Aristotle's doctrine is embedded in all expressions of the Western world. Aristotle believed that everything in the world has a purpose, a raison d’être. Looking through Aristoteles' lenses, we can resonate with his doctrine regarding the four main elements of an association: vision, mission, membership, and governance.
Membership responds to the material cause, governance to the formal cause, mission to the efficient cause, and vision to the telic cause.
So, Aristotle would have thrived as an association manager…. or not?
We like to consider ourselves rational human beings, looking for casual relationships in our actions. Consequently, we believe that our creations—in this case, an international association—will be organized and acted upon in a reasonable way and will seek to efficiently reach its telic cause.
But how many times have you stopped believing in logic when you looked at your association's structure and acts? How many times was it hard to find a reason for the whys you asked?
Modern philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his book " From Bacteria to Bach, offers a possible way out of the confusion of the “why?” question. Instead of approaching reality through the why question, he proposes using a familiar pair of substitute phrases: what for? and how come?
Therefore, it might be better to take some time to look back before jumping to the future. Understanding “how come?” an association acts the way it acts and identifying the turning points in the association's evolution path can indeed give us a better understanding of today’s reality and help us plan the future with the "what for" question
The title is provocative. Aristotle would have been a fine association manager, but he would most likely have opted out of frustration.
If you want to read more about inversion of thinking, I highly recommend the Philosopher Daniel Dennett and his book From Bacteria to Bach.
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