The Authentic Organization

The Action-Learning model is a four part cycle that’s fairly representative of the various models that try to describe the process that an organization goes through over time, as it learns from what it does. Different practitioners use different words to describe the cycle, but this is a fair example:

Do -> Observe -> Reflect -> Plan -> (back to Do)

In my experience, a great many organizations tend to skip the Observe and Reflect stages or at least make them fairly cursory. If being an authentic organization means being true in some way, I suggest that its essential for the organization to bring this cycle into balance and develop its powers of observation and reflection.

You can see how an organization’s (and its staff’s) relationship to time, failure, and each other (see my earlier posts on those topics) might affect this balance. If there is never enough time, then really, there probably isn’t even enough time to plan, let alone dispassionately observe or collectively reflect. If the cultural norms and the socio-technical systems work together to keep people from dealing with failures (large or small), then there are barriers to honest observation and reflection. And if the human relationships are not open and candid, yet again the avoidance is reinforced.

Bringing this cycle into balance will feel to many organizations as out of balance. To their way of doing business, it would be objectionable to spend excessive resources on the past. Why are we wasting our time, some might ask.

Does this look and feel like it might be an organizational form of mindfulness?