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On Sep 12, 2015, at 12:22 PM, Lee Robbins <leerobbins@SONIC.NET> wrote:

Greetings to you Charles and to  all in MSR –– and I hope some of your will respond on the Listserve by replying to this emai. 

Below are my responses to your two questions about the origins of MSR according my memories and files.

1) Could you give us an idea of your academic background and what prompted your move into the topic of "management spirituality and religion"?  

• I completed a Ph.D. Dissertation, LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS: THE EFFECTS OF INTERACTIVE PLANNING AND TWELVE STEP METHODOLOGIES <http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI8725203/>
  in 1987 at Wharton in Russell Lincoln Ackoff's Social Systems Sciences Department [the Wharton competitor to the Wharton Management Department, founded by Russell after his disillusionment with Operations Research of which he was a founder and the founder of the Wharton Operations Research Department and his decision fo find a name that wouldn't be imitated <http://acasa.upenn.edu/AckoffHallofFamefin.pdf>].  As you can see from the title my dissertation  focused on Russell's intervention strategy for organizational transformation, Interactive Planning <http://ackoffcenter.blogs.com/ackoff_center_weblog/2003/10/a_brief_guide_t.html> AND the methodology of the 12 Step Fellowships  which focuses on individual transformation.  My perspective was that either organizational ttransformation OR individual transformation is typically underattended in organizational change initiatives and that the unattended level of aggregation tends to pull the organization backwards towards its former nature after the intervention effort ends.  
• A central feature of the 12 Step Fellowships better known as AA, Al-Anon etc. is to engage in reliance on a "higher power" outside yourself which, depending on the perspectives of the participant, can be "God", another spiritual concept or even the 12 Step support group itself.
• In  1996, now a professor at Golden Gate University, and shortly before proposing the first Management and Spirituality Symposium for AOM , I attended the September weekend yearly spiritual Retreat of the Gay Buddhist Fellowship of San Francisco in the Santa Cruz mountains.  I experienced this Retreat as so important and beneficial to myself and others that I resolved to bring spirtuality (and I do not consider Buddhism a religion due to it's non-theistic and relatively non-hierarchical nature at least in the vipassana branch to which I adhere) to my work ––either by starting a 12 Step Group, probably Al-Anon to which I belonged, at my University or to AOM.  I never got around to the first but soon decided to propose the second and try to get accepted by AOM ––  at that time not very friendly to such non-mainstream perspectives.
• I concluded that the best shot at AOM acceptance was to have eminent people participating in a Symposium, as Symposium proposals are not blind reviewed.  I initially contacted Ian Mitroff, an already academically eminent former student of Russell Ackoff's, for support and suggestions.   Ian eventually was not able to particpate due to health issues with his back but David Cooperrider, founder of appreciative inquiry and Chair of AOM's ODC Division, and Lee Bolman, co-author of Leading With Soul, agreed to partcipate along with myself.  Lee Bolman suggested Judi Neal, already the founder and editor of the Spirit at Work newsletter she created and later to be one of the founders of MSR, who also accepted the invitation.  
• The proposal was submitted to MED, ODC and SIM.  MED (Management & Educational Development) and ODC (Organizational Development and Change) both accepted the proposal but SIM (Social Issues in Management) turned it down with one reviewer saying it was not religious enough ("the authors did not even reference "Jesus Christ, CEO") and the other saying it was too religious for AOM.
• Since only one acceptance was needed and we had two, it was scheduled for the 1997 Boston AOM annual meetings.  Helpfully the schedulers thought no one much would come and put it in a room that seated 35 –– the over 100 people who struggled to get in perhaps created a helpful 'buzz"  and we also created an e-mail list of the participants whom I just discovered included some prominent academics such as Andre Delbecq, Rafe Chisholm and Victor Vroom and such later leaders of AOM as Sandy King (now Sandy Kauanui) as well of course as Judi Neal.

2) Was there a precise moment that the MSR notion coalesced among the first founders? When was that, and who were they?

