ChangeAuthor: Patrick Goh
Patrick Goh is a Fellow of the British Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. A personnel practitioner for over 30 years, his HR and OD experience spans the range of sectors: public (Singapore Foreign Ministry), private (British Airways) and charity (Church Mission Society). He is head of Global HR for an international non-governmental organisation, Tearfund.
E: patrick.goh@tearfund.org
Recently I started reading about Mindell´s work and Deep Democracy. In that vein, the article by Goh & Simpson immediately got my full attention with Jung´s quote: “How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also, if I am to be whole.”
The authors make a point that the values of capitalism and its moral logic become the norm, increasingly also in not-for-profit organisations, e.g. in healthcare, NGOs, the arts, etc. Goh & Simpson plead for using our critical mind and notice when employees, participants at an ‘appreciative dialogue’ or AI session are manipulated into ‘rephrasing their complaints into something appreciative’ to hide power and control issues. You can find some compelling examples in this brief article. Thought provoking!