Disorganization

It may not be a life-giving thing to deal with both an abstraction that “has” goals and people at the same time. Or perhaps just a thing I don’t prefer to do if I can avoid it. Working on, in, for, around, and with organizations (companies, governments, schools, non-profits, associations) seems like a near-inevitability in the world. And yet it is a nearly impossible thing to approach individual human beings with kindness, attention, and appreciation and at the same time serve an organization well. Or at least this is what I’ve observed and experienced in trying to do it for many years in many different organizations, with many different roles. Big mea culpa that you’re already getting a taste of: this may just be a “me” problem. It may be that there are lots of other people out there who can manage a team, hit goals, follow the company values, play politics, and at the same time have a creative, fulfilling, satisfying, connected experience of work. I’ve met people who seem to have found their way to this state at least partially. But I’ve not felt close to it as a working adult. And it may very well be that I haven’t found the right organization. But I have a hypothesis that’s crystallizing during this time in between organizations: maybe organizing is the problem.

How could this be? Organized communities, well-organized companies, and successfully re-organized organizations are all better than those that don’t have legal frameworks, rules, and both formal and informal expectations, right? My hypothesis is that humans don’t like to be organized, don’t thrive when they’re organized, and get more costs than benefits from organizations. It might be difficult to prove this or develop a supporting body of evidence that disorganization is better than organization (lots of case studies could be cherry picked and turned into an entirely profitable book describing instances of non-organizational success and organizational failure). But that sounds like a lot of organization for a theory of its antithesis. So rather let’s talk about it. Call anytime.