This article is part of a series that discusses the management book Humanocracy. The core of Humanocracy is made up of seven principles that are intended to provide orientation when you have to design organizations or act within them. This article deals with the first principle: the principle of community.
The core idea
According to Hamel & Zanini, the principle of community is particularly important when organizations have to deal with unforeseen problems. Bureaucracies are very good at dealing with routine problems, i.e. those that regularly reoccur and can therefore be easily adapted to by developing standardized solution strategies. Particularly in the context of innovation, however, it is becoming increasingly important for organizations to be able to handle problems for which there is no blueprint solution.
This is exactly what communities are needed for. They are better prepared to deal with such weakly structured problems1 because, according to the authors, they focus solely on factual problems. In contrast to this, status differences and hierarchical wrangling are neutralized by trusting cooperation and peer-to-peer accountability. As a network of trusting relationships, communities are able to bring people together “who are breaking new ground and have a shared passion for making a difference” (162). Communities thus become central competence carriers. And because an organization that relies on humanocracy consists of a mosaic of competencies (170) rather than a pyramid of power, Hamel & Zanini state that “performance-oriented communities are the backbone of a humanocracy” (162).
Our considerations
It is somewhat surprising that Hamel & Zanini emphasize the principle of community so strongly because other principles of humanocracy such as ownership, market or meritocracy promote individualizing tendencies. At the same time, it is highly plausible to raise the question of how individual contributions can be reunited and coordinated. In the concept of humanocracy, community is thus the anchor principle for addressing questions regarding the integration of shared work.
Of course, the question of integration as the other side of the division-of-labor coin is of central importance. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether the principle of community can deliver this integrative performance, especially if the more individualized principles are applied at the same time. The assumption that trusting relationships and collective orientation can be established or even develop by themselves seems overly optimistic, especially when members are constantly evaluating each other and their ideas have to assert themselves in internal organizational markets.
Besides, there is another reservation of a completely different kind. Although communities are suitable as a metaphor for egalitarian structures, structurally speaking they are diametrically opposed to the basic principles of formal organization. Organizations are characterized by the fact that they assign specific roles to their members, but do not address them as persons in their entirety. What a sales manager does in their free time is none of the organization’s business, or that of their colleagues in the organization.
From a sociological perspective, organizations are based on specific relationships and in their specific roles, members of an organization address job-related concerns. Everything that goes beyond this is a private matter. This does not mean such things cannot be broached upon, but they cannot be required as part of a person’s job-related duties. Communities are different because they are based on diffuse relationships.2 It is not roles that shape a community’s social structure, but individuals in their entirety.3 This is why the opposite is true of communities: basically speaking, all possible topics can be addressed and the members of a community have to justify not talking about certain topics. But such diffuse relationships cannot be organized.
For Hamel & Zanini, this is precisely their benefit. We, on the other hand, also see a problem in this: the better the organization succeeds in creating genuine communities, the less chance it has of formatively influencing these communities. As long as the communities are oriented towards the organization’s goals, this can be unproblematic; but it is also risky because an organization can scarcely exert any creative influence if the community dynamics no longer actually contribute to its goals.
How it could work
The principle of community is actually a response to two different problems. On the one hand, organizations are required to promote cooperation and creativity in dealing with complex problems. This can be achieved by creating islands where the individualizing principles of humanocracy are suspended. Professionals, in particular, often gain status through their peer-related reputation. Where cooperation is relied on to develop joint solutions, it not just individual performance that counts and it is therefore impossible to rely solely on competition-promoting principles.
Secondly, Hamel & Zanini say that the principle of community is intended to integrate previously divided work. Meaningfully combining individual contributions into a whole is a long-term problem for all organizations and the central focal point of many organizational development projects. Anyone who appeals to trust and community is simultaneously shifting the integration challenge onto individuals instead of addressing it structurally. All that is gained is that the culprits for failed integration can be named. So here, it is also crucial to design organizational structures in such a way that they support integration – for example, by making it possible for people with different perspectives to negotiate productively with one another.
From this perspective, it seems sensible to focus more on the precise design of a role-promoting organizational structure than on appeals to a community structure. This would counteract tendencies towards overreaching and acknowledge the limits of an organization and its members, which is also a moment of humanization.4
We are looking forward to the discussion!
The next article in this series:
Literatur
[1] For the distinction between ill-structured and well-structured problems, see Simon, Herbert A. (1973): The structure of ill-structured problems. Artificial Intelligence 4, 181–201.
[2]On the difference between diffuse and specific relationships, see Parsons, Talcott / Shils, Edward (2001. [1951]): Toward a general theory of action. Theoretical foundations for the social sciences. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
[3] On the community as a pre-modern principle of social structuring, see Tönnies, Ferdinand (2010): Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundbegriffe der reinen Soziologie. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges.
[4] For a more elaborate account see Matthiesen, Kai / Muster, Judith / Laudenbach, Peter (2022): Die Humanisierung der Organisation. Wie man dem Menschen gerecht wird, indem man den Großteil seines Wesens ignoriert. München: Vahlen.
