Apparently, there are not a few companies that are born, develop and, after some time, fall ill and end up succumbing, unable to recover their health. Others, on the contrary, when their functioning deteriorates, they recover, and even seem to start an attractive and promising new life. Organizational diseases - functional disorders that take root - have different origins and cannot always be adequately prevented; in their case, they must be detected and fought soon, and we must find the remedy.
Experts declare that only healthy and intelligent organizations will survive the next decades: we cannot disagree on this, although it may be possible to interpret the concepts of health and intelligence differently. Sometimes, in reference to the progress of companies, we have heard of apathy, anemia, anorexia… and we could continue, in alphabetical order, going through neurosis and even psychosis.
To be more specific, we can speak of evils such as complacency, cowardice, orientation to the president (instead of being oriented to the market and clients), the supremacy of the liturgy over doctrine, bureaucratic excesses, the preeminence of personal interests, the stagnation of information, a deficient internal communication, the exaggerated concentration (or decentralization) of power and various other more and less serious disorders; In his case, these evils would first be reflected in various financial and non-financial indicators - a complete analytical one - and could ultimately lead to the self-destruction of organizations.
It was about 8 years ago, in 1999, when I published, under the title "Organizational health", these previous paragraphs and others to which I will refer, because in effect it seemed to me then that some organizations showed functional clumsiness and even health problems. Today, in fact, I have adopted the title “Healthy and Smart Organizations”. I have taken from the Internet (where it was also published shortly after) this forgotten text of mine because I attended, a few days ago, the presentation of a short but interesting book by Professor Javier Fernández Aguado, Organizational Pathologies, which is based on his anthropomorphic model and on whose page 39 (the book has 56), already in the conclusions, the author promises to talk to us in the near future about how to overcome the pathologies he describes. In other words, the subject seems to give rise to more books, and, with this expectation of interest,I was encouraged to contribute to the debate with this new article.
To begin with, and to do so by contributing something, I believe today that analogies have their risks, if we take them far. The human being is a system, and there is a flow of causes and consequences between the subsystems or the parts of the whole; in turn, each organization constitutes a system, and there are again flows of influence from the parts to each other, and from the parts to the whole. The reference to human diseases being useful to identify the evils of organizations, we should not lose sight of the particular systemic functioning, when analyzing and neutralizing them. In other words, in the company a functional disorder demands an adequate and definitive solution, and, if it is useful for this purpose, then also an anthropomorphic analogy like those of the aforementioned professor.
The author dedicates 10 pages of his book to identifying various ailments, and begins with the "lack of calcium" to refer to problems in the capitalization of the company. Beyond the colloquial, we will have to wait and see how Fernández Aguado develops this analogy in the near future, and how he formulates the promised remedy. Without a doubt, the deficit of economic or human capital in the company is serious, but, although what must be sought above all are solutions, we could also relate capital to food to nourish itself, or oxygen to breathe.
In his next analogy, he talks about a lack of vitamins, to refer to the lack of technical and management training necessary to run the company, and without a doubt we would lack vitality in this case. In reality, the lack of knowledge and skills disables us for action (it is said that knowledge is the capacity to act, as literacy is the capacity to learn, etc.). One can speak of avitaminosis or, if one wishes, of lack of limbs (arms or legs) thinking about the inability to act; But it is a lack of training, and this requires complex endogenous and exogenous elements in individuals: one must know that they do not know, want to learn, and have the means to do so.
The author continues talking about sunstrokes, to refer to companies that come out of stages in which they have lived protected, and have to face the sunny outside world. I would also talk about making sure you know how to swim before jumping into the pool, but to solve the problems that arise in your case, the protective creams or sunglasses that the book tells us will have to be translated into reality. The reader knows: the important thing is to identify each particular problem well and, with or without appropriate anthropomorphic analogies, to look for effective solutions.
Surely the reader, if he has come this far, thanks me for stopping my reflections on the list of pathologies, best described in the book. For my part, I find organizational disorders, such as procedural rigidities, doctrinal or liturgical delusions, or militant mediocrity, to which I do not know how to associate a useful analogy, although it does seem to me that senior management, if it wishes to do so, has of very specific formulas to prevent, detect and cure. (To say it all, my connective thinking led me to associate militant mediocrity with the dog in the manger, but little else.)
