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HOW DO TRANFORMING ORGANIZATIONS LEARN?

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In a context marked by complexity, acceleration and constant change, organizations face needs and challenges that, in many cases, demand a response while still in the diagnostic phase. In this scenario, the question I have been asking myself recently is not so much how organizations are structured, but rather how they learn. More specifically: what makes some organizations, or teams, learn with greater depth and truly transform themselves, and what makes others simply adapt to keep doing the same thing in a slightly different way? To approach an answer, I will draw on the theory of single-loop and double-loop learning, formulated by Chris Argyris (1923–2013), theorist and professor at Yale and Harvard, and Donald A. Schön (1930–1997), philosopher and professor at MIT. This theory, formulated almost fifty years ago, remains in my view fully valid for understanding why some organizations, or teams, transform, adapt and respond better to complexity than others (Argyris & Sch...
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MANAGING THE INTANGIBLE: WHAT DOESN’T APPEAR IN THE ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

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  Today I would like to share some reflections on that layer of organizations that is often not seen but is constantly present. That layer we could call intangible or invisible. From a classical perspective of organizational management, we usually distinguish the following areas: on one hand, strategic management, the area where the mission and the major future directions of the entities are defined; and on the other hand, operational management, which focuses on making the day‑to‑day activity possible. Between both areas, we often find an intermediate level: coordination, which acts as a bridge between strategy and operations. However, beyond —and beyond this rather simplistic division— there is another layer that cuts across all these areas. A layer that permeates the whole organization, an intangible layer, and one that is not always easy to put into words. It is the layer that appears when we shift our focus toward people and relationships. Toward the inner workings of te...
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DO YOU LEAVE A FOOTPRINT OR JUST MAKE NOISE? FROM TRANSFORMATION TO IMPACT.

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  In this text, I will share ideas and reflections gathered at the Plena Inclusión congress, held on November 6 and 7, in Sevilla. These focus on an organizational shift that places the people supported by the Third Sector at the center of decision-making. This means driving a transformation from a more care-based model to a person-centered model, with shared leadership, where individuals move from being recipients to becoming agents of change. But transformation alone is not enough; it is also necessary to measure impact. Impact measurement becomes a strategic tool, not only for evaluation but for guiding action and direction, emphasizing active listening to stakeholders and defining clear indicators. We want to measure the real impact on the people we support, and that is why we ask ourselves: “Do we truly leave a footprint or just make noise?”   “When power is shared, impact multiplies” Shared leadership is one of the most powerful strategies for transformation a...
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FIVE YEARS OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION. RESULTS AND IMPACTS ACHIEVED, LESSONS LEARNED, AND FUTURE CHALLENGES

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  Five years ago, on July 15, 2020, we embarked on an organizational transformation at the Fundació el Maresme, based on self-management and self-organization. Our goal was to create a new organizational culture—a new leadership philosophy based on collective knowledge, shared decision-making, and listening to the different voices within the organization, all rooted in democratic governance. It was a culture that was more participatory and where power was also shared and redistributed. We sought to unleash leadership from all levels of the organization, where the architecture (the organizational chart) wouldn't confine people but would instead facilitate the creation of spaces for participation and co-decision. These spaces were intended to generate new management and leadership dynamics. At the same time, we wanted the technical perspective from the field of direct care for individuals—our mission as an organization—to be more present and carry more weight in the leadership te...
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COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: THE TRANSFORMATIVE ENERGY IN ORGANIZATIONS

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  Daniel Innerarity, in his book “A Theory of Complex Democracy” [1] , points out that “ to truly understand what we mean when we talk about collective intelligence, the first thing we must do is distinguish between individual knowledge and collective knowledge .” “ What organizations and society do is generate knowledge that is superior to the sum of the members who compose them .” It is something more than a simple aggregation. It is emergent knowledge that is born from interaction, from relationship, and from dialogue. This is, in fact, one of the central principles of complexity science: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Organizations are complex systems, and therefore cannot be understood as a simple aggregate of individuals. They are living spaces, where the quality of relationships —the organizational culture— determines the capacity to create shared knowledge. When we talk about organizations, we are not referring only to companies or entities, but also to ...
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"White Paper on Catalonia's Civic-Social Third Sector": current reflections

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  Original article published in Catalan on 03/25/2025 In recent weeks, I have been reading the first edition, from July 2003, of the White Paper on the Civic-Social Third Sector of Catalonia[1] (Castiñeira, A., & Vidal, P. (Eds.).(2003)). Although almost 22 years have passed, I believe it is a very good book to understand who or what the Third Sector is Civic-Social in Catalonia, as well as strengths, weaknesses, and future challenges. After reading it, however, I have been left with a certain feeling of concern, as many of the challenges that were detected then, I consider to still be very much in force in 2025, making me aware of the slowness of changes and asking myself what we can do to accelerate transformations that have been identified as necessary for years. We find ourselves in a moment of high social complexity, in which it continues to be more necessary than ever to work on and reinforce democratic values, and here the third sector (TS) and the Administration hav...
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