INTERRELATIONSHIPS AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Original article published in Catalan, on 07/03/2022

 

In the construction of participatory and democratic organizational models, we are based, among other aspects, on the empowerment of the working individuals and teams to generate this change in the management approach.

We work towards decentralizing power and decision-making, so that those decisions that directly affect teams are made by them in a self-managed, participatory, democratic, and decentralized way. Seeking teams to evolve towards self-organization of work.

We focus on building more participatory management models, also advancing towards a democratic organizational culture.

What do we understand by organizational culture? Without attempting a textbook definition, we could define organizational culture as the set of values, attitudes, ways of doing things that permeate the people working in an organization, and thus the organization itself. Therefore, it is that intangible substrate that binds the working individuals, work teams within an organization. We could also refer to it as the organization's DNA.

If our intention is that organizations transform towards more participatory and democratic management models, towards cultural change, we cannot only focus the transformation on empowering individuals and teams. We must also focus on that invisible layer that connects them: culture. That which unites, the "inter," the interrelationships, interconnection, intergenerational... the common.

If not, we would have the risk of promoting organizational individualism. As Marina Garcés points out in her book "A Common World": "From the physical and social sciences, from philosophy and social movements like ecology or feminism, work has been done for decades to recompose a worldview that prioritizes interaction and interdependence over the values of autonomy and self-sufficiency that individualism had exalted."

Therefore, I believe it is important to conscious about the importance of the common and, above all, to be attentive that participatory and democratic organizational models do not fragment the organizational culture.

I confess that I write this reflection without yet having a clear idea of how to promote the common, the culture, in organizations governed by democratic governance models. But I am sure about the challenge of not forgetting or underestimating where we need to focus: how do we promote this culture? How do we make people aware of the importance of building these organizational interrelationships? And how do we weave and reinforce them?

We can understand organizations as ecosystems. Some time ago, I read an interview with Peter Wohlleben, a German forest engineer and expert in forests and trees, in which he stated that trees are connected not only in their communication but also in mutual care. And just as it happens in animal species, the big ones take care of the small ones.

With this idea in mind, I wonder: how can we promote mutual care among working individuals, large and small teams within organizations, fertilizing the underground, the interconnections, the culture, but from a feminist perspective and not a paternalistic one of organizations?