Thanks to Edryce Reynolds for drawing our attention to evidence that favors
free thought and expression. I've used DuPree's classic "The Art of
Leadership" in a few of my classes and it's excellent work (so is Jim
O'Toole's insightful introduction to the book). Her mention of the Sudbury
school in Framingham, Massachusetts, brings to mind something that was said
years ago by the head of the Summerhill program in England. The philosophy
behind Summerhill, much like the Montessori schools in this country, was to
give children enormous freedom to learn what they wanted to learn and to go
at their own pace. When asked how these children would fit into society
with rules and expectations, the headmaster reportedly said something like,
"If any of my children ever become Prime Minister, I will feel that I've
failed."
However, the broader issue, as I see it, is not whether extreme freedom for
children or employees or anyone else can be achieved or even whether or not
it works. Clearly, it can and does work; but it also fails. The issue
runs deeper than merely pointing to the merits of free choice or suggesting
that a "boundaryless" approach to freedom is inherently best, a position
increasingly difficult to defend when everything else in life is not nearly
so absolute.
The broader issue is about the role of structure vs. freedom in a society
and in human interaction and the assumptions that are made about the
relative merits of each for a given set of tasks, as embedded in the
Tannenbaum & Schmidt leadership model of 40 years ago. We need to know
more about the conditions necessary for freedom to succeed in more than a
philosophical way. A "boundaryless" approach to work or education makes
certain assumptions about the value and necessity of individual choice, and
sometimes those assumptions are unreasonable. Alan Filley, a colleague and
distinguished professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells a
story he refers to as "The Parable of the Traffic Light" to demonstrate the
value of rules and procedures. In our haste to stand tall for freedom, we
can miss the benefits of structure -- whether it's the structure imposed by
traffic lights that regulate the flow of traffic, or the structure of using
clothes hangers to arrange our wardrobes, or the structure in education
that communicates to students more effective ways of engaging in a task. I
would have serious concerns if my accountant ignored standard accounting
principles in preparing my tax return this week. I find myself surprised
to be saying all this in support of structure, because most of my work has
been to get people to open up and see things differently, as DuPree,
Bennis, Perls, Reynolds and others have encouraged.
Larry E. Pate
University of Wisconsin-Madison
At 05:32 PM 4/10/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Suggest that we discuss ideas expressed in MAVERICK and Max DuPree's
>books. Also anything about the organization W.L. Gore. All of these are
>working with the idea of changing management, moving toward a more
>democratic work environment. MAVERICK is about the most dramatic story I
>have heard. The owner of a business in Brazil wrote it (forget his
>name), and has also written several articles for the Harvard Business
>Review.
>
>Another suggestion: visit Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass.
>They run the school democratically, and have been in existence since
>1969. Fully accredited, and students are absolutely free to do what they
>want to do each day. There are other schools patterning themselves after
>Sudbury Valley all over the world.
>
>Coming from our hierarchical system, we may need a model to see where and
>how we get from here to there. The Brazilian firm went from a benevolent
>dictatorship to a democracy, so it can be done.
>
>Edryce Reynolds
>
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