Organize Ourselves!
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Monika Kostera ‘...a remarkable book, simultaneously profound, thought-provoking, and beautiful.’ – Professor Daved Barry Inspirations and Ideas for Self- Organization and Self-Management Organize Ourselves! Organize ‘This is a tremendously important text, standing out among the rising tide of studies and manifestoes aimed at tapping the heretofore neglected yet profuse supplies of human faculties and energies marginalized and suppressed by the orthodox bureaucratic model of management. It offers simultaneously a profound diagnosis of the current state of affairs, an exhaustive inventory of its limitations and deficiencies - as well as opening new vistas and presenting a thorough analysis of an art of management fit to avail itself of the novel opportunities the post- bureaucratic era might offer.’ – Zygmunt Bauman ‘In its playful style, its photographic illustrations from the author’s valuable collection, its joyful spirit, and its’ totally uninhibited mix of personal storytelling and poetry, this book draws the reader into the author’s private life with the free ranging discussion of ideas. It provides a welcome antidote to the stifling straightness of much academic writing.’ – Professor Yiannis Gabriel, University of Bath and University of Lund ‘This great book uses the idea of organization as an injunction to take back ‘management’ from those who wish to make it a discipline based on hierarchy and order. Monika Kostera celebrates all the things in heaven and earth that are not dreamed of in conventional managerialism, and use them as springboards to different ways of thinking about management. Read this book if you want to ‘occupy management’, to make management yours, and make a form of knowledge that can be used by the 99%.’ – Professor Martin Parker, Bristol University i ii Organize Ourselves! iii Published by Mayfly Books. Available in paperpack and free online at www.mayflybooks.org in 2019. © Monika Kostera 2019 All images by Monika Kostera except: Image A by unknown Image N by Jerzy Kociatkiewicz Cover art by Karolina Matyjaszkowicz ISBN (Print) 978-1-906948-48-1 ISBN (PDF) 978-1-906948-49-8 ISBN (ebook) 978-1-906948-50-4 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 First edition published by Routledge 2014 as Occupy Management! Inspirations and ideas for self-management and self-organization. Organize Ourselves! Inspirations and Ideas for Self- Organization and Self-Management Monika Kostera may f l y vi Contents Acknowledgements xi Introduction 1 PART I: Planning 23 Introducing the 3 I’s: Imagination, intuition, inspiration 25 1. Imagination 26 1.1. A short history of imagination 29 1.2. Reflection 1 30 1.3. Sounds, images, dreams... 35 1.4. Reflection 2 38 1.5. Stories from organizations 42 1.6. Questions to reflect on 46 2. Inspiration 48 2.1. A sort history of inspiration 51 2.2. Reflection 1 52 2.1. Sounds, images, dreams... 57 2.4. Reflection 2 61 2.5. Stories from organizations 65 2.6. Questions to reflect on 69 3. Intuition 71 3.1. A short history of intuition 73 3.2. Reflection 1 75 3.3. Sounds, images, dreams 79 3.4. Reflection 2 82 3.5. Stories from organizations 87 3.6. Questions to reflect on 91 vii PART II: Organizing 93 Introducing the 3 S’s: structure, space and synchronicity 95 4. Structure 96 4.1. A short history of structure 98 4.2. Reflection 1 100 4.3. Sounds, images, dreams 105 4.4. Reflection 2 108 4.5. Stories from organizations 112 4.6. Questions to reflect on 116 5. Space 118 5.1. A short history of space 120 5.2. Reflection 1 122 5.3. Sounds, images, dreams 127 5.4. Reflection 2 130 5.5. Stories from organizations 135 5.6. Questions to reflect on 140 6. Synchronicity 141 6.1. A short history of time and synchronicity 143 6.2. Reflections 1 145 6.3. Sounds, images, dreams 150 6.4. Reflections 2 154 6.5. Stories from Organizations 159 6.6. Questions to reflect on 164 PART III: Motivating 165 Introducing the 3 L’s: leadership, learning, love 167 7. Leadership 168 7.1. A short history of leadership 170 7.2. Reflection 1 172 7.3. Sounds, images, dreams 176 7.4. Reflection 2 179 7.5. Stories from organizations 184 7.6. Questions to reflect on 188 8. Learning 190 8.1. A short history of learning 193 8.2. Reflection 1 194 8.3. Sounds, images, dreams 199 viii 8.4. Reflection 2 202 8.5. Stories from organizations 207 8.6. Questions to reflect on 212 9. Love 213 9.1. A short history of love 215 9.2. Reflection 1 217 9.3. Sounds, images, dreams 222 9.4. Reflection 2 226 9.5. Stories from organizations 230 9.6. Questions to reflect on 235 PART IV: Controlling 237 Introducing the 3 E’s: ethos, ethics and ecology 239 10. Ethos 240 10.1. A short history of ethos 242 10.2. Reflections 1 244 10.3. Sounds, images, dreams 250 10.4. Reflections 2 253 10.5. Stories from organizations 258 10.6. Questions to reflect on 263 11. Ethics 265 11.1. A short history of ethics 267 11.2. Reflection 2 269 11.3. Sounds, images, dreams 274 11. 