Jose Mujica and the HUMAN centric organization
Reuben Chaudhury
Strategy & Transformation Advisor | Social Entrepreneur | Board Director | Advisor & Mentor
Today’s corporations are barely recognizable from their predecessors, which were created as a result of the Industrial Automation in the late 1700s. Since then we’ve been running our corporations like a machine, organized around processes, rather than one built around people. After all the very word "corporation" derives from corpus, the Latin word for "body of people” – maybe it’s time to rethink how we organize corporations around people - a HUMAN centric organization. What would such a model look like – a few thought starters.
From hierarchical models, to a decentralized networks of individuals
Traditionally corporations have been organized as a hierarchy, around the concept of “division of labor” i.e. decisions and “thinking” happen at the top and execution happens at the bottom, with a middle layer supervising and coordinating the actions of the “executors”. In a knowledge based economy, a loosely aligned network of highly capable knowledge workers who make their own decisions – a decentralized model might be more effective. (The analogy to the centralized client-server models of the past, to the decentralized IP based cloud computing model might be apt here!)
Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization and Dan Pink’s Free Agent Nation analysis below shows the %age of “free agents” (not solely affiliated with a single corporation) in the US, suggests that this process may already be underway. (~40% of the current workforce are free agents, more than twice that percentage, 20 years ago)
From a “Big man” (cult of the CEO) to a more egalitarian ethos (“Jose Mujica” model)
A quick glance at the literature surrounding successful companies indicates a dominant narrative of the “big man” – the genius who “built” or “runs” the company. This narrative is exemplified by the personality cults surrounding Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, and Bill Gates to name a few. ”Big man”, a phrase more commonly used to discuss third world political leaders (e.g. Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire/Congo, Suharto of Indonesia), is apt (minus the human rights atrocities, of course) for the personality cults in business! Surprisingly it is the political field, which throws up an alternative – Jose Mujica, a Uruguayan politician and former guerilla fighter for the Tupamaros, who was elected President in 2010. Often described as "the world's 'humblest' president", Mujica eschews the trappings of power and continues to live on an austere farm on the outskirts of Montevideo where he cultivates chrysanthemums for sale. His lifestyle is reflected by his choice of an aging Volkswagen Beetle as transport. The Beetle is valued at $1,800 and represented the entirety of his personal wealth! (his spouse owns the ranch). Joko Widodo and Evo Morales are other recent leaders who have hewn a similar path. (The picture shows Jose Mujica outside his house in Montevideo)
While a hierarchical, process based model led by a “strong” leader does deliver efficiencies which were crucial to the success of the industrial economy, a knowledge based economy requires a different model – a HUMAN centric one!
Effectiveness Facilitator | Organizational Change Management | Strategy-Culture Alignment
10 年Reuben, your view resonates with me as my profession is all about evolving human systems. The challenge I am faced with in my work is how to design this concept for environments that are a combination of knowledge and industrial workers. Having come from professional services, I am learning many lessons about how both may have a place depending on the mix, yet I have a determination (having read about one or two self-managed plant environments!) that we need not assume ignorance is stupidity, and that with the right focus on people development, social/soft skills and discipline learned in academic environments can be shared with what I will simply call non-academics. Thanks for initiating thought and reflection.