Charles Hampden-Turner im Interview: “Managers cannot adequately manage people without also managing their values”  

12.05.2017 – Am 20. Mai 2017 ist Prof. Dr. Charles Hampden-Turner zu Gast an der FOM Hochschule: Seine Keynote beim FOM Master-Forschungsforum in Düsseldorf steht unter dem Titel “True Value: The Elusive Nature of Synergistic Relations – How Can we Measure a Dynamic Phenomenon?” und liefert neue Ansichten über die Rolle der Wirtschaft in der Gesellschaft. Im Interview gewährt der Management-Philosoph, der sich seit Neuestem auch im Beirat des KCC KompetenzCentrum für Corporate Social Responsibilty engagiert, schon mal kleine Einblicke in seine Thesen…

You are internationally known as the creator of Dilemma Theory. Could you please explain what it is in a nutshell giving examples about how it applies to everyday life?

Charles Hampden-Turner: I wrote a book in the early eighties called Maps of the Mind featuring 65 of my favourite thinkers. Only after I had finished did it dawn on me what they all had in common. They had all created a duality e.g. Superego —–Id, Libido—-Collective Unconscious, Left-brain—-Right-brain and all had mediated between these in some way with the ego or whole brain. We often need to dissent against a person/policy with whom we disagree, yet we are loyal to that person. What do we do? No child that was not corrected ever grew up properly, yet the child must also be supported and loved. To save someone from drowning you need the courage to rescue that person, yet without caution s/he could drown both of you.

Where did you meet Fons Trompenaars and what was your first project together?

Charles Hampden-Turner: Fons read an article I had written in a Shell HR journal and wrote to me. I agreed to read his thesis, lost it, received it again and wrote back that he had posed dilemmas and that I could help him to reconcile these. We worked together for the next 34 years.

The theme of your new book – together with Joop Remmé – is “True Value”. What title will the book have and when is it going to be published?

Charles Hampden-Turner: Civilizing Capitalism: The Search for True Value. It is currently with Polity Press and if accepted will be published in the USA and Europe simultaneously.

What does it deal with?

Charles Hampden-Turner: Managers cannot adequately manage people without also managing their values. Yet these can only be defined in opposition to one another. Rules end where exceptions start and vice versa. The reason we doubt a proposition is so that we may become more certain of it, via the scientific method. Continuous Improvement in the work place comes about through Error and Correction. We trust those we have most often verified, like a wife or husband. Just try to explain cooperation to someone without invoking competition and rivalry! These are differences. We create wealth and achieve virtue when these values are reconciled. I have models and a measurement methodology.

Thank you very much for these highly intriguing insights.

Charles Hampden-Turner: You are most welcome – I look forward to explaining these new ideas in greater detail at the Master-Forschungsforum in Düsseldorf on May 20^th and welcome all FOM students to participate.