Talks with Rav December 12, 2012 – Dr. Michael Laitman – After Editing

A New Life

The New Workplace

Talk 106

heb_original_mlt_o_rav_2012-12-05_rawmaterial_haim-hadashim_n106 (change to eng)

Oren: Hello and thank you for joining us for the “A New Life” series of talks with Doctor Michael Laitman. Hello, Dr. Laitman.

Hello everyone.

Oren: Hello, Nitzah Mazoz.

Nitzah: Hello.

Oren: We are happy to tell you that today we are opening a new area of interest in our series of talks; each time we go from one subject to another and today, this talk is going to open a new area. The area we would like to enter, from today on, is ”The New Workplace," the new world of work in organizations, companies and workplaces. We have come to this talk after a month of work and development in this field and after having undergone some very interesting processes that have brought us to all kinds of insights that, I think, are very important for us in order to understand the potential existing in this field and in order to extract the maximum we possibly can from the development of these content materials in the field.

We would really like to dedicate this talk, to share with you everything we have been going through, along with the discernments and discoveries we have made in this field. So perhaps Nitzah will begin.

Nitzah: One of the conclusions we have come to after really working together, is that we noticed that children are educated at school, or at least we say they are educated at school.

Wait a minute, wait a minute; are you talking about work relations?

Nitzah: Correct.

And are we beginning from kindergarten, school?

Nitzah: You will soon see why.

Well?

Nitzah: Because we understood that children are educated in school, or at least, as I said, they are supposed to be educated.

It is education, only not a very satisfactory one.

Nitzah: So we asked ourselves: Where are adults educated? And we understood that, in fact, adults are educated at the workplace. That led us to the understanding that the workplace has a very significant role in shaping the person, his structure, his thinking, his conduct.

At least in the first workplace.

Nitzah: Today people change their workplace, and it is incredibly interesting to see that a person who changes his workplace sometimes changes everything; beginning from external things such as clothing, or the status he acquires for himself, and through more internal things, like the development of some other mode of thinking, different awareness, different behavior, mood, emotions. A whole world is being generated in the workplace.

Yes.

Nitzah: And from that understanding we realized that, essentially, the workplace has an immense, perhaps even just about an absolute, influence on the person. For where is the adult found? Either at home or at work. And during the remaining spare time, some time with friends. In fact, most hours of the day he spends in that place, hence the importance of this issue.

Furthermore, from the process we have undergone in the form of the “A New Life” talks, we’ve come to realize that up until now we’ve attempted to work on and change the attitude of the individual. We worked on couples, we worked on changing a person’s attitude toward money, about the subject of health, and we realized that when speaking about the workplace we are talking about an environment, and if we can change an environment, the environment will influence all individuals found within it. That means that this work is already more systematic, providing the ability to have a very broad influence, with very many different layers.

That is because influence on a person in the workplace affects the worker himself, the customer who is the consumer, the supplier, and when I go home, of course this influences the other relationships that I have; family members and so on. In brief, we saw a truly great opportunity here. And of course, with every opportunity come difficulties and challenges as well.

What is the challenge? The primary challenge is, first of all, to understand the reality the workplace, the company, the organization faces; what difficulties it contends with. We realized that it’s only if we properly understand the difficulties and needs of the organization and truly look at it ‘at eye level,’ can we, perhaps, see how we will accommodate the unique, distinctive approach that you are bringing to that need. To really make a kind of adaptation between what they need and what you are able to give.

We understood that there is a very great need here. It is not that we are speaking now from a desire to bring some approach which the other side does not need; there is a great lack and a true, totally concrete need in workplaces, as they are contending with situations which are not simple.

Oren: There is a hugely lucrative market in which organizations hire the services of advisory bodies from different schools, with different approaches, there are a multitude of approaches in the market that they accept into their organization and, on certain levels, they allow them to lead a process and essentially educate the organization. They organize their ways of thinking, their ways of behavior, the ways of relating to things, relationships, everything. The more confidence they have in the abilities of this external educational body they bring into their home, they can open possibilities for it to influence everything happening in the organization, all the various types of interactions, from the level of the CEO to the level of the janitor and the doorman.

