Today I had the privilege of transcending a purely business relationship and enjoying insights into the personal likes, dislikes, and insights of an employee at a recreation center. Business relationships are well and good, but they are heavily influenced by organizational structure. It’s good to occasionally have the opportunity to be introduced to the basic values, ideas, concerns, and family life of employees Likewise it’s good to be able to give information about oneself—some of one’s own handicaps, experiences, and achievements. Communication at this level indicates a mutual appreciation of the fact that we are not only employees with titles and duties, but human beings with broad areas of interests, concerns, and even vulnerabilities. When I was on vacation last week, Jim, my brother-in-law, said that the trouble with America now is that people engage in pro forma communication and do not get beyond the shallow and superficial. Certainly it is depressing and impoverishing to always deal at the surface level when the central fact of human nature is the existence of a full array of intellectual, spiritual, and emotional dimensions. Thriving organizations accommodate within their structures the renaissance proclivities of mankind.
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