4. Reflection 2 277 11.5. Stories from organizations 282 11.6. Questions to reflect on 287 12. Ecology 289 12.1. A short history of ecology 291 12.2. Reflection 1 293 12.3. Sounds, images, dreams 299 12.4. Reflection 2 302 12.5. Stories from Organizations 308 12.6. Questions to reflect on 312 13. A Coda 314 Bibliography 318 ix x Image A To the memory of my grandfather Jan Stolarczyk (1913- 1982), skilled grinder, ardent reader and thinker, and beautiful human being, who lived a life of compassion and freedom, even under the difficult circumstances provided by the times he lived in. xi xii Acknowledgements would like to thank my friends and colleagues who have in I many ways helped and inspired me to write this book. First and foremost, I am infinitely grateful to Piotr Korzeniecki and Jadwiga Dziekan-Michalik, who encouraged me to break the genre barrier. Inga Grześczak was an inexhaustible source of knowledge for the historical fragments. I would not have been able to find my way around the classics without her. I am also grateful to readers and reviewers who read the text and responded with ideas, comments and interpretations. To have a lively conversation about a book one has written is perhaps one of the best things of all. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Routledge who agreed to a Mayfly publication under a new title (the original title wasOccupy Management!, 2014). Finally and especially, thank you Jerzy Kociatkiewicz, my husband, for everything. xi xii Introduction Image B “The social affections”, says the economist, “are accidental and disturbing elements in human nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are constant elements. Let us eliminate the inconstants, and, considering the human being as a merely covetous machine, examine by what laws of labour, purchase, 1 Organize Ourselves! and sale, the greatest accumulative result is obtainable. Those laws once determined, it will be for each individual afterwards to introduce as much of the disturbing affectionate elements as he chooses, and to determine for himself the result of the new conditions supposed.” […] Observe, I neither impugn nor doubt the conclusion of science if its terms are accepted. I am simply uninterested in them, as I should be in a science of gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. (Ruskin, 2012, p. 2-3). The era we have just left behind us, one which Zygmunt Bauman (2000) calls solid modernity, and which those of us who are over 40 years old still remember quite well, was all about faith. My generation grew up to believe in many things, and most of all – the future. The future we believed in would turn out well for whole of humanity, and, hopefully, for each of us, because of three fundamental ideas: technological progress, democracy, and science. When I was little, I watched the first landing on the Moon on TV. I was allowed stay up unusually late, as did most of my friends from kindergarden. Small wonder: this was indeed a “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”, something our parents knew we would remember for the rest of our lives. We all played astronauts, of course, and we believed we would spend our summer holidays of the future on the Moon, jumping around, just like Neil Armstrong, dressed in cosmically cool suits. That particular dream did not come true, but so many other incredible things became possible: traveling by air is now accessible to almost everyone in the developed countries; the once so expensive flight between Warsaw and London can now be bought cheaper than the same trip by train – which, by the way, is in itself another wonder. It has become possible to travel by railways all the way from Warsaw to London, including the bit under the Channel. We move around more than ever before, not always to 2 Introduction our greatest satisfaction: it is now expected of many of us to be “mobile”, to be ready to displace ourselves without making a fuss; a meeting in Norwich one day, a lecture in Helsinki, the other… I know many families living and working in different cities, even, in different countries, not because they want to be separated, but because it is possible, and thus – taken for granted by employers.