Meandering Mind - Eva Dillner [2]
May I teach the exercises in this book?
Not long ago, one of my colleagues asked for permission to teach an exercise from my first book. I was elated she liked the exercises. Of course you may teach anything that is written about in my books! I want you to. I encourage you to incorporate ideas and exercises into your own practice, for whatever reason. Just be sure to mention where you found the exercises. Whether you are a consultant, teacher, therapist or manager, please feel free to adapt the material as you see fit. Refer your students to my books. Knowledge is not static. It grows and develops when we use it. As we use it the understanding changes. This is the natural flow of life.
Two
A woman on a mission
My spiritual name is Pathfinder. My mission in life is to find new paths, to discover new ways to do things, to seek new solutions, to meander down a different path than the traditional one. I was a groundbreaker in business as one of the first women engineers in the paper industry so it should not be so surprising that I have a different approach to relationships and organizations. If you're looking for traditional ideas and models for organizations and relationships, then this book is not for you.
I don't believe in cookie cutter formulas or rigid step-by-step procedures. I do believe in living, breathing, changeable processes. I want to give you the tools to do your own thinking, feeling and analysis. Each case is unique and has it's own unique solution. So this book is about discovering new paths, new ways to look at relationships and organizations with much help along the way to stimulate and expand your thinking.
Organizations are relationships
This may be a new concept for you, that organizations are relationships. We traditionally think of relationships as love relationships, such as in marriage or relationships with children, siblings or parents. Truth is we have many different kinds of relationships, which form our experience of life. We have relationships with friends, with neighbors, with colleagues, with clients, with suppliers as well as with clerks at stores. Some relationships may be at the level of exchanging a few niceties across the counter, others plunge much deeper depths and last for lifetimes.
Perhaps you are used to thinking in terms of organization charts, where there are boxes with people's names and titles in them. These organization charts are often hierarchical in nature and problems arise when the natural energy flow between people is inhibited.
“Natural energy flow,?” you ask. Well, I see organizations as living organisms with a natural energy flow. If you organize the work in a natural way, the organization functions at its optimal level. I will give plenty of examples of this as we go along.
For an organization to perform well, the relationships within it have to be functional. Unfortunately, we bring all our baggage and dysfunctions to work and many organizations are hell to work for these days. I call it managing to mediocrity. It is this way only because there is a limited understanding of how it all works.
Relationships are organizations. You can't have one without the other. Whenever two or more people get together it's an organization, even if it's only two friends getting together for dinner or a movie. Families are organizations. Social events are organizations. Our relationships form our work organizations.
Stunned into silence
I would have written this book a long time ago, but there have been obstacles in the way. There has been a lot to work through therapeutically. I have published two books on therapy and personal growth. But the book you are holding in your hands is the one I wanted to write first.
I had completed a fifteen-year corporate career with an assignment in France. We spent two years building a new factory. It was an intense and difficult project in any language and culture. We pulled it off on schedule and under budget and had really done a terrific job. My boss wrote a