Today you have organizations controlling the market and they are the most powerful, intelligent forward-thinking, and they are investing whole fortunes into this. At the top of the pyramid of the most successful organizations in the world, which are those that survive longer because they were wise enough to understand this from the beginning, they’re developing a strategy of “the wise has eyes in his head.” They try not to be in a kind of “conceptual freezer;” fixated and going on inertia. Rather, they are open to innovation, and the innovative approaches bring with them long-term perception, not just short-term.

What does this mean? That if you are an undeveloped organization, you only see one thing; you see the bottom line of the balance sheet and nothing else counts in your eyes. This isn’t a smart organization. Why? Because this approach is an old approach; you see the bottom line of your balance today, but where will it be next year? Where will it be in five years? Where will it be in ten years? If your eyes always only see the bottom line, you will not succeed.

In today’s reality, two more components have been added to this bottom line: One component spoken of today is the social one; meaning, the interactions amongst people, amongst organizations, the interpersonal or the inter-organizational component; the layer of relationships which is impossible to discern with an uneducated eye, but it is there and it completely determines what you will get on the bottom line. And an additional central component that we add is the environmental component, ecological matters.

If you are an organization that thinks short term, you will say, “Oh, it doesn’t interest me.” If you are a smart organization, you will begin to analyze, and this is what these wise bodies coming from the organizational side do, they open wider horizons for it, expand its knowledge, its comprehension, and then these insights trickle down to the lowest levels of the organization. It finds expression in everything, it’s a whole world.

This world lives, breathes and prospers today. There is openness, there is desire, there are huge budgets being invested in it and employee work hours allocated to it, and the successful organizations are those who exploit the innovative concepts, catch the wave before it comes and so they succeed. While everyone is crashing and don’t understand why, the smart ones are becoming even more successful. Meaning that there is an empire of knowledge here, that if we define our subject as the “New Workplace,” if to be precise, it is a “new workplace according to the integral approach,” this is what we would like to create here, in this series.

With your help, we would like to develop a system of ideas which will be groundbreaking, innovative, progressive, rational, and can be accepted in this developing market. This is a market that is developing. I feel, from what I’ve learned, that the more innovative the notion is, the greater its potential for success.

Meaning, I am talking about people who are at the head of the pyramid: If they comprehend the idea, then it will trickle down. The people who lead these successful organizations today are people with very sharp minds, they understand trends thoroughly, and quickly grasp that, in the end, these wisdoms are expressed on the bottom line. But the bottom line became complicated; therefore they are in need of these consultations from the side. Meaning, to understand the trends is the number one asset in the market today.

Strategically, a person who knows how to look ahead; to tell where things are going and derive meanings and processes from this for the present, that is what’s most highly demanded today in the world, on all levels. That is why I feel we have the potential here for a sure victory.

I hear this and am pleased that you have discovered this trend, for if not by way of war then by way of peace, by way of developing the good and the beautiful, the way of “I will hasten it,” not the way of “In its time.” So, we come to life in this way. Educators.

Educating in a kindergarten, school or workplace; certainly these are the places where we need to be. Essentially, the workplaces are the most important. Where are people found most of the time? And what else can obligate them if not the organization? If not the employer? That is clear. Therefore, if we organize ourselves correctly with proven presentations according to what they want to get in the end; the bottom line, as you said, then we can certainly enter many organizations in the world; in trade, industry and manufacturing. I am also speaking about the leading organizations and governments everywhere; they will see that through our approach they will truly profit, each according to its particular kind of profit.

In addition to the education of children, youth and various kinds of students, there are those who sit at home. We shouldn’t remove them from the account, from our table, because today these are very large bodies. Those who are in employment will decline up to 20% of the entire population. We need to understand that there are also other groups of people. Meaning, that we must distribute our work to many places; but what is interesting here is that, in truth, if we prove ourselves, then we will surely enter and dominate the education, the change that we bring to the workers in that place.

Nitzah: Another interesting aspect we examined and observed is that large organizations also hire the services of the media, advertising and so on, and the moment their approach changes, both the media and the whole advertising world may change accordingly. Meaning, the capacity to influence is immense here, even amongst organizations, the social situation; today this truly provides such a broad perspective - almost limitless.

