by what we do”
Chapter 1
'Our company runs like clockwork.' A radiating confidence middle- or top-level manager looks through the space of a conference room with a smile on his face, where dozens of other managers, similar to himself, follow his words. There are flashy infographics behind his back; sales growth chart steadily goes up, future business partners nod approvingly, remembering how accurate and reliable the Swiss chronometers at their wrists can be. Just imagine that!
Plans are made, strategies are developed, orders and instructions are given.
Prompt managers fulfil their tasks, departments and divisions work as one united team. The numbers in reports coincide with those planned by the management, products get to market regularly. Competitors moan with envy, top managers make even more ambitious plans.
A well-organised business today is similar to an expensive watch. It is a finely adjusted, reliable mechanism, with its every element working predictably and smoothly, year after year. It's an ideal picture, isn't it?
No.
It was impossible to find any flaws in such a system until yesterday. And the reason is not that there are no flaws, the reason is that we looked at the wrong things.
Yes, everything is excellent in terms of profit. With good business conducting and no barriers, a company may attain certain heights. But that is on the surface, and what is inside?
Yes, the company can run like clockwork. But in a clock or watch, the load lies down on screws, wheels and springs.
It is people who work in a company. Not lifeless parts made of metal and plastic, but people. Living people. Personalities.
Chapter 2
A mechanistic model, both of the World and business, is irretrievably becoming a thing of the past. It was very effective for its time, but humankind does not stand still. Today we understand that rigidly determined patterns for business development, not considering the individual personalities involved in them, their values and meanings, are doomed.
The future belongs to the companies organised according to entirely different principles. The companies, in which human resources are the key factor to everything. And not metaphorically. The future belongs to the companies where people live rather than work.
Because now an organisation is no longer similar to a heartless mechanism, but is becoming a living organism, developing according to its own rules rather than a plan imposed from above. The future lies with those companies, in which the 'carrots and sticks' management method is replaced by employees' pursuit of self-development and growth, realising meanings. Naturally, new types of business processes will require changing habitual mechanisms of control and regulation.
Chapter 3
No plan for development, even the most thoughtful and detailed one, can account for all variables and envisage all challenges. So, the new business paradigm of the 21st century does not consider people as 'instruments' or 'links'. Now they are, above all, personalities. And a personality can not be reduced to professional functions they perform. They can not be measured by KPI or IQ. Three-dimensionality, magnitude, and the most essential, uniqueness of every employee's personality ensure that the company, as an ecosystem with numerous participants, will be responsive to the slightest market fluctuations and changes in its trends. It will survive, adapt and develop. And all these will happen naturally.
Plasticity and flexibility of wildlife, responding to the slightest changes in the environment, should serve as a model for business. And the rich, deep and unique world of the personalities, composing the company will ensure this path's success. And a vision of every – literary every - employee can become the basis for the next step or next ambitious move of the whole company.
Naturally, the above scenario is not feasible in a company keeping to the rigid hierarchical structure, where the management's view is not negotiable, and orders should be obeyed immediately, even if subordinates sometimes find them irrational.
The vertical structure is being replaced by the horizontal one. A hierarchical pyramid is replaced by a network where any employee can come up with an initiative. And constant backup from other participants of the process can turn just an idea into a working idea – quickly and effectively. Simultaneously, the control is also shared and is no longer an exceptional prerogative of the management.
Stress, status and competences conflicts do not only become unnecessary, they are impossible.
Every employee in the new model understands what they do and why. Understands and shares the mission, values and meanings of the company entirely. It is not because they give in to the idea imposed by the management. It is because they are one of the authors of this idea. Just as the people next to them. Everyone in the team determines how and why the company exists, its mission, and how it changes in response to the new challenges of the time.
Chapter 4
A logical question arises. Why would a successful company today review its structure? Improve its management system? Change attitude to people and business itself? After all, everything worked perfectly before! Is the possible result worth such massive changes?
We believe it is.
First of all, because of an idyllic myth about a stable working company with employees always ready to claim they work for the best organisation in the World. It is actually a myth. Contradictions arising between the organisation's activity and personality of every employee involved are not illusory.
And today, and in the nearest perspective, it is those contradictions that may become the reason for both a serious crisis and complete crush of any project, even the one which seemed very sustainable.
Secondly, the new principles can improve the company's competitiveness precisely because it will respond quicker and more effectively to any slightest change. If competitiveness rises, the profit increases as well.
