Are religious organisations just like any others?

The Stranzblog is currently in Rome attending a course on management and spirituality. Travel was via the night train - it's now 18 months since I took a plane and I'm trying to do all my European travel by train. Acommodation in Rome is courtesy of Giorgio and Luca - who are wonderfully hospitable.
Today we've been looking at systemic analyses of organisations - it's been quite a discipline to go deep enough to see what is going on in the various systems that make up our organisations. Trying to know everthing about a situation and gather ever more information is not the only thing analysis requires. Looking at the issues from new angles, depersonalising them and seeing issues and crises that occur as the product of of the systems that produce them was what we were trying to do today.
As I look back on the day I can see how liberating a systemic approach is. It helps to stand back from the need to firefight the human psychodramas what sometimes rage within any organisation. I thought particularly about how this approach could be helpful in getting churches going through crises to stand back and better understand what is happening to them and causing tensions run so high. So often we find it easier to "blame" human beings rather than looking at the systems which have produced situations.
It's helpful too for religious organisations to use a tool which comes from another discipline. Of course no organisation is exactly like any other, but looking at religious organisations in this way helps to desacralise them, but there's quite a bit of resistance to doing that too!
Anyway, more about this in days to come - if the upcoming central committee of WCC allows any time for blogging.