In my last post, I wrote about the problems that hierarchical organizations cause employees, including depression, anxiety and heart attacks, as well as being subjected to the inequality of privilege and income disparity. I also suggested that society, as a whole, is impacted when the executive suite engages in illegal or immoral actions (e.g. The VW emissions scandal) that are covered up by controlling the information flow. That post was focused on management hierarchy and suggested that many organizations have found it possible to function effectively with reduced hierarchy.
In this post I introduce an article, “The Responsibilities of Members in an Organization That Is Learning” that speaks to the responsibilities of all employees related to those same issues. I use the term “organizational members” in this article because we have no term in English that refers to people at all levels of an organization. The term employee, in its common usage, references only those not in management positions, although we would all readily acknowledge that managers are also employees of organizations. This article addresses the responsibilities of all “organizational members” irrespective of level. It is noteworthy to recognize that people, like myself, who study and consult with organizations, direct our insights and advice to managers, and only rarely to all organizational members, as I do in this article. In the linked article I elaborate on six responsibilities of members:
- Actively engage in organizational dialogue that continually examines the worth of the organization’s
purpose.
- Bring the best available knowledge to bear on organizational issues.
- Function as a co-participant in the creation, maintenance, and transformation of organizational
realities. - Willingly share what each knows with colleagues and create forums and systems by which that can be accomplished.
- Actively learn from experience every day to develop as a responsible, participating member of the organization.
- Share in the responsibility for the governance of the organization.
I use the word responsibilities, rather than possibilities or actions in the title, to underscore the idea that by doing nothing, organizational members collude in holding the problems mentioned above in place.
Download Responsibilities of members in an Organization that is learning