Montana Freethinkers

Exploring ideas outside the norm, specifically contemporary Christianity and pure market capitalism.

(From Cliff Havener)

Over the last year, I've received a lot of feedback about "Meaning - The Secret of Being Alive". In the book, I used the core relationship of "business", between the producer and the user, to illustrate applications of the book's principles. One prevalent theme in the feedback I've been receiving is that people are having difficulty applying those same principles in other fields such as education, psychology or organizational development, for example.

To solve this problem and illustrate the universal application of systems principles, Margaret Thorpe, the book's editor, and I, have written a few articles that apply the principles in the book to other elements of society. Organizations that have found them relevant have published them on their websites. We thought you might like to see the articles and, since we're all in this together, to know a bit more about the organizations that published them.

Business

These two articles focus on Organizational Development and company culture.

"Why Most Work Isn't Meaningful, Why Companies Can't Attract and Retain
Talented People - and How It Can All Change" -

Tom Terez wrote an excellent book entitled "22 Keys to a Meaningful Workplace". This article was written for that book's website - http://www.22keys.com/ The article itself is at - http://www.22keys.com/community/perspectives/cliffhavener.html

"Celebrate the Outlaws"

Systems Thinking Press published this article. It is a sister company to the Centre for Strategic Management. Together, they are a significant resource for applying systems thinking to life, in general, and to business organizations in particular. Systems Thinking Press is at http://www.systemsthinkingpress.com/ The Centre for Strategic Management is at http://csmintl.premierdomain.com/ - The article is at http://www.systemsthinkingpress.com/freesystemsconcepts_sys_thinkers.htm

Education

"The Basis of Genius or The Essential Flaw in our Education System and How to Fix It."

This article applies the principles of systems to our American educational system. It was published by the Online Noetic Network - a meeting place for "Cultural Creatives" - people on the forefront of transformation. ONN's URL is http://www.wisdomtalk.org/. The article can be found at http://www.wisdomtalk.org/basisofgenius.html.

Psychology

"Fear and Anxiety: They're in the System"

This article discloses the root cause of the generalized fear and
anxiety we accept as "normal". It was published by the Association of Humanistic Psychology, which was founded on Dr. Abraham Maslow's view of human potential, in its December/January 2001 issue of Perspective. AHP's website is http://ahpweb.org/ The article can be found at http://www.ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/fearandanxiety.html

General

"Why Things Don't Work"

As its name states, this article explains why so many things don't work, based on the nature of systems and, specifically, normative human systems. It was published by Quest of the Unquietmind, a "webjournal of thoughtful dissent" that publishes social commentary, cultural critique and observations on our "human condition". It's home page is http://www.unquietmind.com/ The article is on http://www.unquietmind.com/dontwork.html

I hope you find these articles, and their sponsors, to be valuable resources. Also, I'd very much appreciate you passing this information along to any individuals or groups that you feel might find it useful.

More from Cliff Havener:

"Gnostics" - A letter to me about Atheism
Christianity - A Perfect Perversion of the Original Intent of Jesus