Ubuntu: From Basketball to the Boardroom

Ubuntu is a fascinating concept of African origin.  Doc Rivers describes it this way: "A person is a person through another person. I can't be all I can be unless you are all you can be." Doc Rivers is coach of the NBA champion Boston Celtics. Ubuntu became the basis of the Celtics' winning strategy. Three superstars, each accustomed to being the single high-scoring superstar, instead chose to become part of a team in which  players were committed to one another's success, and in that process, they brought out the best in themselves. On first blush, ubuntu appears to be about unselfishness; it is that, but it is also selfish. I am enhanced through my commitment to you.In our individualistic society, ubuntu would be a huge transformation.  How would this work with Top Executives who are locked in turf warfare, or with Middle Manager peers who are alienated from one another? Those questions are explored in Act III, scene 2 of Seeing Systems. We don't call it organizational ubuntu, but we just might.

Comments

[zechariah aloysius hillyard]

And I thought you were going to talk about the Linux-Debian ported open source operating system Ubuntu :-). The interdependence of the Celtics is an excellent example of teamwork--lighting each other's path and in the process,shining a candle on each's own.