Organizational Integrity: How to Apply the Wisdom of the Body to Develop Healthy Organizations

All around us, we see living systems in plants, animals, and human beings. Our environment is alive, vibrant, and full of innate wisdom. Even the stars and planets speak in the language of ancient folklore to those who have ears to hear. Our very lives depend on this interdependence and on the myriad connections that surround us. Nonetheless, many people experience organizations as inert, bureaucratic, inflexible obstacles to innovation and human initiative. People have struggled for years under the weight of apathy in organizations such as large school systems, corporations, and government agencies such as FEMA.

Organizational Integrity attempts to reclaim and reconcile organizational dynamics with living systems. The wisdom found in human organs, minerals, planets, and even sacred geometry is used to reinvent organizations. Organizations are supposed to serve, and their forms and structures should mirror the living systems of those who have come together with common purpose. We need to change our ideas of organizations and establish a new paradigm so that future organizations will be worthy of the people in them.

Dr. Finser makes the case that we need a new ecology of organizations, and that now is time for a new revolution that creates dynamic, living organizations by the people and for the people. Moreover, he shows us how to achieve this seemingly impossible task by "organ-izing" organizations. Just as democracy has transformed much of the world, through the genius of the human body we can transform organizations into living systems that serve and protect human interests.

Here is a truly unique approach to the age-old process of bringing people together in healthy, effective organizations to better the world in which we live.

Torin M. Finser received his PhD in educational leadership from Union Graduate School, his MA in education from Adelphi University, and his BA from Bowdoin College. He taught at the Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner School, where he also served as faculty chairman. He has done extensive consulting with schools in organizational dynamics and leadership development and has been a keynote speaker at conferences around the world.

Dr. Finser is the author of numerous books, beginning with School as a Journey (1995), which has been translated into Mandarin, Farsi, Thai, Arabic, Korean, and Spanish. Torin has served as General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America and Chair of the Education Department at Antioch University New England, and is currently Director of Waldorf Programs.

A founder of the Center for Anthroposophy, he has recently pioneered their new Building Bridges Program for practicing teachers in independent and charter schools and Explorations for Waldorf parents. Educational History PhD, Union Graduate School, 1994 Educational Leadership with emphasis on Teacher Stress/Renewal MA, Adelphi University, 1978 Education BA, Bowdoin College, 1977 Double major in history and German Literature. Graduated in three years, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. Waldorf, 1960-1974 Student at three Waldorf Schools: Rudolf Steiner School in NYC Green Meadow Waldorf School, NY, Freie Waldorf Schule in Krefeld, Germany.

Torin is married to Karine, has six children, and is also now a very happy grandfather!