• We then had sessions related to management and spirituality at AOM in 1998 in San Diego when Sandy King and Jerry Biberman described their strong interest in our subject area and in 1999 at AOM in Chicago when an AOM member, Chris Guyer, said he'd like to start a petiion for a management and spirtuality Interest Group.  While several of us had talked a bit about such an effort earlier, none of us had actualy started to initiate it.  Chris Guyer (whom I have not been able to locate via the internet –– does anybody know him?) and who described himself as holding a Ph.D. In Management but curtrently attending Yale's School of Theology, asked if those of us involved  were agreeable to an effort on his part to petition AOM to start the Interest Group.  After a moment's hesitation, we said "sure".  Chris and others of us gathered the signatures and AOM approved the new Interest Group for 2000.
• Chris was appointed (got himself appointed?) by AOM as head of the new interest group; then problems began partly with his desire to take it in a more religious directions and patly from a leadership style perceived as authoritarian.  A political struggle soon enthused particularly around Chris's desire to make the name of the group Management, Religion and Spirituality  with some of the others of us involved were concerned that this might bring in religious leaders wanting to use the group with its academic links to proselytize for their prarticular religion.  Eventually with the help of Andre Delbecq, Jerry Katz, involved with AOM and an old friend of mine, and Kathy Lund Dean, a doctoral student of Jerry Katz, we did decided to keep Religion in the name and description but Chris was replaced and Jerry Biberman became the first Chair.  The next year I became Program Chair, Jerry Biberman, Chair, and Judi Neal, Chair-elect, of the new group.  Sadly we never heard again from Chris though I continued to mention him for appreciation at the MSR business meetings for some years.  
• Since then we have successfully passed AOM three and fiver year Reviews but our application to become a Division has not yet been accepted.  Now we need to decide again whether to reapplly to become a  Division, about which there are varied views concerning both desirability and feasability.

Lee Robbins

• NOTE: LeeRobbins@post.Harvard.edu is my PERMANENT email address 
• please use this in your address book as I may change ISPs and their email addresses from time to time; note auto-reply goes to LeeRobbins@Sonic.net (my current ISP) which is OK but may be changed sometime.

Cell: 415-713-1341

From: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU> on behalf of Charles Thomas Tackney <cttack@GMAIL.COM>
Reply-To: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2015 at 3:24 AM
To: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
Subject: The MSR Summer Retreat: an MSR listserve conversational extension

Dear MSR Listserve members:

One of the very nice things about the Academy conference are those unexpected, enjoyable conversations that take place: those individuals, the topics, and the surprising effects these may have on career or research interests. The MSR retreat makes such encounters and conversations more likely - and the more enjoyable. Yet, nice as these may be, we all go back from where we came and then keep up as best we can.

This year's retreat found a few of us thinking to write up an MSR history as an AOM scholarly submission. The Interest Group is 15 years old. Two formal applications have been made to become a Division, with encouraging feedback. Years of scholarly papers, professional development workshops, symposium, newsletters, awards and other history-making events have taken place. These can be tracked, counted, archived, and analyzed. And we seem to be starting to do this.

My link to MSR began little more than "two AOMs" ago, as we formally count AOM time, when I ventured into a PDW with a particular research notion and curiosity. I got to meet a few interesting people and saw an opening. That led to a paper submission, a Pendle Hill retreat, a co-authored paper and symposium this year, and the Bowen Is. retreat. So, my interest in MSR history, in general, and of its founding, in particular, remain strictly that of a "newbie." But judging from the conference and retreat, the incidental discussions with those "present at the creation" are of general interest.  

So, I thought to open out our study of MSR founding through a listserve dialogue. Lee Robbins, one of those actually present at the creation, agreed to participate. We thought to have him with us virtually on-topic in the MSR listserve for the coming week.

I'll begin by posting him two direct questions and we will take it from there. Hello, Lee, and greetings from Copenhagen, Denmark:

1. Could you give us an idea of your academic background and what prompted your move into the topic of "management spirituality and religion"?  

2. Was there a precise moment that the MSR notion coalesced among the first founders? When was that, and who were they?

If there are other questions, post away. We've got Lee for the week.

Probable NEXT TOPIC: A first Academy of Management paper / my first MSR paper.

Best,

Charlie Tackney

• More empirical studies with reasonable methodology AND on topics and producing findings that are of some importance (in addition to simply being "statistically significant"); these might be quantitative, qualatative or (in my biased view particuarly desirable) "mixed method" 
• Hopefully some of these will be about ordinary workers and not all about CEOs and leaders
• The relationship of corporate behavior (and other business types) that improves lives, reduces conflict and human suffering to spirituality and religion in management and organizations
• I would also really love to have some studies, particularly empirical, on religious organizations and whether they 'walk their talk" with employees and others –– when we added "Religion" to our title, I was hopeful that this would eventuate but so far, to the best of my knowledge, it has not.
• Bringing s[iritual perspectives to the teaching of management (i.e., that improves lives, reduces conflict and human suffering)

Thierry C. Pauchant

Professeur titulaire

Service de l'enseignement de la direction

   et del la gest5ion des organizations

HEC (Ecole des hautes Etudes Commerciales)

3000 chemin de la Cote-Sainte-Catherine

Montreal (Quebec) Canada H3T 2A7

514 340 6375

fx 340 5635

thierry.pauchant@hec.ca

First a brief note about Ken Wilber and the origin of the Retreats. 

