Comments on: It’s the Operating System, stupid! – A quest for a European Humanistic Management Movement by Hans Stoisser (with contributions from Lukas Michel)

By: Arman Matthews

Arman Matthews — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 03:13:21 +0000

Hans, all well and good,but I think you are side stepping Ruben’s comment. You seem to assume that the operating system that makes what you refer to as “Senior executives in the corporate sector” possible is not also responsible for the down grading of humanistic values, a political economy that is not user friendly to all but a few, the destruction of the biosphere, and war without end. A paradigm shift of the magnitude you suggest, would surely end “growth economics” and fictional entities called Corporations.

By: Hans Stoisser

Hans Stoisser — Fri, 15 May 2015 09:58:06 +0000

Ruben, thank you for questioning the metaphor of an “operating system”. Indeed, is it “rich and deep enough” for ”a civilizational-level transformation”?
Apparently, something specific exists which keeps any organization or “social system” together and makes it operating. Independently of what this organization is actually doing. One way to look at it is from systems science. E.g. Stafford Beer has defined six systemic functions – operating, coordinating, optimizing, auditing, clarifying, setting values – which, in case they are taken care of, make an organization “viable”. Or Fredmund Malik speaks of specific management tasks as opposed to expert tasks. – We think it is the management of an organization, which has the power to change or at least to influence this mode of operation, which we call operating system.
Remarkably, during the last 30 years the mode of operation of organizations in the corporate world has changed and has converged to a standardized model. Worldwide. Based on Shareholder Value thinking, globalizing communication structures and a universal MBA education.
Of course, in the moment 99% of senior executives in the corporate sector don’t think of bringing in humanistic values just for themselves. And many don’t see the self-responsible human being as part of the solution. – Unless they will be part of a “movement”. As we have witnessed with the “Shareholder Value movement“ which in the last 30 years has changed the corporate world.
In any case, we believe that influencing the mode of operating systems of organizations is a key lever for “civilizational-level transformation”. It is a third starting point to do so, besides influencing the consciousness of people and making changes at the level of the overall political and economical system.

By: Ruben Nelson

Ruben Nelson — Wed, 13 May 2015 16:56:30 +0000

Notionally, you are on a vital track — if we do not consciously change something very fundamental in our modern Western form of civilization, all of the cultures that embody risk decline and death as liberal democratic cultures.
I wonder if your understanding is deep and reflexive enough to make a difference. I fear it is not, but then I am a stranger to you both. I have just one question/observation:
1. Is the metaphor of an “operating system” rich and deep enough to get at the underlying issues of the need for and fact of a civilizational-level transformation. To my ears, your piece still rings of the same management mentality that got us into trouble — we stand outside that which needs to be controlled and fixed and we can do this objectively. (For example, see your first sentence of your last paragraph. I have known hundreds of senior executives in every sector of society and not more than 1% came close to having such capacities.) While you use the language of “humanistic”, it is not clear that you have plumbed the depth of what is entailed in being a human person in the early decades of the 21st Century.
None of this is meant to dissuade you from your line of thought; only urge you to pursue it with greater care and depth.