I have always had concerns about organizational health—not just how organizations are designed, the appropriateness of an organization’s strategy, structure, and other processes—but also, and in particular, the wellbeing of its employees. A major goal in my life is to create healthy organizations with people who feel good in whatever they are doing, places of work where people can be the best that they can be.1 To me, the acid test of this kind of organization is when employees enthusiastically recommend working there to their family and friends. When that happens, it’s a clear sign that the organization has its employees’ wellbeing at heart. Unfortunately, in my experience, very few companies pass this wellness test.
Authentizotic Organizations
Many years ago, as a way of describing these more enlightened organizations, I created the term authentizotic. These kinds of organizations should be seen as ideal types—something executives could strive toward. I see it as an end position of a scale of best places to work. (Of course, reaching the final position on the scale would be pretty much Utopian.) The term itself is made up from two Greek words: authenteekos and zoteekos. The first conveys the idea that the organization is authentic. In its broadest sense, the word authentic describes both something that conforms to fact and is therefore worthy of trust and reliance and being true to oneself or an identified person. As a workplace label, authenticity implies that the organization has a compelling connective quality for its employees in its vision, mission, culture, and structure. The organization’s leadership has communicated clearly and convincingly not only the how but also the why, revealing meaning in each person’s task. Its leadership walks the talk; they are genuine; they are being what they claim to be; they are real.
The term zoteekos means “vital to life.” In the organizational context, it describes how people are invigorated and energized by their work and experience a sense of balance and completeness. These organizations meet the human need for exploration, implying that continuous learning is an important element in its corporate culture. Over and above this, the zoteekos element of authentizotic organizations addresses the concept of self-assertion in the workplace, which makes for a sense of effectiveness and competence, autonomy, initiative, creativity, entrepreneurship, and industry.
Many years ago, I was in Copenhagen to visit a well-known pharmaceutical company that had asked me for advice. At the airport, I flagged a taxi to take me to its address and the taxi driver asked me enthusiastically if I was visiting that particular company. When I said I was, he started spontaneously to sing its praises. He couldn’t stop expressing his admiration for the company. He said his father used to work for there, his uncle was still working there, and just recently, his sister had started to work in the same place. It was clear that the taxi driver’s greatest wish was to be offered a job at this company. Talk about enthusiasm. What better public relations can a company have? Obviously, there was no need for this company to hire a PR firm. How great is that, to have that kind of fan club!
This level of enthusiasm is heartwarming, but more pragmatically, having that sort of reputation is very good for the bottom line. After all, if you have happy employees, they are not likely to leave, meaning your recruitment costs will be lower. Also, it’s reasonable to assume that happy employees, unless they are masochists, work harder. Happy employees are also likely to be nicer to customers, which can make all the difference. There is a lot to be said for customer satisfaction. The sum total of all these factors contributes to a healthy bottom line.2
I have been told that my concept of authentizotic organizations and my arguments about the need for them are idealistic and unrealistic. Dystopias are more likely to occur than Utopias. Perhaps they’re right. Maybe I am too idealistic. Maybe I am alluding to places of work that exist only in my imagination. I do think, however, that it doesn’t hurt always to have something to strive for. Reaching Utopia may not be realistic but reaching for it can’t do any harm, even if realistically an organization is likely to fall short of the goal. Working in an organization with a great corporate culture is only to be recommended. It is nice to be surrounded by committed people who like what they are doing, and who have a sense of ownership. Of course, it is easy to list a set of great cultural values on the company’s website, as the example of Enron shows, but what differentiates mediocre from great companies is whether or not the people in the organization live those values. If they don’t, there will be consequences.
How to Get There?
As I have suggested before, one way to create authentizotic organizations is to use group (team) coaching, which can become an ideal trust-building exercise and deepen the connections among executives and between executives and their organizations. Team coaching, using the life case study methodology, can liberate people from the hidden intrapsychic forces that prevent them from changing and from assuming a more meaningful, authentic life within an organization. In Chap. 2, I described how this intervention technique can be a great antidote to organizational silo formation and thinking. It is also a very effective way to help leaders become more adept at sensing the hidden psychodynamic undercurrents that influence team behavior.
