Some people I know (you don't need names) don't like "holistic" as a applied to conductive education. Indulge me a moment. SAHK have sought to apply conductive education to and embed it within their business model holistically, one might say, if by that we mean, the whole.
"The Time Has Come For Holistic Business Strategy" says Brian Solis - now what could that possibly mean? You'll have to check the link yourself, as I'm not quite sure.
I quite like this though which certainly applies to Paces:
"What’s the biggest problem in business today? .... I contend the biggest problem is that each business has too few people looking after the whole of the business. .... What’s the solution? I believe ... it is time to for organizations large and small to adopt a holistic business strategy that empowers more employees to think about the whole of the business...."
We tried that a year or so ago. Without much success, it has to be said. There was too much opposition to setting up a Ning social network, which was the plan. Maybe the time will come again? (Andrew Sutton felt similarly the that SAHK's Pre-Congress social network initiative was a disappointment. I was encouraged that it had happened at all. Brian Solis is more of Andrew's view, if I read the blog post right.)
Why stop at employees? Why not include all those people the charity exists to servce? Starting with our parents.
Then poking around the links from Brian Solis's posting, I stumbled across this, which seems to take the holistic business beyond our beneficiaries:
Michael Porter’s publishing of this great article on “Creating Shared Value” has really inspired me to put my nose to the grindstone and invest in advancing this big idea – that we must think about not only the whole of the business, but also the whole of society and the impacts every member of the broader ecosystem has on the other players and the ecosystem itself. (My Focus on Holistic Business Strategy - Chris Heuer).
Well, that might be over-cooking it just a bit. Nevertheless, aiming for more employees and parents in thinking about and giving direction to the whole business rather than just their bit of it is quite a challenge.
Anyone for an orthofunctional organisation? Now for another glass of red wine.
