My 5 Days at Camp Lur'ning

They don't pretend to have all the answers, but they have established a few principles:

1. Organizations are not machines; they're organic systems.

2. Virtually all of the money spent on traditional corporate training is wasted, because people learn in many different ways. Mostly by doing, not in classrooms with lecturers.

3. People work better when they feel at home in the workplace.

4. Reengineering didn't work because it wasn't the processes that were important, but the ways in which people interact with each other.

My briefing is over; it's time to go to camp. It's 9 a.m. All 400 of us gather in the main auditorium at XDU. The crowd is boisterous. Chris Turner introduces the keynote speaker : Jean Houston, who's famous for helping Hillary Clinton talk to Eleanor Roosevelt. I'm prepared to be skeptical, but I quickly realize what a wildly inaccurate picture the media has given of this unique woman.

When Houston takes the stage, you immediately know that you are in the presence of someone extraordinary. She's a tall woman with a ready smile, commanding gestures, and charisma that won't quit. She's wearing definitely uncorporate attire: lots of beads and a flowing earth-motherly dress that looks sort of like a dashiki. Her long gray hair flows over her shoulders and down her back like a wave. Houston's written something like 15 books and hobnobbed with many of the most famous people of the 20th century. What she's really about is putting words around this generational upheaval that we all know is happening and that we all are having a hard time figuring out.

Houston tells the crowd that they are going to have to cope with enormous change, and that at times coping will be difficult. But she manages to fill them with a sense of excitement at the possibilities for new ways of working. Houston tells us that learning to cope with change is just as destabilizing for organizations as it is for people. But that's part of this new gestalt. No guarantees. No familiar landmarks. No routines.

How will we manage? Houston tells us a story about how some Africans worked out a sanitation problem in their village. They began by drumming, then they sang, and then they danced the chicken dance. Then they shut their eyes and visualized their solution. So at Houston's request, we all get up and dance the chicken dance. We all flap our arms enthusiastically, hoping to pick up something about creative problem solving. A different way of learning. One point for Houston.

Houston tells a story about the new myth for our time. She explains that the current myth that describes today's typical CEO is the Lone Ranger -- "and that's not healthy! The Lone Ranger solves his problems alone. And look at the way he treats Tonto!" Point to Houston.

Her replacement myth is set in King Arthur's court. A pure knight is forced to marry an ugly woman over a point of honor. As they lie together on their wedding night, the ugly woman offers her reluctant husband a choice: since he's been so honorable, she has the capacity to be beautiful half the time -- either by day, when everyone else will see her, or by night, when only he will. The puzzled man finally says, "You choose, dear." Bingo! This is the right answer, and the woman becomes beautiful all the time. Happy ending.

The point, says Houston, is that business needs to know what businesswomen want: sovereignty, freedom of choice. At that, the women in the audience leap to their feet in a standing ovation. The men are not far behind. They were listening too. And they're beginning to get it. Point and match to Houston.

I'm beginning to get why Houston is on the docket. She's a true subversive. Her presence and her message signal powerfully to this audience of ordinary people that they are part of an extraordinary moment in history -- and that they can do extraordinary things.

With the new myth and the applause ringing in our ears, we leave the hall to begin the real work of camp. We gather in our groups of 10 to 15 and begin to devise plans -- How do we get close to specific customers? Tamara's group has been assigned Florida Power and Light (FP&L), and our first task is to figure out how to approach the task.

Camp Lur'ning calls this exercise "Sleuth" -- turning work into a game. We're all to become detectives like Sherlock Holmes, learning as much as we can about the customer, then working together to develop our strategies. We're given little notebooks and pencils like Sherlock might have had, and a workbook that begins with three questions: Why become a World Class Sleuth? Why become consulting detectives? Why must we make it our business to know things?