Читать книгу Building Collective Intelligence in the Organization - Sergio Vergara Venegas - Страница 8

FOREWORD

Building collective intelligence in the organization: A new way of understanding and managing the organizational climate in order to align the well-being of people with the management of the company

I have spent many years studying and practicing in the vast world that is management. I started as an engineer looking at management from the mathematical models and well-structured problems of operational research. Knowing how to deal with these issues is crucial in the operation of the modern world. Without them, airplanes could not take off and large production plants could not operate.

But management is not limited to the technical, economic, commercial, legal, and so many other aspects of the “formal” world of management. These aspects are approached from the sciences, from quantitative and mathematical perspectives. This has become such a relevant approach that we often hear that “without measurement, there is no management.”

More than twenty years ago, I took on the course “Organization and Behavior in the Company,” which we offer to the students in the School of Engineering at Universidad Católica. This course seeks to raise our students’ awareness of management issues that are part of the “subtle” world, i.e., issues that have to do with people and their interactions, what conditions their behavior, what moves them to commit and act in the world of organizations and companies.

This is a very different approach. It is based on social sciences and ethics, psychology, sociology, political science, anthropology and even neuroscience, whose progress in recent years has shed light on our behavior and reactions. It is also a central view, because management is based on the delicate fabric of people and their relationships. Management has to do with mobilizing people, coordinating their behavior and building a common project that inspires their enthusiasm. In the words of the author, “organizations have a purpose that requires the coordinated effort of individuals and teams.”

The focus of this book is the management of organizational climate, which is precisely the result of our interactions and efforts to self-coordinate, an emerging reality that arises from our capabilities, relationships, and treatment. Therefore, we cannot expect an expert to tell us what to do. This goes against the very nature of what organizational climate is. How can we expect an outsider to give us a recipe that will simply fix everything? There are no recipes. We should not go around thinking that it is enough to be a “good person” or to “maintain good relations.” This is a much more complex issue than that because the organizational climate is something we all build together, and it affects us all.

This book stems from the importance of the work environment in organizations. A good organizational climate leads to good performance and satisfaction with the work that is performed. According to the author, this means “people have a good time being productive at work, that the work itself involves dynamics that are motivating, energizing and/or generate learning.” The organizational climate is like a link between people’s behavior and the organization’s performance.

Managing the organizational climate leads to progress towards greater maturity in the way people relate and work, and this, in turn, allows the organization to advance in a more efficient and sustainable manner towards the results it has set out to achieve. There is a virtuous circle because the good results of the organization will, in turn, be a factor of improvement in the organizational climate. Hence, its importance and the need to place the management of the organizational climate in the sights of an organization’s top management because it is through the climate that it is possible to connect the “world of relations” with the “world of results.”

But who has actually seen the organizational climate? In which supermarket or store is it sold? It is one of those variables that we invent in the world of social sciences to refer to something that we feel, understand, and need, but that has no physical reality. We call these realities “latent variables,” which we can only perceive indirectly. Who has actually been able to see organizational climate, trust, or motivation? Yet anyone can clearly and unambiguously tell whether the organizational climate is good or bad, whether or not they trust someone else or are motivated. It is like love, no one has seen it, and yet we feel its presence and impact. This complex phenomenon leaves scientists speechless, but poets come to the rescue. According to the author, “the construct we call organizational climate is not something ‘in itself,’ but a way to name and measure the product created in the interaction of the different parties.”

Sergio Vergara invites us to enter this mysterious and unknown world. The reason for this is clear: if we want to do things well, we need a good organizational climate. We do not know what organizational climate is, but we do know that it is important, that we build it together and, when we have achieved an uplifting and positive climate, it contributes to our enthusiasm for our work.

