Cultural Differences| Cultural Differences | | Print | |
| Sunday, 20 December 2009 22:24 | ||
Cultural differences and what this really means for the CoSI try to write so as to follow the Second Rule for Happy Living: Cause only those effects that can be easily experienced by others.However, on some topics such as Data Series 40, The Ideal Org, almost any observation can raise hackles if the audience has radically different cultural backgrounds. That happens because the cultural benchmarks of one culture can look like False Data or even heresy to another culture. With that as a reference, you might understand that there may be varying responses to the rest of this article. What is true for some may be indigestible and repellent to many. CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY CULTURE - THEN VS. NOWIn the early years of Scientology, staff and executives were a mixture of individuals with extensive corporate and life experience and people who were right out of school. There were many in the early days who were able to look at church practices and see things that ran counter to the best practices of daily life and business success. Most of these people eventually left the church.At the current time, there are many who have literally grown up in Scientology or in the closed society of the Sea Org. Their only point of reference is LRH policy and “Command Intention” as expressed by church management. These people seem to have have little reality on how large non-scientology companies work together and function internally. Those who have never enjoyed success in the outside world may have difficulty understanding how high salaries, corporate perks and fantastic bonuses actually come about. It is not magic, only good business sense and ethical treatment of customers and employees. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THE IDEAL ORG?Ron may have originally postulated an organization where man knew he could go free, but that ideal morphed into something more like a trireme. Sea Org staff are essentially chained to their oars until they are discarded. The trireme was the most fearsome fighting ship of its time. but it succeeded at a terrible cost in terms of human suffering.It should be noted that originally the oarsmen of these ships were Greek citizens who volunteered to serve. It didn’t take long before the oarsmen consisted of conscripted slaves and criminals. The captain and the elite officers traveled in style and the crew below decks lived in misery until they were discarded.  The behavior of David Miscavige is much like the leader who rides a massive sedan chair to attend conferences on relieving human suffering. He wants the benefits of prosperity and does not understand that human suffering and spiritual freedom are diametrically opposed. One does not get spiritual freedom by trafficking in human suffering. MOTIVATING STAFFIf you have never worked in a prospering non-scientology organization, it may seem unreal that those organizations often get you to produce miracles and work Sea Org hours merely by suggesting that you will not get to work on the next exciting project if you fail to meet deadlines.
When these non-Scn organizations were prospering, they picked creative people and gave us all the carrots we could earn. We applied the stick to our backs with great relish so that we could enjoy the freedom to create and we prospered accordingly. When the bean counters eventually took over, the carrots were rationed, many reports were required, and management tried to exploit the original entrepreneurial spirit while withholding the original rewards. This was not so terrible because we would all jump ship and find a new organization to join. That is not an option in the Church of Scientology. Staff are treated more like galley slaves than crusaders out to make a better world. Since the church is being run by people who have had no life outside of Scientology, it is not unreasonable to expect they will know little of practical management. The only way they manage is to apply more duress to the staff in order to meet increasingly unreal targets. Since much of upper management is no longer on post, it suggests that the current operating model is crumbling. THE FUTUREIt may be that the current CoS culture is seeing its last days. It is certainly time for a cultural shift.The best companies I knew took employees and customers up with them as they succeeded and the word of mouth advertising was unbelievably good. There is a lesson to be learned there. The CoS will not survive unless it starts listening to feedback from customers and staff. POSTSCRIPTAs a Mission Holder I dealt with new public every day. Our success depended on our mission culture being totally acceptable to these new people from the moment they walked in the door. People re-signed again and again because of the service we provided and they told their friends about their wins. Written by Old Auditor
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"Scientology has been taken over by a self-appointed dictator, David Miscavige, who has turned the Creed of the Church of Scientology, the Code of a Scientologist, and the Credo of a True Group Member on their heads and instituted the virtual practice of Reverse (Black) Dianetics..." 
Comments
There are quite a few flaws you tend to overlook. Personally I have never been impressed with the corporate culture or more accurately corporatism, a form of fascism in fact that pervades America.
That said the fact is Scientology is not a business. It is a religion. How this religion is administered is expressed in HCOBs and HCOPLs, that have served the organization quite well until idiot threw out the baby with the bath water.
I agree that staff members should have life experience but there is more to life than say working for AIG or Enron.
Maybe a datum of comparable magnitude would show some of these staff how lucky they are to have policy and not to abuse it. That the Ol'man took the time off from his research into R6 to write up an Org Board and locate the flaw that is currently killing off businesses and enterprises that don't have connections to the CIA, such as inspection before the fact which is something this infanticidal maniac mentioned earlier continually does.
LRH policy and the ruthless justice actions he developed have never been particularly successful in translating into success in an open market.
Prospering non-scientology organizations that actually make something (and not just shuffling money as in your examples) do best when they allow their best people to innovate and reward them handsomely when they succeed.
There are some non-scientology business that display all of the internal cruelty and callousness of the CofS. Their business success generally follows the same trajectory as that of the CofS.
The saving grace of working in the corporate world is that you are free to resign when you find you are working under insane conditions.
Here you just violated HCOB 'ARCX, Generalities Won't Do'.
Also "innovation" in Scientology could also be called squirreling and a lot of so called "innovation" is basically reinventing the wheel.
By the way Enron didn't just shovel money they were an energy innovator. They were supposed to make public utilities like power less expensive, yet ended up costing more.
Trust me here in California I experienced their "innovative" approach first hand.
Does the term "rolling black out" mean anything?
Innovation is good when there's something to innovate. Otherwise it's overrated.
If something ain't broken why "fix it"?
A lot of innovation is just alter-is, like for example the "Golden Age of Tech".
Innovation is one of those feel good buzz word sound bytes they offer to forward their mercantilist agenda.
Like the "innovative" approach used by many businesses to get around paying their workers a living wage and benefits by moving all their manufacturing off shore to some country under a repressive regime, like for example China.
A place that makes any "ruthless justice actions" occurring in a Scientology org seem like a slap on the wrist with a wet noodle.
Not to mention the wholesale firing of employees here. At least in a Scientology Org if you are Staff Status II you have to have a comm ev first. In the so called innovative business world they can just fire your sorry ass.
Yeah, yeah, sure, sure you are supposed to have "legal protection". Been there done that.
Don't get me wrong I am not defending the current virally infected abomination that is called a "Church of Scientology" these days.
But I'd say that Ron's policies are the wrong target.
Oh by the way you were always free to resign in a Scientology org there is even policy on it.
HCOPL 19 June 1958
Freeloaders
Which begins:
"Any staff may leave the staff at any time.
...."
Maybe you should actually read the policies first before criticizing them.
I just wish C of S had used it more. We'd have a different world.
Once DM is history, I would hope that something could be done to prevent such abuse.
By the way, the thing that clinched it for me was walking to the org to a finance meeting on how to pay the rent. I had to walk down the main city street lined with beautiful buildings and successful businesses. Why, then, should we operate in a dump on which we find we can hardly pay the rent? I knew something was amiss and after years of hard work, recognized there was nothing I could do to change it. Plus, I was starving and had to save myself. As the song says:
"He runs away to fight again."
Thanks to both previous posters, although they are disagreeing they are at least communicating and this will lead to agreement and understanding. Keep it up everyone.
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