One Apple A Day #318
Yesterday I was challenged to shift my perspective on organisations.
From “organisation of people” to “people who organise themselves”.
We used to think of organisations as entities with their own identity.
An organisation has a purpose and a form to better realise that purpose.
People are part of the organisation when they collaborate in some form with it.
Sharing the purpose of the organisation is crucial, but not necessary.
It is usually easy to say if you are part or not of an organisation.
If you are in or out.
Depending on the level of consciousness of the people involved (see Reinventing Organisations book), organisations use different forms, but two elements are common:
* the organisation has an identity
* there is a way to understand if you are part or not of the organisation
Lately, the purpose has become more and more important in defining the identity of the organisation. And the boundaries of an organisation are blurred, so sometimes you can be only partially involved.
Still, those two elements can be found in any organisation.
But what happens if you remove all the people from an organisation?
Would it still exist?
In the end, an organisation is just a product of our imagination.
Be it a company, a country, a party or a religion.
They are products of collective imagination.
If all Italians leave Italy, does the country still exist?
I’m not saying the land, I mean the nation with its laws, rules and structures.
What if we raise our level of consciousness to a higher state from which we won’t need organisations.
From that state, we will organise depending on our collective purpose.
In a fluid way.
We won’t need something external to give us an identity (I am Italian, I am Catholic, I work there and so on) because we are fully aware of who we are.
Just dreaming obviously.
But maybe the world is mature to rethink not only the form but the whole idea of organisation.