Oren: Organizations today allocate huge budgets for advertising. In every advertising campaign, no matter how it is wrapped and how it is served, there is an idea, a spark, a certain message that is conveyed. Organizations differentiate themselves from one another. In order to succeed in the market you must differentiate yourself; be different, unique, so people know why I come to you and not to another organization.

So today, when you walk around and see a billboard or advertisements on television or on anything else, what is behind it? Behind it is an organization, and this organization has a conceptual approach which is ultimately expressed in the advertisement you see wherever. Meaning, we are bombarded with messages that are hatched in the brains of organizations.

These educational organizations are operating within organizations in general, advising them in what way to advertise.

Oren: Exactly. Meaning, that to imbue a new idea into the value system of a particular organization, it is not only that you influence that organization; rather, tomorrow you will see it on a billboard. And someone else, who is not connected in any way to the organization where you work, will be nourished by this idea, guided by it; his opinion is shaped by these organizations. Meaning, the potential to change the world view, to change the way of thinking, to change the behavioral patterns of organizations, their relationship to life, generates a chain reaction which affects every person, wherever he may be.

Nitzah: I think that the next thought we had, after understanding the immense potential we have here, was to try to see if our “world of content” is sufficiently consolidated, or if our agenda is sufficiently consolidated ideologically, to truly approach the workplace. We realized that it is exactly what we need, what we lack; that we have parts and pieces, but we don’t have the entire comprehensive approach, this complete agenda with which we can approach companies and organizations and present it in a complete, conceptual, systematic and practical way.

It could be that we need to take an example from what we get from these companies and, according to that example, see what we lack in order to approach, to understand what they want. Meaning, in what form they would like to see the material. Just like when I get a certain message, a post, an email, I convert it to a page in a particular font and so on, and only afterward, I read it; otherwise I can’t. Likewise, there are many organizations that even specify conditions; that it must be sent to them in a particular form, one way and not otherwise. So that is what we need, that format, to understand what they need, because the foundation exists; that is clear, but bringing it closer to their type of reading. Okay. Let’s proceed.

Oren: Another thing I wanted to add to this point: We conducted a survey in our organization before we chose this area of “The New World of Work” and we asked; what subject would you want us to develop in the framework of the “New Life” series of conversations? And this was the subject the organization chose. The organization feels a need and a potential, what is nice about this area is that the potential is immense. We began to work in the area a little, so we’re already getting feedback, and Nitzah can testify to this personally.

The goal of this project is to develop, here with you, the series of talks about the new world of work. Its goal is to equalize two parameters; the infinite potential existing in this field, and our current ability. We are relating to what we have now as some kind of nucleus, a seed we need to grow into a big and beautiful tree. The market needs the tree; there is no doubt about that, with or without us. Today, there are other such trees in the market, which do whatever you want. We have a seed that can surely become the most beautiful tree in the field; none of us has a doubt.

Because when we begin to analyze the various aspects with which the organization contends, it is done gradually, talk after talk; it is clear that when we enter this field, victory is assured from the start. When we see what the underlying philosophy of the integral approach is, and what is happening in the market today, it is clear that our product is the one most required by the market; but we have still not built it up from the level of potentiality. From a seed, we have not yet caused the big tree to bloom.

Therefore, when we asked what new field to open up, various bodies named this one. Why? Because it is something that is surely needed and that we can certainly supply. We also feel that this area of The New World of Work parallels the area you presented before; the education of children. It’s the same thing; in the field of education we had a stage in which it was understood that we have something to give and that there are those in need of it, and so in a year or two of strenuous work we established an empire. Today, as a father, I can say that we have a method which can give me tools, support, understanding and direction, everything, without limits.

We would like to develop the same thing here. From this seed to create it, to give it different aspects, to give it different clothing as you say, not only in form but also different ‘points of entry.’ Today, when you come to speak with an organization, it has habits of thinking and areas in which it is involved. These are like doors and only through them you can enter; if you don’t go through that door, you won’t enter. It doesn’t matter what you brought with you, what hidden message is set inside, it must be clothed, as you say, in a certain font, page size, document size.

