PREFACE

I had to write this book. A couple of years ago, for about six months I was totally obsessed by those amazing three dimensional 'Magic Eye' pictures. I don't know whether you've seen them. I guess you have. They are the ones which you stare at for a while, and then, all of a sudden, if you are really lucky, they suck you in. All of a sudden there is a three dimensional image, where nothing existed a split second before. If it's happened to you, you'll remember the short catch of breath the adrenaline rush and that WOW! feeling. You probably smiled. And then all of a sudden it was gone! It was flat again. You probably said to a friend, "Can you see it? It's really clear." and then; "Come on, can't you see it? You must be able to. It's so clear." But your companion just shook their head and said something like, "No I can’t see it. Are you making it up? You could be saying anything. Anything at all.” They then probably said, “I can’t see the point of these things anyway.”

It happened to me something like that. My first experience was seeing the Invisible Man emerge, hat, sunglasses and all, in his lab, from a flat sheet in a shop window in Hammersmith, London. "Unfortunately at the time, I had no one to talk to, so instead I bought the picture and took it home. It currently hangs in the lobby of the Burke Lodge.

What I'm obsessed by is this set of the questions, "If there is really a three dimensional image, why can't I see it all the time? What does it mean if I can see it, feel it and almost touch it and no one else can? Is it really there? How can my reality be so different from other peoples, given the same information?

What if I could see an organisational structure that would solve all the needs of these late 1990's and forward through the new millennium? What if I could solve the problem which every organisation, nation, and business guru is trying to solve; 'How to develop the organisation which actually resonates in tune with the world rather than destroys the people within it and eventually destroys itself?'

What if I found a way to tell others about what I can see and what if some of them could see both realities? And on seeing them went beyond the flat sheet and redefined their own lives and the nature of organisations?

What if some others couldn't and insisted that there was nothing there but a flat sheet and that life was and would always be nothing more than a flat sheet?

And what if they were more powerful and insisted on their way and made sure that they ‘executed’ anybody who claimed to see the three dimensional image.

I think that this has already happened.

So, I thought that maybe if I wrote about it I could find others farther flung who could see my 'magic eye' image and it's depth Maybe together we would be more powerful. Maybe if we all said we could see it and maybe if we could teach others how to see it, many more would understand and many more would pull together to create it.

To be virtual is to create the effect without the traditional form.

This is my attempt. I hope it works for you.

Eddie Obeng
Burke Lodge Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire HP9 2JH UK

 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

 
In putting together the material for Achieving Organisational Magic, I had to draw both from research and from pragmatic observation drawing broad and general non attributable conclusions. Observation of people creating new world organisations. The reason I think is that I have yet to come across and organisation which has completed the journey entirely to the ‘new world’. Even my own organisation, Pentacle The Virtual Business School, which was specifically set up to operate as a new world organisation and to act as a laboratory for studying the issues and solutions faced by organisations, who are moving into the new world has had to concede some old world issues such as the need to produce annual reports (rather than cash based rolling forecasts/ results)

For this reason I would like to acknowledge the courage and foresight of some of the people I have worked with over the past few years as they have worked to create the future where once there was only the present.

I would also like to thank all the Virtual team members of Pentacle The Virtual Business School for their inputs and insights.

My final and biggest thank-you goes to my Partner in all things:

Thanks Susan.

Disclaimer

All the characters in this book are fictional any resemblance to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

 

Copyright Pentacle1997 Eddie Obeng 1994 All rights reserved