  In 2001 I learned that Ken Wilber, whose work I had been reading, lived and worked in Denver and Boulder; he was then kind enough to repond to my request so that a dozen of us were able to meet with him in Denver during the 2002-Denver AOM annual meeting.  

And it was at lunch in Denver with someone, whom unfortunately I have never been able to recall, that the MSR-Retreat-after-AOM idea emerged as a joint producet  in our lunch conversation, which Andre Delbecq and I then began at Whidby Island in 2003 –– don't know if the conversation with Ken Wilber might have helped trigger the Retreat idea, though I think it emerged before we met with him.

Some desirable areas for 2016 AOM submissions from my perspectibve:

• More empirical studies with reasonable methodology AND on topics and producing findings that are of some importance (in addition to simply being "statistically significant"); these might be quantitative, qualatative or (in my biased view particuarly desirable) "mixed method" 
• Hopefully some of these will be about ordinary workers and not all about CEOs and leaders
• The relationship of corporate behavior (and other business types) that improves lives, reduces conflict and human suffering to spirituality and religion in management and organizations
• I would also really love to have some studies, particularly empirical, on religious organizations and whether they 'walk their talk" with employees and others –– when we added "Religion" to our title, I was hopeful that this would eventuate but so far, to the best of my knowledge, it has not.
• Bringing s[iritual perspectives to the teaching of management (i.e., that improves lives, reduces conflict and human suffering)

Lee Robbins

• NOTE: LeeRobbins@post.Harvard.edu is my PERMANENT email address 
• please use this in your address book as I may change ISPs and their email addresses from time to time; note auto-reply goes to LeeRobbins@Sonic.net (my current ISP) which is OK but may be changed sometime.

Cell: 415-713-1341

From: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU> on behalf of Charles Thomas Tackney <cttack@GMAIL.COM>
Reply-To: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
Date: Sunday, September 13, 2015 at 12:51 AM
To: MSR Listserv <MSR@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
Subject: Re: The MSR Summer Retreat: an MSR listserve conversational extension

Dear Lee:

Many of us are now thinking about 2016 AOM submission prospects. I'd like to get your suggestions about crafting these offerings right away - and I'd like to frame that question against the very interesting and clarifying history you've just offered. Thank you very much for the prior; as a relative MSR 'newbie' I'd not previously thought about MSR being the AA meeting of the Academy of Management (largely, but not entirely, written tongue in cheek).

Your comments got me digging into the higher power point you mentioned in prior email as a strongly experienced motivation - from your retreat experience - and its organizational / institutional level capture. This notion, and how to 'capture it,' does seem part of the MSR history. From the Winter 2000 newsletter, we have this from Judi Neal and Joel Bennett:

"We propose that just as an individual has a soul, groups and organizations also have a soul or consciousness. And as Peter Russell (1995) postulates, there is now a global brain or global consciousness that is emerging. Ken Wilber (1996) describes a holistic view of evolution where the next level of consciousness transcends and enfolds the previous levels of consciousness. In the spirituality in the workplace movement, we see an emergence of interest beginning with the individual focus on work as a spiritual path, with some people then becoming interested in discovering how to work with spiritual principles and practices at the team level" (MSR Newsletter, Winter 2000, p. 1).

Your own piece in this newsletter was the very first call for MSR program submissions: "New Academy Group Plans 2001 Program". In that article, you invited a range of material:

"A few types of MSR submissions that come to my mind include:

• Developing conceptual frames for MSR issues

• Empirical studies of organizations claiming or exhibiting spiritual/religious characteristics including business, governmental, church and other NGO's

• The relationship of ethical systems, spirituality and religion to organizations and leadership

• Pedagogical experimentation, theory and practice

• Experiential or other alternative approaches to spirituality/religion

From the perspective of logical positivism, conceptual frames and theories may seem inferior to empirical work; however, because ours is such a

new field, we need better conceptual frames  to even bring theory to the testable hypothesis and well framed research questions. ..." (Robbins, pgs. 1, 6).

If you reflect back on that first call for submissions, what strikes you as needful or particularly urgent now, for the MSR 2016 submissions of concern to so many of us?

And the question I'm going to ask after you answer that one, above, concerns the areas where you think MSR has achieved something in regard to the very first call of yours. But only one question for today, an otherwise day of rest....