I understand they are talking with me about subject X, I understand they are talking with me about subject Y, I understand they are talking with me about subject Z. Why? Because these are the subjects my mind is used to thinking about. Do you have anything new to say about them? I will be happy to hear; but it must be in Z, in X or in Y. If it is not in Z, X or Y, then there is no interface between us, I don’t understand what you are talking about. It could be that your messages are very relevant to me, but this mediation, description, clothing; this is what I think that we want to do.

Nitzah: Perhaps it is also important to point out that although there are two people sitting in the studio; we represent a team of people from this field, organizational consultants and managers. Meaning, these are people who are actually involved with it, who understand the needs, and truly understand this platform of which you speak. So we are trying to bring out, through questions, through this process, the aspects from this side, so we can get your perspective.

Oren: There is another emphasis here. When you want to say something, say it. We are “bombarding” you a bit now.

No, I am still listening to you.

Oren: This talk amongst us is like a title for the project. From the field, we collected the feedback and noted various points for us. What is the integral approach? The integral approach is one that knows how to create adhesion amongst people; it knows how to connect, it knows how to integrate.

The market, the work world is thirsty for it, thirsty. If you have this product, you are the “thing" they need. People understand that. Another thing that typifies it is that we see immediate feedback. Suppose you taught our organization some new method, how to best manage an organization; not in form x but in form y. Now you know that by the time we inculcate this method, and until they understand it in the organization, and by the time they apply it, another three years will have passed and let's see if we remember who was present and what he wanted at the time. It is not that way when you speak about the main area of your work being connections, immediately you get feedback, immediately they know if you have brought something good or not.

And besides that, you begin the changes on the spot.

Oren: Exactly. It is not that we wait a year or two and see if it is good, there is no such thing. It is today, tomorrow; it is something you feel now in the present. You have not left the place yet, you already feel it.

The studying and the implementation together.

Oren: Exactly.

Okay, I understand you.

Oren: Another thing they have requested, since the market is so saturated with such organizations is to advise and educate and teach, because the need for help within the organizations is so great, so a market is developing of organizational consultation, organizational development, corporate responsibility. There are many titles. At every moment, now as we speak, surely another name has been invented for yet another new approach, which comes to the same market, organizations requiring help. By the way, an organization requiring help is not in the position of a crushed organization, not at all. A smart organization which wants to shift from good to excellent. It doesn’t have to be that the organization is in critical condition.

Of course.

Oren: There are a multitude of organizations. You go out to this market and you say, “Okay, I want my organization to upgrade, undergo a process of renewal and advancement. And I see before me an infinite number of approaches and an infinite number of methods.” In the development of this content we need to differentiate, to clarify well what is unique in the integral method which speaks of the new world of work according to the integral approach. We will aspire to the messages, the ideas, the insights and the tools we develop being unique. It is not in order to negate anything else, rather to emphasize and clarify, so that the moment I come tomorrow to a particular organization, they will immediately feel I am bringing something unique, not like all the rest. That is also something to which we will need to aspire.

I think that we need to relate to the new world of work, to organizations, companies and workplaces as a laboratory in which relationships amongst people or amongst organizations take place. Within an organization or within the environment of the organization, relationships are taking place. For us, this laboratory is one in which we develop a new approach to life for them, an integral approach to life, for everything exists, everything is taking place except for a new intelligence.

Someone has to come and say something new, who will lead all the interactions, there are experiments today, but they are bad. Those bad experiments that are taking place at the workplace, suppose they manifest in me as an ulcer. Why? Because at work I have bad interactions.

Negative ones.

Oren: Exactly. Meaning, experiments are already being made these days and everything seems to be ready except for a new intelligence, new training, a new direction, something new like that. Hence, if, in this laboratory, where experiments are taking place every moment, we develop our world of ideas, which we will bring with us to an organization nicely, then even though the experiments took place at work, at the end of the process we will have gained a new person whose new perception manifests everywhere, even outside the organization and not in the current interactions for it is all-inclusive. On his Facebook wall with people, it is like a virus, it immediately envelops the world. That is my slogan for the project, “The workplace is like a laboratory for the development of the new human with an integral perception of life.”

