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The development of Commercial Organizations in seven phasesPhase 1 The theocratic organizationFor a good example of phase 1 we must go back to the time of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians believed that the earth is flat and that the center of the earth was Egypt, of which the priest-king, or pharaoh, was in turn the center. He represented God on earth. Everything, soil, people, and life, belonged to the pharaoh. At that time there was as yet no consciousness of self as individual. In our time we can still find remnants of the theocratic phase. Phase 2 The autocratic organizationThis organizational form, that goes back to the (at times still recent) past, is most often a family business with a rigid hierarchical authority structure. Leadership is authoritarian and paternalistic and depends heavily on the leader's intuition. Knowledge is transmitted from father to son. The employees themselves are passive and obedient and independent thinking and taking initiative and responsibility on the part of employees has no place. The business has a family-group atmosphere and as such provides coherence and security (the old group). Phase 3 The bureaucratic organizationAfter World War II changes began to take place in rapid tempo in the business world. It is now the task of management to ensure that the entire complex process of people working together and with technology, functions smoothly. Important tasks in phase 3 are planning, budgeting, organizing, employing and supervising people, and solving problems. Systems and systems-thinking make their appearance. The manager is the one who directs these processes. He fulfills the ego-function of the organization. Guiding the organization is no longer a matter of intuition and natural leadership talent, but of professional skill and expertise. It is characteristic of phase 3 that everything is oriented toward achieving a goal and results. It is important to let the world know who you are and to measure yourself against others (the element of competition). We can see this especially in commercial organizations. Because the corporate climate is performance-oriented, people easily let themselves be guided and motivated by the ego. The result is that in profit organizations in phase 3 the patterns of interaction are often such that people stand opposite one another and even experience each other as competitors. Today, the majority of businesses are in phase 3. The systems-approach functions well as long as it stands in the service of the core task of the organization, but it has negative results when system-thinking becomes an end in itself. Then everything revolves around stock-market quotations and high profits. This leads to much reorganizing and restructuring. In this kind of atmosphere mutual dissension, distrust, and negativity flourish. This often leaves little room for growth. The result is stress. The problems in phase 3 frequently are the result of an antiquated way of thinking. Phase 4 The transforming organizationThis phase involves letting go of the old orientation and taking the step from the external to the internal. This is related to finding the essence of the organization: its mission, identity, and vision. Why are we here? What is the purpose of our being here? What is our contribution to the greater whole? Do I (for example) want to produce my foodstuffs in such a way that they contribute to the health and well-being of people or do I do it only for myself, to maximize my profits? The transformation process of an organization involves coming into harmony with its core values and identity and, with these values as starting point, redefining the entire organization and remolding and restructuring it in all its facets. This requires many years of effort and must involve all people in the organization, from high to low (a corporate culture shift). In phase 4 and in subsequent phases the ideal and the material (profit) become equally important. An organization in phase 4 attracts employees who have a deep desire, not only to develop their own self, but also their own spiritual principle, their essential core. They want to devote themselves to the values of the organization which are also their values. The initiating, stimulating, and guiding of such a transformation process requires a highly developed leadership and the right leadership style. Phase 5 The organization based on moral values and principlesIt is only during the past 25 years or so that organizations are developing characteristics that belong to phase 5. What are these characteristics?
In practice it requires much insight as well as effort to bring an organization into phase 5, which is why there are so few organization that reach this level. The all-decisive factor is whether there are enough people in management who are personally and relationally in phase 4 or 5. Phase 6 The organization as new communityWhat does an organization in phase 6 look like? It is not possible to give a detailed description as yet, although we can mention a number of elements. In phase 6 the accent will fall on the need of all managers and employees involved to develop themselves personally and spiritually to the core. In our day, which is characterized primarily by phase 3, the needs and impulses will come primarily from the own ego, i.e., from the question what we ourselves get out of it. In phase 6, however, these impulses are directed toward the other, selflessly and freely. The accent lies on a brotherly and sisterly manner of dealing with one another, whereby an entirely new feeling of affection and solidarity among employees will develop. Phase 7 The organization as contributor to world developmentIn phase 7 the attention of the organization is focused especially on the contribution it wants to make to the development of the greater whole: society, mankind, nature, the earth. In our day harbingers of this phase are already visible. We realize to what extent the technological and industrial prosperity of the past 50 years has come at the expense of nature and of people. Primeval forests have been cut, seas have been fished out, soil and water have been contaminated. In reaction to all this the notion of 'sustainable enterprise' has emerged, which strives for bringing economic, social, and ecological interests into balance and maintaining that balance, in order to promote the well-being and health of greater wholes. Inner conflictPhases 5, 6, and 7 will only develop, however, in the right sense if we also learn to recognize and deal with the activity of the dark forces. The dark or negative forces do not want any further development and actively oppose it. This is why in phase 4 there is a battle between on the one hand the negative powers of darkness and on the other hand the powers of light, consciousness, and love, that seek progress. The dark forces have their point of contact in the ego, the part of the personality that is directed toward the self. The powers of consciousness and love derive from the spiritual core essence. The inner battle calls for continual (self)reflection, self-knowledge, and making - again and again - conscious choices. In several phases simultaneouslyAs is true in personal and relational development, an organization also finds itself in several phases simultaneously, The organization has therefore the task to become conscious of where it stands now on the path of development, where it wants to go, and which aspects still lag behind. Where do old ways of thinking and old and unfree (reaction)patterns and structures, that have outlived their time, still persist? The task is to bring them further along in the sense of phases 4 and 5 and to develop them. Adapted from: Transforming People and Organizations: The Seven Steps of Spiritual Development by Margarete van den Brink (Temple Lodge Publishing, Forest Row, U.K. 2004). For more examples of organizations and leadership in phase 4 and 5, please see Articles and Related Articles.
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