Best,

Charlie

Lee,

Sub-theme 45: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Mindfulness and Workplace Spirituality

Call for Papers

Who could argue with the virtue of becoming more 'mindful'? Only those, perhaps, who celebrate mindlessness. But might it be that 'mindfulness' is being embraced rather mindlessly, if not cynically? We agree with Bhikkhu Bodhi that mindfulness as a concept has become, as he put it, "so vague and elastic that it serves almost as a cipher into which one can read virtually anything we want". Corporations and government agencies have jumped on the mindfulness and well-being bandwagon. Is that because there is a deep appreciation of the spiritual traditions of mindfulness? Or might it be because a focus upon 'mindfulness' as a means of performance improvement, conveniently shifting the burden onto the individual employee? Notably, stress is framed as a personal problem, and mindfulness is offered as a necessary intervention to help employees work more efficiently and calmly within toxic environments. It is prized as a way to relax, to reduce pressure, to let off steam – reduced to a technique for coping with and adapting to the stresses of corporate life. If so, it is fully deserving of Zizek's acidic observation that the Western Buddhist "meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way for us to fully participate in capitalist dynamics while retaining the appearance of mental sanity".

The booming popularity of the mindfulness movement has also turned it into a lucrative cottage industry. Consultants are marketing mindfulness training promising improvements in work efficiency, reductions in absenteeism, and enhancements in the "soft skills" crucial to career success. Corporate mindfulness proponents claim that mindfulness interventions are a "Trojan Horse" that will eventually reform even the most dysfunctional companies into kinder, more compassionate and sustainable organizations. Organizational and social change is predicated on methodological individualism, and a moral imperative that systemic and structural change is starts by "searching inside oneself".

The corporate mindfulness movement is caught in an ironic paradox: mindfulness training may offer employees some relief and personal benefits in the form of stress reduction and improved concentration while unthinkingly ignoring the externalization of macro-tensions and structural inequalities. This myopic use of mindfulness training, Kevin Healy noted, is creating "integrity bubbles", which "create glimpses of integrity – enough to enhance employee satisfaction and brand image – even as they undermine the achievement of integrity in the broader context".

We welcome contributions that offer critical perspectives on corporate mindfulness and workplace spirituality theories and practices. Contributions may explore and interrogate assumptions and applications of mindfulness, well-being and workplace spirituality, particularly in terms of whether such theories and practices are oriented toward cultural accommodation or more radical social transformation. Theoretical papers may explore the extent to which Eastern/Buddhist and Western/modern concepts and practices of mindfulness clash, converge, and influence each other.

Potential topics for submissions might include (but are not limited to):

• Critical examinations of the corporate colonization and cultural appropriation of mindfulness
• Explorations of western historical, cultural, ideological sources and other 'social imaginaries' that inform the context of corporate mindfulness, well-being, happiness and workplace spirituality
• Analysis of the rhetorical strategies and modern discourses used in the process of altering, diminishing, obscuring, ignoring, decontextualizing and mystifying mindfulness' roots in spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism, as a means of selling spirituality, as well as tactics used for appealing to power and privilege
• Investigations of the ethical and moral dimensions of mindfulness, as well as de-ethicized forms of mindfulness
• Conceptualizing forms of socially engaged mindfulness programs that can offer a challenge, critique, and alternatives to modern corporate practices
• Theorizing the relations between individual-level mindfulness and organizational/social change
• The relevance of mindfulness for critical studies of organizing and alternative organizing practices

"We should understand why there is a dialectical tension that exists in the first worldview-one that trades off sustainability and profit-that is replaced by a creative integration in the second worldview. Perhaps institutionalization leads to ontological separation through evolutionary attractors. As a recursive process, ontological separation acts upon institutionalization processes and organizational routines to establish a dynamic equilibrium; by understanding this, we should seek an ontological integration of the opposing paradigmatic views. If we conceptualize how businesses transform to become "a force for good" in this manner, we see that the ontological threshold between these two worldviews creates a gap that makes it difficult for companies to evolve from a set of organizing principles and business purposes aligned with the shareholder or sustainable/shared value perspective to one of a social enterprise or flourishing organization. 

Increasing our awareness of the ontological threshold is critical to strengthening our ability to shift our mindset -as well as the role of business- from utility maximization to one which fosters: (1) the connection to our life purpose (personal domain); (2) our deep sense of interdependence and interconnectedness with each other (relational domain); (3) the intersecting stakeholder relationships between the various actors, institutions, and organizations where businesses operate (inter-organizational domain); and (4) the natural and social environments that support the functions of the business and in turn are supported and are regenerated by the businesses themselves (natural domain) (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Laloux, 2014; Laszlo et. al., 2014).

Understanding what drives these paradigmatic views, and why they evolve in the manner described, is essential in order to predict how businesses can evolve to become positive forces that do not force a  tradeoff between human beings as spiritual beings and acting in the world as agents of commerce..."