Nitzah, what would you like to add?

Nitzah: I think that we will proceed to part of the conference.

Which conference?

Nitzah: Apparently, there are conferences in every area, and actually once a year a conference is held on the topic of human resource managers whose area is human resources.

Where is it held?

Nitzah: Once a year such a conference is held in Israel.

Nationally, internationally, what is it about?

Nitzah: I am talking about an Israeli conference, in Israel, taking place here once a year. Essentially the idea of the conference is that all human resource managers come to it. Their expertise is involvement with human capital. Organizations and companies now realize that human capital is something in which they must invest, without which, basically, their organization will not sustain for long. Therefore, at such conferences, what they usually do is invite various consultants, all kinds of such people, for they bring new ideas to present there and that is how people, those kind of managers come there, and throughout the conference, they are somewhat showered with all kinds of new approaches, new ideas, and then they have the option of bringing one to their company.

We thought it would be good to organize a meeting with the management, to try to truly convey what their impression from the conference was. If there is some particular approach they like, and could begin applying it actively in the organization. So we thought of inviting you to such a conference, one on human resources.

Oren: Even before we invite you, I would like us to thoroughly understand who the people attending the conference are and what things interest them. We are talking about the function of Human Resources, the function in an organization responsible for its trainings; we are talking here about coming and providing training within a particular organization. The function in the organization determining which body will come and give training is Human Resources.

The training is part of the services the Division of Human Resources provides to the entire organization. Therefore, in order to begin developing the content, we would like to define a situation first. Each time we will define various situations; the situation we would like to enter now here in the studio, is that we are coming to such a conference of managers of human resources of the largest, strongest, most advanced organizations in the country. They have money, they have resources; they have no problem bringing a training to their organizations tomorrow if they decide that a particular one is good. It is not just that they have no problems, it is their job.

Their job is to return home from the conference and say, “I saw approach x there, and I think it is excellent and it will lead our organization to achievements and success. And I say that we must bring it into our organization here.” If the particular manager in the particular organization is thus impressed at the conference, that is what he is supposed to report to his CEO who sent him there for a day or a weekend of such a conference. Meaning, we are talking here about smart people, thoughtful people, who the organization entrusted into their hands the management of its next way of thought, its new methods of management. It imbues the innovation while everyone is involved in doing whatever they know how to do the way they do it; this function of training within Human Resources needs to think ahead and see what new intelligence it is acquiring for its organization.

We would like to simulate a situation where we are now here in such a conference, and our audience of listeners, from the moment we complete defining the situation, are managers of human resources of strong, good organizations, we have an opening as we said. They are open to innovation as Nitzah mentioned they are sharp minds and always translate the situation into a practical method as well. On the one hand they have sharp minds, so they can grasp new trends and are able to perceive new trends and they have fine senses to sense what will be good, and on the other hand, ultimately, they always translate what will be good into something practical; they aren’t attending a conference of philosophers.

These are people whose job is to advance an organization forward, if they make a bad choice, it could cost them their job. So they are both open-minded and sharp-minded and they can grasp strong ideas, but they also must understand the practical implications, and also at the end of the conference when he comes to his CEO or she comes to her CEO she essentially needs to explain to him briefly what she perceived there. She actually proceeds to convince her organization, she states what she perceived in a few words.

That means we need to supply her with something with which she returns to her organization.

Oren: Exactly.

Not to rely upon her correct or incorrect understanding?

Oren: Exactly. And now we are entering a situation in which you as a person are representing the integral approach to the new world of work, at this conference. For instance, there are various presentations representing different approaches. Suppose that during the first day three approaches will be presented to us. So you will be the representative of the integral approach, the integral approach to the new world of work. In order to enter the format of the conference, we have prepared several leading questions here, and Nitzah and I will pose as the interviewers and you will be the expert on the integral approach. It turns out that we are facing an audience of listeners who are all managers of human resources. Thus, through our questions, we will enable you to express the ideas, the major perceptions according to your approach regarding this audience of human resource managers. Is the situation we are depicting clear?

Nitzah: Clear.

Yes.

