Toward a Buddhist Systems Methodology 3: An Application in a Taiwanese Non-Governmental Organization

This paper describes the application of a Buddhist systems methodology (BSM) to tackle a significant conflict (and underlying issues) threatening the future of a large non-governmental Buddhist membership organization in Taiwan. An evaluation of the BSM, undertaken six months after the intervention, demonstrated positive impacts, including a major reduction in conflict; improved communications across the organization (especially from the bottom-up); a successful restructuring to address some of the underlying issues; a significant upturn in the recruitment and retention of members; and a consequential turn-around of the organization's financial position. In addition, several senior managers took on the BSM for their personal use, trained others, and cascaded the methodology down the organization. This resulted in the official adoption of the BSM as the ‘main decision-making system’ for part of the organization, and the start of wider dissemination. Based on these results, the authors argue that the BSM may have more general utility for problem solving and problem prevention in Taiwanese (and possibly other) Buddhist organizations.