Changes in My Practice

Speaker A Could you describe your own experience in reacting? You said that set up this, that you were stimulated and you were having to let go. But what was happening for you personally and how did it affect how you felt, what you're thinking, what you started to write about? How did it affect your teaching? What was this impact on you at that time?

Speaker B We had a course at GW University to teach introductory Master's Students Organizational Theory, and I had to use a book that it's a very well known book. I don't think it's by chance I can't remember the title, and I think it's four or five major theories, and everybody supposedly was supposed to use that book. I couldn't use the book anymore. I immediately just told people to take it back, sell it back, buy General Theory of Bureaucracy, and that's what we were going to work with. It opened up a whole area for me of combining stuff I did with what he did, realizing his was on a higher stratum. In one course, for example, I think one of the most important distinctions Elliot made, and one that I believe he underplayed and under theorized about, was the distinction between an association and an accountability hierarchy. In my classes at the university, because of my work on anaclytic depression, I define cheating as the failure to assist others on exams if they request. Now, the fit hit the shan over that. By the way, the dean read that syllabus of mine and called me down one day and said someone, another professor, had given him the syllabus and gave him the syllabus and said he wanted to meet with me. And I went in and met with him and he said, Is this your syllabus? And I said, yeah. And he actually started yelling at me. And he said, Professor Harvey, can you think of the absolute chaos that would occur at the George Washington University if everyone started helping one another? And I broke out laughing, so I couldn't stop. And when I finally stopped, there's a long silence, and he said, Did I just say what I think I said? And I said, Well, I'm pretty sure you did. And he said, let's meet at another time.

Speaker A Well.

Speaker B That led me into a course called Ethical, Moral, and Spiritual Issues of Organization. And the first thing I did knowing Elliot's notion that one of the basic purposes of associations is to provide an environment where people can engage in the generation in Frigg's change of knowledge. And one of those elements been the expiration of one's relationship to the deity. The first thing I did in the course was to say, everyone here, if you're willing to write an essay each week, two pages. Or sing a song or bring some music. Or a case study that you produce that deals with the moral, ethical or spiritual issue you're having at work or at home or anywhere else in your life. You get an A. Everybody reads, everybody's work and gives it back to them. The next week, I wrote an essay. Every week, I turned the course from being an accountability hierarchy into being an association. And the whole nature of the course changed. It changed into one of the most spiritual experiences that I've ever had in my life anywhere much more so than at church.