Nitzah: The first question is the broadest one; tell us a little about this integral approach; what actually is this integral approach?

Actually it is a very ancient approach; it is a natural approach we learn from nature. Humanity has developed throughout a long history and has greatly suffered, in order to understand that, we must be similar to nature, and then we will succeed.

In nature, everything always exists integrally, all parts of nature; all of its levels exist with a mutual connection amongst them. No one wants to harm the others, everyone knows they use each other in order to survive, in order to exist, live, develop and multiply. Hence, nature itself exists outside humans, before humans entered it, in a balanced state. Although we can ask, where is it balanced? We see that everyone is surviving there in life, but it is not true.

If we delve a little deeper into the systems in nature on the degree of the still, vegetative and animate, we see a truly wondrous organization there, a wonderful arrangement. These relationships in which each one understands the other, and even the one who attacks and wants to eat the other, both of them know their situation. In short, there is a certain very complete system here, complementing itself constantly.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen this throughout our entire development, over the thousands of years of evolution, because we viewed nature through our narrow ego. Take for example a pack of wolves; we know there are laws in the wolf pack, and when we began to investigate a particular pack, we saw that no, it is perfect harmony, we wish we could live according to those same laws, we, the advanced human society. We would see how much friendship and connection they have, and a division of roles, and the extent to which all are concerned for one another. If we learn from them alone and organize human society precisely accordingly, we will reach the complete correction.

I could tell you a great deal about it. It is truly extremely interesting. There are at least twenty positions in a wolf pack, really.

Oren: Which ones, for example?

With wolves there are more roles than in the human society. A gather and mother, grandfathers and grandmothers, uncles and aunts. There are those that organize the hunt, and those that are responsible, and others who go out to watch, there are guards at the gate and cleaners. It all functions wonderfully, only it is activated by nature. Since we have intelligence, we allowed ourselves some freedom of a few thousand years, and now we realize where we have reached. It is worth our while to learn from nature how to be truly organized.

Thus, we take nature as an example in the approach of our educational organization, or with the consultants for integral change, as nature is truly the absolute, complete thing and the degrees of the still, vegetative and animate are in a place where we see the perfection and the management with beautiful interaction in order to evolve. Hence, we are a result of nature; we are only the fruit of nature. Our only problem is that our ego is not allowing us to continue to evolve correctly and our organization by studying nature, is implementing the correct further evolvement itself.

That is why what we implement practically, too, other than through discussions, is to be in practical workshops, in studies, where each and every one acquires new habits to live in an integral environment, and that is how we reach equivalence of form, equivalence of our conduct with nature, and we merit the evolvement of man, development of society, its success in all directions, even in things we cannot identify and think about from the start.

For the present organizations we have built artificially, we built through our ego, none of them exist in a natural form, they carry distorted problems in forcefulness, control, without understanding, without completeness, and without participation. It could even be said without mutual love, to which we essentially aspire.

And that is what is unique about our method, that we bring the laborers, the employees, the managers the general manager, from the CEO to the doorman and the janitor into participation, so that the organization will be round. Along with having an organizational pyramid, an inner hierarchy, which should certainly exist, there will be understanding and unity, connection and love amongst all.

There are two benefits here, there are many more but essentially we will condense them into two. One is that corporeally, things go without objection, collision, competition, rather in friendly competition, a competition for the sake of bringing general profit and advancement into the organization; there will start to be a different type of competition, a different kind of participation within the organization; that is one thing. The second thing, just as we discover, say, the wisdom of the masses, which has a certain unique addition in the integral connection, we discover here that in an organization operating according to the integral connection, ideas, plans along with the ability to implement them and distant foresight are discovered, in a way which is impossible to discover any other way. That happens because then we receive some amity, an additional drive, an additional force which comes from nature through the new connection among the members of the factory or company.

Briefly, that is what can be said about our approach in a few words.

Nitzah: The second point you touched upon is very intriguing, for if I try to think about the way in which the organization is managed today, so truly the plans or thoughts or ideas generally arrive from the management team, and here you are suddenly saying, “Wait a minute, forget about that, it won’t continue like that anymore.”

