The Organizational Skill: COMPATHY (Part 5)

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Organization Design Toolkit (103-slide PowerPoint presentation). Recent McKinsey research surveyed a large set of global executives and suggests that many companies, these days, are in a nearly permanent state of organizational flux. A rise in efforts in Organizational Design is attributed to the accelerating pace of structural change generated by market [read more]

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Note from the Editor:  This is the fifth of  series of  6 articles written by the author, Vardar Çobanoğlu.  The full series is a compelling piece on Organizational Behavior, Human Resources, and Corporate Management.  You can read the other parts and find the author’s other articles here.

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Psychological and Organizational Problems… Forever?

The famous Greek sophist Protagoras (485-410 BC) had said: “Man is the measure of everything.” Indeed, sparingly endowed by Nature, Intelligent Human Beings are conscious of Existence and Time, hence of the Individual NEEDS for Subsistence and WANTS for Survival. Depending on the degree of sufficiency of their SKILLS in meeting such Needs and in satisfying such Wants in an environment of scarce RESOURCES, and as a function of TRUST, they develop different patterns of BEHAVIOR for realizing these goals. TRUST, being the Belief in the counterparts’ Harmless Intentions as well as their Stability of Expression and Action, is the key to enable appropriate interrelations of all scales from the smallest nano where the Individual relates to itself¹, to the largest tera of the global society where it interacts with others. Even though a state of Trust or Distrust might exist from the very beginning as a natural occurrence, it is much rather the sensitivity and care of the concerned parties to nurture it with their attitudes and Behavior towards amelioration or aggravation.

Except for the rare cases of the TARZANs, the great majority of Mankind contract different economic, social and political clusters of varying sizes; willingly or compulsorily; naturally, artificially or virtually; with territorial dimensions extending from local to global as well as cyberspatial and even extraterrestrial in the near future. However, the masterpiece of Creation, the Homo Sapiens Sapiens had been (and unfortunately still is) the target of physical and moral manipulations and abuses of all kinds, including torture and murder, throughout its history of some 300.000 years despite all religious, philosophical and social norms, principles, rules, laws, regulations and systems trying to establish and enforce the concepts of “Free, but Peaceful Co-existence” or “Fair Interdependence.” Deep down at the roots of such maltreatments lie Individual Inner Struggles on one hand, and Co-existential Conflicts on the other. As observed during the course of the last 100 years’ World and Regional Wars as well as Terrorist Attacks, Holocausts and Apartheids, if such Psychological and Organizational Problems remain unsolved and suspended because they had been unnoticed, underestimated, suppressed, provoked, tolerated or nurtured, then they might gain momentum and synergy with exponential progressions over time, reaching such levels of complexity that radical interventions and rude practices which could have been avoided otherwise, would become unjustly legitimized and inevitably applied…

The Business Enterprise as a microcosm is no different then its macro-scale sector, mega-scale country, giga-scale region or tera-scale global society, as far as its members’ Psychological and Organizational Problems are concerned, but with lesser complexity and ever improving conditions since the Social Revolution of the 1960-70’s. Though we are still far away from the ideal, at least the learning experience over the past decades has been highly beneficial to the maturity of the involved parties. Also, without underestimating the encouraging, but at times compulsory role of the Governments and Public Institutions, we should not forget that the Private Business Enterprise, had its multidimensional contributions to the Society since the 19th century Industrial Revolution, with countless Discoveries, Innovations and Inventions that subsequently triggered or started crucial Chain Reactions and Transformations. This mission is still in full fledge practice with ever increasing material achievements, but a new managerial approach seems to be essential for reaching optimal levels with the respective satisfaction of the concerned parties.

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