I've been writing a lot lately about broken relationships between managers and employees and why these form from a psychological basis. I now want to throw out a relatively quick word of warning: Managers are human, too!
With that being said, I want us to take a second and think about the corpus, the body of the corporation. Fundamentally, businesses operate with their own social psychologies. These tend to be similar to humans, in my observations. So, if most individuals have low self-awareness and emotional intelligence, how can we expect every company to be self-aware?
Many, if not most, companies are concerned with external factors primarily. There may be particular internal factors they do care about--such as cost, environment, and so forth; but, there is a primary disconnect between "introspection" and management. To a degree, systems thinking and Lean were built as philosophies and methodologies of forcing introspection for the corpus.
As individuals, we must work at becoming more self-aware. We must be able to identify our emotions, when and why they are spawning, and how they affect us and others. As a company, we must go through the same process of constantly evaluating what we are doing, how well we are doing it, and how important is it.
So, before you go off and get an anarchy symbol inked to your arm and task yourself with overthrowing your corporation, remember: companies are people, too.
Only through being aware of ourselves, our motivations, and our affect on other people may we truly build companies that are compassionate creatures.
About the Author
Andrew Andreas Grapsas is a game programmer at Arkadium, Inc. developing casual and social games. He previously worked at THQ and EA as a systems and gameplay programmer on triple-A shooters.
Andrew is actively writing and programming for various projects. You can read more articles exclusively at his blog aagrapsas.com.
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