Right. Every worker everywhere, even that cleaning lady and even that doorman; not to mention higher ranks with more creative freedom, who have something to share, they begin to suddenly feel people in various places in the organization, how much they could be more efficient, they suddenly have a creative force, a force of development. Each and every one of them begins to see several steps ahead and knows whether it is possible to carry them out one way or another.

They begin to feel the environment, who they are supplying their product to, from whom they are receiving the raw materials and so on. This can exist in every organization; it can be in an insurance company and in any production factory, it doesn't matter. However, since they transform into an integral perception, they begin to feel their environment, with whom they interact, with the suppliers, with the participants and with their associates.

And then they begin to see, and thus each and every one, even every worker, already begins to have new ideas, and then from that, the company begins to rise already to another level of preparation for future evolvement. We develop that in them and we develop the management's ability to receive from them, encouraging each and every person, receiving these ideas from them and seeing how to carry them out. Meaning, that organization begins to be one in which everyone starts to participate in it actively, in its actual development, in its reorganization.

The internal structure of the company also begins to change somewhat, too, and we really need to be sensitive to that. We need to see how the new relationships enter into some opposition with the old structure, and be flexible in changing the structure. The work procedures, the connection between the managers and workers, everyone becomes friendlier, the communication between the managers and the workers, they all become friendlier-the connection, approach, form and norms of the managers and the workers become more flexible, rounder, more integral, and not directly as orders and actions.

It goes in both directions, for everyone starts being equal partners, each one in his place. Like in a family, each one has a place; nobody can exchange it with another. And specifically from everyone having his place and knowing it and is in this nice familial connection, this cell exists and cannot be exchanged with any other form. It is impossible; there is no other form for that thing.

Some people are little, large, weak, strong, and many others, all of us and each one in his respective place. We cannot build the concept of the family, and eventually, the ideal concept of a society or a factory exists, and we need to see it as some distant goal and aspire to it. We have what to learn from nature, not just from the wolves, from the ants too, and from all kinds of such forms. Absolutely, if we take not only these examples, but know how we can easily, nicely, gradually change the people who will have that kind of interaction amongst them, in a beautiful, mutual connection amongst them, we will be able to see how much we decrease the number of sick days and all sorts of problems an individual brings with him from home and cannot work as necessary, all the nuisances, everything.

We will suddenly feel that this atmosphere should heal everyone with everything, with a minus in the bank and a minus in the family and a minus with children and a minus in health; all those minuses have to vanish from each and every one, along with a big plus in prosperity, both individually and generally.

Nitzah: I thought of a very important question. When you described the situation, I tried to compare it to the existing situation, in the present condition there still is a very clear hierarchy, there is a certain order.

That remains.

Nitzah: And are the relationships determined according to the hierarchy?

Yes. Does anyone want to replace his mother at home? Or replace his father? Or replace the child? Each one knows that his place is best for him. Yet, the relationships amongst them are on the basis that all of us complementing each other.

Therefore, no one is going to replace the other. I will also be a father at some time, and I will also be a mother at some time, and after that a grandfather or a grandmother. The children will be in the place of the parents, the parents in the place of the grandparents, and that is how we advance. Everyone knows that this structure is the complete structure.

It is the same thing with three lines; the same thing should be in the company. For after all, the workplace should have the same structure as a family, only in a society it is as if there are many families together. It is quite distant from what we understand today at the workplace, but at the end of the day, we don’t realize that the workplace includes families within it. Perhaps I am breaking a bit more ground, but a person situated in the workplace is not just a representative of the family, they are together with him, he is together with his grocery store, together with his family, together with his relatives, his whole self is there, and so it is with each and every one.

Therefore, at the workplace we have relationships we cannot develop so much. It is like such confused connections which we cannot understand. We need to relate to the workplace as a family. We should relate to the entire nation as a family, likewise to the world, but at least to the workplace, in order to understand that even if we want to or not, each one is there with his problems. There is a reason that today we see a certain big workplace also wanting to care for the workers' children, their families too, and for there to be a connection amongst them and so on. We see that this is so.

Hence, the hierarchy is such that on the one hand there is above and below; and on the other hand there is a circle, and it should bring the workers, the laborers, the participants, the managers, everyone to a situation where we are a family. Only in such a way can we truly extract the maximum benefit from all our work.

