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Paradigms and Cheon Il Guk, page 2
With all the talk about a change of mindset one would have expected a more interactive approach to communication. But it looked like the organizers didn’t have much of a concept of change management anyway. No breakout session, no discussions on selected topics, nothing.
In addition, even though activity reports from all continents were presented and in spite of 300 participants from Western countries, the focus of the movement seems to be mainly Korea, the largest country in terms of membership.
Actually, most of the real drive for change – if any – appears to come from people that were not present at the meeting. For example the people around Hyeon Jin Moon, Sun Myung Moon’s third son and may be his successor. Educated in USA and with an MBA degree from Harvard he has more of what it takes to enter the future. Or the second generation in general, some of them, may be.
But in the main stream of the movement and especially among the Koreans the major theme, I hear, is competing for the old man’s favor and positioning well within the movement - an inward looking attitude symptomatic for declining organizations.
It was interesting to see the old man himself in the middle of this all. He didn’t attend most of the conference, except for an award ceremony on the third day. There he took over and wandered through the crowd – 800 total - talking to some, making very public and personal statements.
The evening before saw a dinner honoring his 85th birthday with 300 participants, mostly Westerners. One of his well known habits is to watch TV while he meets people that never saw him before. Also here, this time a soccer game.
Then he also started to walk around, talking to people, singing songs. He basically blew the second and last question and answer session of the conference. Too bad.
I think he also should have a stake in changing mindsets, with all the plans for the future. But may be he just wanted to hang out with the Westerners and handle Korea some other time. Who knows?
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