In trying to create authentizotic-like organizations, leadership group coaching not only helps the people in the organization acquire greater understanding of their own behavior (and how they are perceived by others) but also helps them to make sense of what happens in their teams, that is, the interpersonal and transpersonal processes that are part and parcel of organizational life. For example, it encourages the members of the organization to recognize, examine, and understand prevailing group dynamics. It sensitizes them to other executives’ conscious, but sometimes unconscious, preoccupations in the here-and-now. At the level of hidden or meta-communication, it enables them to decipher unconscious communications—that is, what is really going on between people, the “snakes under the carpet” that are generally avoided in ordinary discourse. Group (team) coaching encourages participants to examine themselves, study their own dialogues, and their relationships to others, overcome their inner resistance to change, and apply and integrate their learning into concrete behavioral changes. It will also make them more skilled at coaching others.
To create best places to work, it is important that members of organizational teams are familiar with the mystery that is themselves—a major theme throughout this book. Only by studying human motivation from the inside (facilitated by a group coaching intervention technique) will they be able to truly understand what is happening on the outside. They need to know their own strengths and weaknesses before they can be helpful to others. If this kind of understanding occurs, however, all members of the organization are more likely to create alignment between their individual goals and those of the organization, creating greater commitment, accountability, and higher rates of constructive conflict resolution.
Effective leadership group coaching interventions not only help develop the coaching skills of each team member (through the process of peer coaching), they also accelerate an organization’s progress by providing a greater appreciation of organizational strengths and weaknesses, leading to better decision-making. They foster trust-based teamwork, and in turn, organizational culture is nurtured, as the leadership becomes used to creating teams in which people feel comfortable and productive. When they work well, team-oriented coaching cultures are like networked webs within the organization, connecting people laterally in the same departments, across departments, between teams, and up and down the hierarchy.
To sum up, when creating the kinds of high-performance teams that are part and parcel of authentizotic organizations, you need to consider not only the structures and processes that facilitate teamwork but also the messier aspects of team dynamics. You need to go beyond what is happening on the surface, and become aware of what lies beneath, including your ability to navigate your own unconscious world. To get the best out of each member of the organization, you need to be comfortable with the worlds of fantasy and illusion that each of us carries inside. You should never forget that the human world would not be what is without fantasy, as fantasy transforms reality.
A number of years ago, to help me in my work toward identifying the characteristics of authentizotic organizations, I conducted a survey of corporate values. I wanted to create a tool that would help executives identify the values that were important to them. To create a sense of urgency, I thought that some kind of gap analysis could be useful. I wanted the members of an organization appreciate the gap between their desired values, and values-in-practice. Closing the gap would be another way to arrive at the authentizotic organization.
My survey, which I turned into a Culture Audit (OCA™),3 revealed that some of the most important values were trust, fun, empowerment, respect for the individual, social responsibility, teamwork, entrepreneurship/innovation, competitiveness, result orientation, customer centricity, responsibility and accountability, continuous learning focus, and being open to change. I believe that if these values are in the DNA of organizational members, they will go a long way toward creating authentizotic organizations.
Of course, if you want to get the best out of your people—if you want to create an ambiance in which people feel inspired and give their best—you need to go one step further than simply referring to organizational values. You also need to create a vision of the organization’s fundamental purpose. What will provide meaning to the people that work in the organization? A vivid description of what your organization is trying to accomplish is essential to its viability. But if your organization is imbued with meaning, this characteristic will play a connecting role, contributing to the creation of a group identity.
Paying attention to vision and values is critical but it is not enough. In Chap. 5 of this book, I discussed self-actualization, and identified essential features of the self-actualizing “package,” such as meaning, belonging, control, and competence. I strongly believe that the best companies to work in have a set of meta-values that closely echo the ingredients of the self-actualization package. I simplify these as “love,” “fun,” and “meaning.” In other words, these firms create a sense of belonging (a feeling of community that comes from being part of the organization, addressing basic attachment and affiliation needs); a sense of enjoyment (creating a sense of playfulness that will enhance creativity); and, of course, a sense of meaning (providing the people in the organization with a reason why they do what they are doing).
Unfortunately, most organizations are not like this. Far too many have gulag-like qualities, where people feel disengaged, demotivated, and drained—negative feelings that are an important barometer of personal wellbeing. Lack of engagement with the job is a serious problem, if you look at the figures presented by Gallup. For example, over nearly two decades, the annual percentage of engaged U.S. workers has ranged from a low of 26% in 2000 and 2005, to a high of 34% in 2018.4 On average, 30% of U.S. employees have been engaged at work during the past 18 years—worldwide, the figure is only 13%.5 Too many organizations are permeated by fear and paranoia; the organizational fear-safety axis is completely out of sync. When this happens, creativity disappears—and so does wellness.