Nitzah: What actually leads the process? There is a structure and there are connections within the structure. Do the connections create the structure or does the structure create the connections?

First of all the integral form has to be the goal. Meaning that first of all we are a family. We need to see that in the end, not that we are changing it now through our orders. Rather we educate the people, we bring them a need for this, they begin to see that it is better that way, and thus they begin to change the mutual connection amongst them, from above to below and in all kinds of ways they begin to change them instinctively, naturally, however they change. Just like when the manager feels closer to someone who is below him, so someone who is below feels the manager as more than just a manager but as his friend. By managing, he is fulfilling some position, because his position is important to me, and not that he is the manager sitting up there and pressuring me. Just like there is a father in a family, and I am the child, and I understand that this is for my good for him to be my father and not otherwise.

Surely, accordingly, the procedures of communication with everyone will change and they will be natural procedures. It is not that it is written anywhere that there are these and those issues over there, and we need to turn to this one and that one and so on, rather these things will work out through education, from the changes that our people will receive. The factory and the management need to be aware that this will happen, yet without pressure, but according to the nature of things. They will suddenly feel they are situated in a good, friendly, familial company, which is concerned with development from the smallest to the greatest; and this concern will lead this company to prosperity.

We need to realize, and there is much research on this, that those same people who come home after work, will feel how much the members of their household also support them, because this familial feeling will bring each one to a connection with the members of their household. Meaning, it will no longer be a factory or some office where there are several hundred employees; rather it will be as if all the members of their household are seemingly there. Thus, each and every one will get an additional desire to succeed in his work, through the participation of the members of his household in it.

The main thing after all is the second component, which we cannot speak about so much; it is the support from nature, for by us being united and beginning to be adapted to nature, we reach a state where we receive additional powers, an integral approach. We begin to understand how the world is constructed today, how the connection amongst all the companies and amongst all people, amongst all nations, has a new form.

Therefore, those who don’t transform to this way of new thinking, this new paradigm will not understand what is happening in the world and accordingly they endure blows and bankruptcy. Specifically by us already adapting ourselves to the new laws being revealed in the integral and global world naturally, we are rising above the crisis and beginning to use it as a springboard to prosperity. The word “crisis” in its translation is the place of a new birth, and that is how it is for us, for those who acquire the services of our organization for integral education.

Nitzah: Let’s make an interim summary of what we have acquirede so far. The first stage is to observe nature and learn from it, learn that nature operates in harmony; perhaps we operate contrary to it and need to adopt some approach; and we still need to understand what this approach is exactly, how we actually create this new order within the organization. This new order will lead us to a state where we learn to conduct ourselves like a family, naturally. I can also understand that what will happen is that the structure of the organization will change as a result of the system of connections that will have changed; and one of the most significant things you said which intrigues me very much; it will be interesting to hear about it later, how the moment we build the correct order amongst us, will we actually be able to use the collective intelligence?

A new, higher intelligence.

Nitzah: And now we are actively using our ideas at the moment, our perceptions which we are raising here in the management team, and here suddenly you gave some idea and understanding that the new wisdom which will shift our organization out to a better place, is actually not found in the individual mind of anyone.

Yes.

Nitzah: Rather it is in some shared mind and in order to reach it, as it seems, we will have to rearrange the organization.

Yes.

Oren: Dr. Laitman, a sentence to conclude this talk.

We need to bring to the attention of everyone that the crisis, or the new situation in the world, obligates us to change. This is the first time in history that man needs to change and he has stopped changing the world, the world is done with his changes. This crisis is not a crisis, it is a new birth, and from now on man needs to change in order to understand nature, to reorganize and rise to the new degree, in adaptation, in harmony, in equivalence with nature to be integral with the others, with all of humanity, indeed with all. If we do that in the organization, and we do that in our families, we will thus reveal new forces and a new way to prosperity.

Oren: Thank you very much, it was fascinating. Thank you, Nitzah; and thank you too for being with us; we warmly invite you to the next talk in the series of talks on the new world of work. Until next time may we have all the best and see you soon.

(End of the Talk)