Organization Development Program - Sonoma State University
A Note from Catherine Curtis
I was hired by the city and county of San Francisco as a trainer.
It is going well and I hope to move over into the staff development area where I
can do teambuilding and other OD related projects as well as training. That is my
goal. I just thought you would enjoy hearing a success story.
Also, I have been working with Pathways to Peace with Sheldon Hughes and David Wick.
I have put together an annual report that will be presented to the Attorney General
of the United Nations this September. I continually get email from participants of
how dazzled they are with the result of the report. I have been working for a number
of years in this organization on an inquiry called Peace within Organizations. We
have been asking the question, what if, in the 21st century, the role of business
was to do more than build wealth for its stockholders? What if organizations were
responsible in some way to the communities in which they dwell, the environment and
social equity etc.? What would this look like?
We have been holding events with speakers and collecting a lot of data and now are
in the final process of creating a white paper which will also be presented to the
Attorney General in September. One of the goals of this process is to see organizations
include peace building goals in their vision and mission statements, then follow
it up with concrete behaviors and activities that demonstrate a commitment to the
peacebuilding vision/mission. The categories that we have addressed include: purpose
and role of business in the 21st century, sustainable development, social responsibility,
money and new economics, whole system change, creative people practices, and ethics,
principles and values. The broader vision is to explore business within the larger
system of the planet. How does business affect government, education and the rest
of civil society and how is business affected by the economic and financial systems?
I'll leave you with a quote from the late Willis Harman.
"Real Peace will require fundamental transformations of our own thinking, our
organizations, and our whole network of institutions. Because of its central place
in modern society, business will be at the heart of that metamorphosisóeither as
part of the problem or as a force for creative change."