the metaphysics of exec.ed

The following is a close reading of the text edited by Reynolds & Roffe called ‘Understanding Derrida’ (2004).

(p.14) Is technical refinement of authentic primordial experience necessarily impoverished? It’s not a case of jacking in Western metaphysical thinking within executive education (exec.ed) – it should be revealed and closely engaged.

Question: what is Western metaphysical thinking in exec.ed? Or, what is the role of metaphysics in exec.ed? Maybe, the ‘ultimate nature of management’ or the ‘reality of leadership or management’ or transcendent knowledge or truth about management & leadership’? Possibly belief in the endeavors of business schools – plainly, the belief in b-schools; belief in research-led education; belief in education or higher education; belief that learning outside the workplace is a good thing.

So, does it progress in a series from belief to doctrine, where doctrine is an unquestioned belief? Doctrine maintains a vigilant critical awareness of the tendency to slip into more doctrinaire forms of metaphysical thought. This is relatively simply to apply to exec.ed, namely working with the client to raise their/our awareness of the symbols they attach to exec.ed.

Metaphysics of exec.ed and corresponding deconstructive attitude: the value of the symbol attached to exec.ed (symbolic value): that can be put to good use, making sure it is recognised by the client and participants. Weaving the symbolic value into the client’s broader development portfolio: that can leader to complimentarity where these beliefs can also be challenged. These ‘management beliefs’ are a given – there is no beyond management.

Exec.Ed and Politics

Philosophy is a political activity. What are the hierarchical oppositions in exec.ed?

Manager – non-managed; leader - subordinate, follower, managed, led; experienced – novice; educated – uneducated; orthodox – heterodox; consistent – contingent; developed – under-developed; authorised – unauthorised; powerful – weak; connected – unconnected; buck-stop – buck-pass; legitimacy – illegitimacy.

Deconstruction is not neutral, it intervenes. Exec.ed is not neutral, it intervenes. A deconstructive intervention against the above hierarchical oppositions is deconstructive exec.ed. Firstly, overturn the bipolarity: reveal that the secondary is in the primary. Secondly, create a new concept that is tertiary to the oppositions.

The following is a close reading of the text edited by Reynolds & Roffe called ‘Understanding Derrida’ (2004, p.28). What is a secondary in exec.ed? What counts as the creation of a new concept for exec.ed that overturns the hierarchical opposition in exec.ed and leaves us with an open-ended series of related characteristics or themes? Managing, e.g. managing to be managed?

Openness against closure, difference against identity, perpetual movement against stasis. Now, siding with this hierarchy IS political. Can secure metaphysical foundations be provided for exec.ed? Does exec.ed have a final vocabulary? Are providers of exec.ed (those that are either internal or external to the corporation) politically neutral? No: in the same way that deconstruction is not neutral. Executive education should take political sides with openness, difference and movement and not closure, identity and stasis. Exec.ed is NOT NEUTRAL.

So if exec.ed is political, what does one do? What can one do inside an institution or corporation? How free are we? What granular political acts can you countenance? How far can you go? Surely, exec.ed, in the guise of self-reflection, coaching, on-the-job mentoring, self-study, surely all of these activities allow us to examine how (whether?) our newly found political strength and determinations are put into practice.

Question: is this dissentful, anarchistic, disruptive and destabilising? Is a challenging of the currently accepted ways of doing things disruptive? You bet! Exec.ed in not ‘inherently’ anything, so is it always context dependent? Exec.ed is a revolutionary gesture – defeating the project-oriented economy of the same.

Dasein, Zen & Deconstruction

The following is a close reading of the text edited by Reynolds & Roffe called ‘Understanding Derrida’ (2004).

(p.17) Dasein – so would Derrida be sceptical of Zen? A craving for origins. Buddhism is against metaphysics after all. Zen recognises, aknowledges its aporias, its blind spots engendered by logocentric discourse. For SPA, the senior leaders need to be very comfortable with uncertainty, incoherence and instability. Hence, for the programme, the intention to subvert blind adherence to orthodoxy. Don’t cling to the company as having the answer, at least not just the classroom portions: use your network; rhizomation. There is not sanctioned order of priority; or is there? I guess the company comes first.