On the campus of the university I attended, the education building and physics building are geographically separated by just a few blocks. But philosophically they are separated by light-years. The education department believes there is no absolute truth. The science department believes there is absolute truth.
By absolute truth, I mean truth that transcends space (geographically and culturally) and time. Truth that is the same in all places and at all times—timeless universal truth. Scientists assume that absolute truth is empirically discerned through timeless universe principles (TUP) that govern the physical world.
If the education department is correct, there is no TUP and the world would be very different. For example, without TUP, science would be unable to understand and predict motion, such as the motion of planets, stars, and spacecrafts. Without TUP, science would, most likely, return to the Aristotelian view that motion is the by-product of whimsical gods warring against each other. There would be no rational explanation for motion. Consequently, there would be no principles that could be used to explain the past or predict the future. In other words, a universe without TUP would mean that no one could explain why airplanes fly, why space travel is possible, how computers work, or even if the earth will be habitable tomorrow.
From circa 300 BC to circa AD 1700, Aristotle’s view of science was the standard model. It was based on polytheism. Gods were assumed to be whimsical and therefore unpredictable. Consequently, there was no thought that transcendent physical laws might exist. Hence during this time there was little scientific advancement. However, after Isaac Newton rejected the Aristotelian model and introduced his laws of motion based on a sovereign unchangeable, knowable Creator, technological advancement exploded because Newton discovered the reality that the universe was and is governed by the one God, the Creator of all, through his TUP.
I think one would be hard pressed to find any credible scientist today who would accept the education department’s philosophy. Though perhaps most scientists today have not considered the theological underpinnings of their view (TUP).
If you are persuaded of the reality of TUP in science, what about TUP in the disciplines of economics and business? And specifically, is there TUP in the practice of management?
Redoubtable business pundit Peter Drucker was a voluminous writer who articulated many principles of management. A summary of his key works can be found in The Essential Drucker. In this compendium, he defines management as a social discipline. Then notwithstanding all his other writings that assume TUP, he states that natural science has TUP, but management, a social discipline, does not. Note the excerpt below from The Essential Drucker.
For a social discipline such as management, the assumptions are actually a good deal more important than are the paradigms for a natural science. The paradigm—that is, the prevailing general theory—has no impact on the natural universe. Whether the paradigm states that the sun rotates around the earth or that, on the contrary, the earth rotates around the sun has no effect on sun and earth. A natural science deals with the behavior of objects. But a social discipline such as management deals with the behavior of people and human institutions. Practitioners will therefore tend to act and to behave as the discipline’s assumptions tell them to. Even more important, the reality of a natural science, the physical universe and its laws, do not change (or if they do only over eons rather than over centuries, let alone over decades). The social universe has no “natural laws” of this kind. It is thus subject to continual change. And this means that assumptions that were valid yesterday can become invalid and, indeed, totally misleading in no time at all.1
To assume that the “social universe has no natural laws” means that there is no TUP for management. Therefore, there is no way to explain history or predict the future. Given this predicate, how would one develop the ubiquitously embraced concept of best practices, that is, TUP for management? Without TUP, there are no principles of management. Without principles, there is no way to understand and learn from the past and no way to predict the future. Consequently, management has no idea how to manage.
I trust you immediately recognize the quandary of this view. In addition to the logical dilemma, this view debunks the work of other esteemed management pundits, such as Fredrick Winslow Taylor, W. Edwards Deming, and Jim Collins, who based their life work on discovering TUP for the social discipline of management.
Consequently, trying to build a theory of organizational management without TUP is fruitless and inconsistent with reality. If challenged, I think that even Drucker himself would not accept the implications of his own statement above. He spent his sixty-year academic career seeking to understand TUP in management. Perhaps what Drucker was attempting to note in the above statement was not the absence of TUP in the discipline of management, but the reality of the progressive development of the human understanding of TUP.
My conclusion is that, as with physics and indeed all hard science, TUP must exist for social science as well. As with hard science, the only way that social science can learn from the past and have some predictive ability about the future is through TUP.
If you concede the existence of TUP as the best explanation for the advancements made in both the hard sciences and social sciences, from whence did this TUP originate?
In a Christian worldview, the God of heaven and earth is the Creator of all, including all TUP.2 Furthermore, the best revelation about TUP must be found in the best revelation about the Creator—namely, the Bible.
Consider two examples of TUP, as revealed in Scripture and as applied to the social discipline of organizational management.
The first and foremost TUP is alignment with the will of God.3 Therefore the foremost purpose of organizational management is to seek to discern and execute the will of God. The pedestrian assumption today is that the primary purpose of organizational management is to make a profit. Biblically, this is not true; rather, Scripture teaches that profit is a by-product of alignment with God.4 Drucker recognized this truth. Note his words:
Asked what a business is, the typical businessman is likely to answer, “An organization to make a profit.” The typical economist is likely to give the same answer. This answer is not only false, it is irrelevant.5
On this point, Drucker is biblically sound, direct, and poignant.
A second example of TUP is that organizational management must seek to execute God's will according to God's ways.6 Implicit in the idea of the will of God is the reality that God wants his will done according to his ways. It is not acceptable to bifurcate the will and ways of God. God expects compliance to his will and ways. Mankind does not have the liberty to manage organizations outside the boundaries of God’s TUP. As the Epistle of James notes, it is sin for management to function outside of God’s will and ways.7
These are two examples of biblically based TUP as applied to organizational management. The Scripture is rife with other examples. In fact, in addition to being the historical revelation of God about the redemptive work of his Son, the Bible is also a handbook for organizational management.8 Wise managers should become astute Bible students who search the Scriptures to uncover and align with the many expressions of TUP found in its pages.
As a social discipline, there are principles of organizational management defined by the Creator. This means there is biblically defined TUP that must be embraced if management wishes to produce excellent products and services in the Creator’s universe. To presume to manage organizations within God’s universe inconsistent with his TUP is irrational. Why would anyone assume that this would be blessed? The only sound way to manage organizations is to seek alignment with God’s TUP. May the Lord give all of us, as organizational managers, grace to be sound students and practitioners of God's TUP.
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1. Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials, HarperCollins, Kindle Edition), 69–70.
2. Genesis 1:1; Acts 17:16–32; Revelation 4:11.
3. James 4:13–17.
4. Luke 12:13–21.
5. Drucker, 18.
6. James 4:13–17.
7. James 4:17.
8.
2 Timothy 3:16–17.
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