Session 07
INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY WITHIN ORGANIZATIONS
Does information define the individual in the organization, or do symbols and artifacts serve that purpose?
Do any of these quotes resonate with you?
"We are living on a wandering planet", he beautifully observed. "From time to time, thanks to the aeroplane, it reveals to us its origin: a lake connected with the moon unveils hidden kinships. I have seen other signs of this." This idea of connection - an idea that was both environmentalist and humanist in its implications - joins all of Saint-Ex's writing, right through to his mystical work, Citadelle, unfinished at the time of his death (he died as he dreamed, disappearing in July 1944 during a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean). Up in his sky-lab, Saint-Ex developed a socialist version of heroism: a belief ... that "human solidarity was the only true wealth in life, mutual responsibility the only ethic".
Air of danger | Robert Macfarlane
BUT, WHAT IS FLIGHT TO ARRAS?
A quote from the book
I have been up there to seek once more the proof of my good faith, in the skies over Arras. I have committed my flesh to that endeavour. All my flesh. I committed it when loss seemed certain. I gave everything I could to the rules of the game ... In other words, the right to participate. To be bonded. To commune. To receive and to give. To be more than myself. To accede to that sense of fullness which is growing so strongly within me. To experience the love that I am experiencing towards my comrades, that love which does not come surging from somewhere outside, which does not seek expression - ever - except, to be truthful, at farewell dinners ... My love for the Squadron has no need of words. It is formed only of bonds. It is my very substance. I am one with the Squadron. That is all there is to it.
- Does the above speak to you? If you want more, glance over Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Uniforms ask to be taken seriously, with suggestions of probity and virtue (clergy and nuns, judges when robed), expertise (naval officers, senior chefs, airline pilots), trustworthiness (Boy and Girl Scouts, letter carriers, delivery men and women), courage (U.S. Marines, police officers, firefighters), obedience (high school and university marching bands, Ku Klux Klan), extraordinary cleanliness and sanitation (vendors of ice cream on the streets, operating-room personnel, beauty salon employees, food workers visible to the public, and, in hospitals, all wearers of white lab coats, where a single blood stain might cause shame and even dismissal).
- And see how it relates to Paul Fussell's ruminations on uniforms.
You don't have to read these unless you wish to, but we might touch upon them in conversation
- Sensemaking is matter of identity: it is who we understand ourselves to be in relation to the world around us.
- Sensemaking is retrospective: we shape experience into meaningful patterns according to our memory of experience.
- How and what becomes sensible depends on our socialization: where we grew up in the world, how we were taught to be in the world, where we are located now in the world, the people with whom we are currently interacting.
- Sensemaking is a continuous flow; it is ongoing, because the world, our interactions with the world, and our understandings of the world are constantly changing. You might also think of sensemaking as perpetually emergent meaning and awareness.
- Sensemaking in Organizations: Reflections on Karl Weick and Social Theory, Laura McNamara, Epic, 24 March 2015
... there is little consensus on what organizational culture actually is, never mind how it influences behavior and whether it is something leaders can change.
This is a problem, because without a reasonable definition (or definitions) of culture, we cannot hope to understand its connections to other key elements of the organization ... If we can define what organizational culture is, it gives us a handle on how to diagnose problems and even to design and develop better cultures.
- What Is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care?, Michael D. Watkins, HBR, 15 May 2013
Culture as a concept has had a long and checkered history ... In this context managers speak of developing the "right kind of culture" or a "culture of quality," suggesting that is concerned with certain values that managers are trying to inculcate in their organizations.
- Chapter 2, Uncovering the levels of culture, pages 25-37 in Schein, E. H. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership 3rd Edition.
THINGS WE'LL TALK ABOUT
- how do artifacts, espoused values, and basic underlying assumptions change how individuals feel about their organization?
- let's have some examples from you all
- do different individuals perceive the same organization differently?
- how do our interactions with elements of UNC's culture affect the way we feel about it?
- how do personal, visible identifiers like uniforms impact an individual's sense of belonging in an organization?
If the session will include an in-class exercise, it will be noted here.
SOMETHING TO TAKE AWAY
Senegal Fast Food
Amadou and Mariam, and their place in Last.fm, plus Manu Chao and his place in Last.fm, with some comments about them from their Wikipedia entries
Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, composed of the couple Amadou Bagayoko (guitar and vocals) (born in Bamako 24 October 1954) and Mariam Doumbia (vocals) (born in Bamako 15 April 1958). The pair, known as "the blind couple from Mali" met at Mali's Institute for the Young Blind, and found they shared an interest in music.
Manu Chao (born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on June 21, 1961), is a French singer of Spanish origin (Basque and Galician). He sings in French, Spanish, English, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages.
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