Living Organizations and Dead Bureaucracies

Abstract

This paper covers a few preliminary notes about analysis and design of organizations related to some of the basic Buddhist concepts and meditation. The paper is an unofficial spin-off from the studies I carried out, as part of a Swedish Bits/SIPU project, combined with my own studies and practice of meditation and Buddhism. The object of the Bits/SIPU project was to develop a macro manpower plan for the Thai Civil Service for the year 2004. In this paper I draw parallels between, on the one hand, Buddhism and its method for self- improvement, i.e., meditation and, on the other, modern organizations and their methods for improving their functions such as the concepts of learning organizations and Total Quality Manage ment.1 This is not a formal scientific examination of the parallels, but a subjective comparison of similarities.