With all of the above, I wanted to bring you to the reflection that perhaps in some cases it is more useful to talk about smart and clumsy organizations (like the ones Scott Adams drew us), than to talk about healthy and sick organizations (with or without anthropomorphic analogies). I say this because I consider that an intelligent organization prevents, and where appropriate, detects and resolves its functional pathologies; that catalyzes and ensures your health. But what do I mean by smart organizations?
Smart organizations
I do not improvise it, but I reproduce it from a recent book that I have published. I propose to you some universal indicators of the collective intelligence to which I refer. Based on the postulates of different experts who have developed their theories in this regard, I think we can attribute a good dose of healthy and focused intelligence to a company that shows the following features:
- He is aware of his strengths and weaknesses Solves his problems well without creating new ones Prepares for a shared future without neglecting the present Detects opportunities and knows how to take advantage of them Continuously nurtures his knowledge and applies it Innovates in a natural and successful way Obtains the best results with the minimum effort, like flowing Prevents, detects and manages deviations from plans Perceives internal and external realities Adapts to new situations Goes further and anticipates It gives itself a space of advantage over competition Make the best decisions at the lowest possible level Meet the expectations of your customers and your people Combine inexcusable effectiveness with cultivating positive emotions Avoid corruption, complacency and inertia Enjoy serving society what is it used for?It functions as a living whole, the parts of which are adapted to fit together properly.
The reader may question or display some indicator, or add others, and may prefer to speak of excellent or prosperous organizations, rather than intelligent; but it will agree that we must have a reference, an ideal profile, to better identify deviations, disorders or diseases. For the solutions we can count on paths of action, but the specific recipe will have to be adjusted very well to each reality observed. Now I reproduce other paragraphs of that text of mine from years ago.
Today - I wrote it in 1999 - there are many postulates formulated by experts in business management: leadership, shared vision, corporate values, management and development by competencies, knowledge management, multi-source feedback, customer relationship management, innovation, organizational learning… These are recipes that companies can apply to safeguard their health / effectiveness in the face of changes and growing difficulties in the environment in which they operate. Richard Farson, author of "Management of the Absurd," argues that the healthier an organization is, the more capable it is of making the necessary changes. And Stan Gryskiewicz, author of “Positive Turbulence: Developing Climates for Creativity, Innovation and Renewal”,states that the healthiest / most effective organizations are those that harness turmoil as catalysts for creativity and innovation.
Already in 2007, I would like to insist that things change a lot, and there are new demands for the prosperity of organizations, and new postulates from experts. Things change so much that perhaps we should revise old solutions; For example, leadership could years ago be a good remedy for the dispersion of efforts, and today, by dint of insisting on it, it could be attracting too much attention to leaders and encouraging follow-along. It would be necessary to see, in each organization, if followers of the leaders are needed, or self-led professionals after shared goals. In short, the concept of collective intelligence must be periodically reviewed in each organization, adapted to it in a very measured way, and incorporate the most suitable specific indicators.
Just as Genrich Altshuller, an engineer from the Soviet Union, coined the concept of the “ideal end result” (ИКР) for creative problem solving in the 1940s, we all need to know what is the ideal in the operation of our companies, to get closer to him, and to better detect deviations and act accordingly.
conclusion
All companies have problems and even diseases; but it seems that they do not always face them with sufficient success: the care of organizational effectiveness goes through prevention and, where appropriate, through rapid diagnosis and treatment. Ignoring the existence of problems is not exactly a smart way to safeguard health; dedicate yourself to neutralizing the symptoms, either. The managerial function seems to consist, increasingly, in designing and maintaining organizations, and perhaps not so much in piloting them. The managers have to make a permanent exercise of analysis, synthesis, and adaptation of the solutions that are postulated to their next realities; this is certainly difficult. But it is not enough to stay healthy and effective: it is necessary to be mentally and physically strong, for, among other things,cultivate continuous improvement and innovation. This is said to be the formula for survival.
I have written this text with some spontaneity and I only intend to contribute to reflection. Without a doubt, we have to safeguard the health and effectiveness of organizations, and even the quality of life in them. If the anthropomorphic reference of Fernández Aguado contributes, when in the near future it is completed, welcome.