Even though organizational climate cannot be seen, felt, or smelled, it can be perceived. To “measure” it, we can use surveys that measure people’s perceptions. As put by the author: “Organizational climate is an indicator of the degree of well-being of people as well as the internal environment and the degree of satisfaction and energy arising from the work.” Measurements are valuable because the results provide insight that can be used for management. However, we must be aware of the way in which these surveys are answered and their meaning, since they are not neutral instruments (like a thermometer) but respond to people’s perceptions. There is also the possibility of them being used as a means of “sending a message to the boss” or “seeking retaliation,” distorting what was really intended to be measured. According to the author, “if people remain silent, air out their problems in the hallway and use the survey as a protest mechanism, they are not helping the process to mature.”

The basic question is what to do and how to react to the results of these surveys. This is what organizational climate management is all about. Here is where the book opens like a treasure trove of wisdom. The book is the result of and expresses the author’s study, reflection and practice. In it, he gives great recommendations, provides diverse and useful tools, as well as numerous and enlightening examples.

The core of Vergara’s model is that the management of organizational climate can reach different levels of maturity. If you are in the primary stage, the relationships between people have not even been established. Attempts to establish this relationship produce “bewilderment and frustration.” They can lead -I would add- to conflict and the collapse of the relationship. The first steps must be taken to open paths of rapprochement. This is when social activities, breakfasts, sports afternoons, and the many other ways that have been found to bring coworkers closer together, pay off. According to the author, this is the “activism” stage. It is certainly a good first step, but it only scratches the surface. It is necessary to move “from social relations to work relations,” where the people involved share their interpretations and ways of doing things. There is not always agreement, but there is room to talk, to have “courageous conversations” and move towards consensus. This is the “understanding” stage. But to conquer the summit, we have to take a step further. We must seek a total integration of understandings and wills in order to do a good job and also have a good time. Interaction has advanced from the more superficial layers of a casual relationship, of a purely social or legal and contractual nature, to the deeper layers, in which it is necessary to understand what is being done and the meaning of the activity, to have a clear appreciation of the contribution that each person is making. It is not just a matter of having a positive environment, but of preparing oneself to do things well and to be passionate about the work.

When you reach this stage, you have gone from a group of people with barely any relationship, to a highly cohesive team, which has managed to create a reality that transcends them all. The author calls this “collective intelligence,” which includes organizational learning, a shared emotion and commitment to the common project. This is the “managing” stage, which is characterized by the achievement of a common vision, a deeper way of approaching the work together, and the ability to handle conflicts without deteriorating the relationship.

Organizational climate is, then, a reality that we cannot observe, but that has a tremendous impact on the organization’s performance and must therefore be at the center of the management’s attention. The basic recommendation is to manage the organizational climate in such a way as to move from the most superficial levels of the relationship to the deepest, from the purely social to what is more proper and genuine of the work itself. The road ahead is a minefield, because no matter how much care we put into the relationship, we are still going to have conflicts and disagreements. We are going to make mistakes and fall into contradictions. Many times, we are not going to realize it until the damage to the relationship has already been done. Hence, all prevention is of little value. This is also why Chapter 6 is so valuable, because it warns us of the positive and negative behaviors (the dos and don’ts) for each level of maturity.

Another recommendation of great relevance is to recognize that there are different roles in the management of the organizational climate, and that each person must assume their role, since all contribute to the climate that ultimately prevails in the organization. Senior managers must be role models and define the rules of the game. Middle managers (or leaders), who are in direct contact with people lower down in the organization and are key in relationships, must act as channels of communication. Finally, individuals must show a positive disposition to be part of the team and participate. Otherwise, all efforts to achieve a good organizational climate will fail. These roles change as one moves up the organizational climate maturity scale.

In short, those responsible for an organization must make their best efforts to manage the organizational climate. This means moving towards deeper and deeper levels of maturity and ensuring that each person in the organization assumes their due responsibility, at every moment and in every circumstance, in the effort to build, ideally, “the best organizational climate in the world.”

Reading this book and analyzing its recommendations is an essential starting point to managing the organizational climate of a company or organization.

NICOLAS MAJLUF

Professor

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Monday, December 8, 2014