And lastly, creation of a live, organic environment, where every person feels at their place and understands that they don't just do something for a living or because they have a family to feed, but lives an exciting and meaningful part of their life, will result in employees' giving their full commitment to the business because it is their business. Their aim, their mission.
Yes, such massive changes can hardly be made in a day, but the first particularly important steps could be done today.
'We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk or meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.'
© Viktor Frankl
Austrian psychiatrist, psychologist, philosopher and neurologist, a former prisoner of concentration camps.
The founder of logotherapy (healing by meaning)
Chapter 5
According to our view on life, the concept of a human being is the following. Every one of us lives on bodily, psychic and spiritual levels. The personality is three-dimensional.
Legs, arms, kidneys, lungs belong to the somatic level. Emotions, fears, instincts and desires - to psychic.
The ability to love, compassion, responsibility, conscious, humour, kindness, and care exist at the spiritual level.
The most interesting part is that our body and psyche can become ill. The medicine has been trying to cure them for centuries, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
There's one more dimension in a human being – the spiritual one! But oddly enough, it DOES NOT GET ILL! Kindness and humour, care and defiant power of human spirit cannot be ill. This dimension can sometimes be closed (if a person is in psychosis or lost consciousness), but it is still present while a human being is alive.
Thanks to this view on life, knowledge and experience from studies and practice, we can help many people to become psychologically stable, strengthen and grow their personality.
Chapter 6
But before providing you with information about some specific steps that will help your company become precisely this kind of system, let us explain some more theory.
Any organisation, company in a present-day world is actually an ecosystem - live, changing, multilevel. And in no ecosystem, there is and can be a single hierarchy, determining everything.
We are used to the fact that in savannah, for instance, there is one king of all animals – the lion. But this is an outdated view of the World. Just try to imagine the tragedy that may occur if the lion alone determines development priorities for African flora and fauna, its goals, and tasks, as well as performance indicators it should reach in several years?!
Even if the beautiful predator wanted to create in his home Africa a paradise for all wildlife, he would hardly be able to do it – he is unlikely to be aware of other flora and fauna representatives' needs and visions.
So, according to the present-day view, the lion is not a king. Yes, he is on the top of the food pyramid, a very important part of an ecosystem, but he is just a part. And his own life and well-being depend on peacefully grazing antelopes, and packs of hyenas, wandering nearby, and even on prairie grass. And these components of the ecosystem are closely intertwined with many, many others.
A company is the same ecosystem. It is the unity of different, but at the same time, significant people. People with different abilities and talents, priorities, goals and meanings, different temperaments and personal backgrounds, motivation, and character features.
And all of them – so unlike and unique – are bonded together by an organisation. Its life and health will depend on every component, even seemingly 'unnoticeable'.
This becomes even more important, as in our case we speak not only and not even primarily about nature.
We speak about a human being.
Scientists say life of an ecosystem in nature is based on a constant exchange of energy and information. In the human world, additionally, there is one more especially important notion – humanity.
Human attitude. To live and work in a human world means to be tolerant, compassionate, accepting and understanding. To be humane.
And if using our help your company becomes a little more humane, both in its inner life and in its outer reactions, it will become more viable, stable, prosperous.
Every employee in such company will try to do their best to help the organisation to live, stay healthy and prosper. After all, they are not a screw here, not a resource, not a part of a mechanism. They are above all a human being here. What can be more valuable, more important?
Chapter 7
That is why we offer leaders of organisations and enterprises a system of psychological support for people. The system working at every level of organisation.
We are ready to offer:
To obtain psychological stability, personal growth for every employee – individual psychological support, based on humanistic approaches, including logotherapy, existential psychotherapy, etc.
For comfortable and safe interaction between employees – psychological support and/or training groups, the main principles of which are also rooted in the humanistic paradigm.
For organisations – support for business processes, such as recruiting people with identical or attuned values, meanings; shortening distance between the company's management and its employees, etc.
To create an integrated life field for everybody – psychologically healthy leisure activities (lectures, theme nights, sports events, quizzes, quests) both for employees and members of their families.
In our work, we focus on needs and requirements of an individual company. That is why we are ready to develop and realise, in close cooperation with the management, a complex, unique program, considering all targets and current development zones.
We believe: a person is a primary value today.
The one, realising this principle in their work will not only be able to change and improve their company in the best possible way. They will be able to change society, the World.
Our work with organisations is performed by the team. It may be 2 or 15 people working simultaneously depending on a certain company`s request. Our team unites professionals with the same life views and values, but different experiences and perspectives on problems solving. This allows to choose the most appropriate and effective group of psychologists for a given task.