Ok, so what is this destabilising? And what possible benefit does this anarchic sounding practice have for executive education? Firstly, before you can destabilise you have to acknowledge that which is stable, why it is stable and what stability means. Not only that, you have to have a reason for questioning the stability of your chosen cannon, orthodoxy and acepted knowledge (in executivezen’s case, executive education) if your (political, or dare I say, communitarian) actions are not to be deemed as gratuitous epistemic vandalism. Executivezen’s understanding of Derrida is that his deconstructive acts do not simply rubbish the texts he examines, just for the sake of it. Very often he sides with the author (Husserl, Rousseau, Heidegger) he is deconstructing and his intentions are to aid in the intent of the text – his revealing of metaphysical ambiguities hidden within texts is a constructive (not destructive) action.

How this works for executivezen is as follows: I acknowledge that which is stable in the field of executive education as the interconnected belief systems present in the community of followers (suppliers and consumers) of our non-workbased, institutionalised educational practices. I identify these namely as the validity of a (higher) educational institutions as sites for executive education; the validity of subject matter experts within those institutions and their authorial status; as the belief in research-led educational practice; as the belief in existing modes of global techno-capitalism; as belief in the orthodoxy of educational practice; this list could go on (as will my explaination of belief). I acknowledge that this stability has grown up around the neccessity of these educational institutions to establish credentials sufficient to garner trust from their consumers, sponsors and stakeholders; also around the ideology that surrounds higher educational and into which consumers invest without question. This stability has led to an “economy of the same” as Derrida, in ‘Writing and Difference’, calls it.

Why then would one wish to destabilise the ‘text’ that is executive education, given the perfectly understandable conditions of its evolution above? For executivezen this is about being dissatisfied with the status quo, yearning for a better way of being in the world, ceasing from evil, doing only good and doing good for others. Some aspects of global techno-capitalism are, at best, not effective and at worst, wrong. Maybe – so executivezen’s thinking goes – what stands as part-palliative care for the illness of global techno-capitalism is better management, leadership and business education to, in part, provide these. Given that the pedagogy of exec.ed is bankrupt, here is my motive for destabilising exec.ed texts. Executivezen does not count this as epistemic vandalism but as constructive betrayal.

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.