFL front doesn't give much cause for encouragement either. We have an AFL player fined $20,000, narrowly missing derigistration and reportedly causing more anger than ever before in the AFL chief executive - all for a few mis chosen words. At the same time two more players have been accused of rape. Well ho hum, that's just what you would expect. Roll out the damage control.

Posted by chriscurnow at 5:24 PM