The Authentic Organization

It is sometimes said that a narrow self-image prevented the wealthy American railroad companies from investing in automobiles and airplanes in the first half of the twentieth century. They saw themselves as being in the railway business, rather than in the transportation business. Thus, by the middle of the century, the modes of transportation that might previously have been business opportunities for them, led to their decline.

Of course, the real story is far more complicated than that. The decline of the railroads in the US is due in part to massive public subsidies to the automobile, the political phenomenon of cheap oil, and economic repercussions of World War Two. But the fact remains that the railroad companies could have taken advantage of all those factors, had they, in essence, been willing to put themselves out of business.

There are important implications in this for civil society organizations and for authentic organizations in general. Organizational self-image plays an important role in sustainability, innovation, and effectiveness at all levels, by providing a frame for every aspect of organizational life.

Although the contemporary conversation about frames has focused on their role in the rhetoric of politics and media, it has its origins in Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of the self and on the organizing of experience. Most crucially, the frames shaped by self-image determine the categories and the questions we use to understand our experiences and to make our choices.

The biggest of the choices framed by organizational self-image are the choices concerning strategy. Is an advocate for the fate of an endangered species just in the business of saving that animal? If that were true, then there might be nothing wrong with simply putting them all in zoos, or even making pets of them. A systems perspective, which might come more easily to environmental groups than others, has led many wildlife organizations to adopt a strategy of protecting habitat. That broader self-image has prevented those organizations from making the same mistake the railroad executives made and saved a lot of species from extinction.

Is there a best self-image for civil society organizations or for any particular organization? I doubt it. Organizational self-image should not be so large as to become meaningless, but it should be large enough to allow for thinking outside the box, or at least, outside the frame.