Organizational Integrity: How to Apply the Wisdom of the Body to Develop Healthy Organizations

by Torin M. Finser

All around us, we see living systems in plants, animals, and human beings. Our environment is alive, vibrant, and full of innate wisdom. Even the stars and planets speak in the language of ancient folklore to those who have ears to hear. Our very lives depend on this interdependence and on the myriad connections that surround us. Nonetheless, many people experience organizations as inert, bureaucratic, inflexible obstacles to innovation and human initiative. People have struggled for years under the weight of apathy in organizations such as large school systems, corporations, and government agencies such as FEMA. Organizational Integrity attempts to reclaim and reconcile organizational dynamics with living systems. The wisdom found in human organs, minerals, planets, and even sacred geometry is used to reinvent organizations. Organizations are supposed to serve, and their forms and structures should mirror the living systems of those who have come together with common purpose. We need to change our ideas of organizations and establish a new paradigm so that future organizations will be worthy of the people in them. Dr. Finser makes the case that we need a new ecology of organizations, and that now is time for a new revolution that creates dynamic, living organizations by the people and for the people. Moreover, he shows us how to achieve this seemingly impossible task by “organ-izing” organizations. Just as democracy has transformed much of the world, through the genius of the human body we can transform organizations into living systems that serve and protect human interests. Here is a truly unique approach to the age-old process of bringing people together in healthy, effective organizations to better the world in which we live.

268 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Torin M Finser received his Ph.D. in educational leadership from Union Graduate School, his M.A. in education from Adelphi University, and his B.A. from Bowdoin College. He taught at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School, where he also served as faculty chairman. Torin has done extensive consulting with schools in organizational dynamics and leadership development and has been a keynote speaker at conferences all over the world.

He is the author eleven books, beginning with School as a Journey, which has now been translated into Mandarin, Farsi, Thai, Arabic, Korean and Spanish. Other books include: School Renewal, Organizational Integrity, A Second Classroom, Parent Teacher Relations in a Waldorf School, Leadership Development and Education for Non-Violence. His Guided Self Study is used by many as an introduction to Anthroposophy.

Torin has served as General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America and Chair of the Education Department at Antioch University New England. A founder of the Center for Anthroposophy, he has recently pioneered their new Building Bridges Program for practicing teachers in independent and charter schools.