Head, Heart And Soul

Head, Heart And Soul

Flickr/Seattle Municipal Archives

Flickr/Seattle Municipal Archives

How many organisations have you come across with a heart? And with a soul? Personally, it’s been precious few. Yet for those rare encounters, it’s a palpable joy, isn’t it? Precious indeed.

I’ve been writing about Rightshifting and the Marshall Model since circa 2008. In that time I’ve explained how to bring about awesomely effective organisations. Organisations where it’s joy to come to work, and with whom it’s a joy to come into contact.

I’ve often felt that people don’t really get the model, and attribute that to my explanations coming up short with respect to their needs. Put another way, I’ve tried to describe the model logically and rationally. Perhaps that has helped some, but I’m always looking for other ways, other metaphors.

Hence: Head, Heart and Soul.

The Marshall Model posits four distinct mindsets, or memeplexes, for organisations. In order of increasing effectiveness: Ad-hoc, Analytic, Synergistic and Chaordic. Let’s leave aside the ad-hoc mindset for this post.

Let’s focus on the three relatively more effective organisational mindsets: Analytic, Synergistic and Chaordic.

Causation Not Just Correlation

The Marshall Model not only describes the observable correlation between organisational effectiveness and organisational mindset. It also claims a causation – that any given organisation’s effectiveness is a direct function of its collective mindset. Of the specific memes that comprise its current memeplex.

Head

When I look at organisations, I see many – those of the Analytic mindset – acting from the Head. Analysing, thinking, intellectualising, rationalising, using logic. Maybe it’s because us humans are spectacularly poor at this stuff (cf. Kahneman, Ariely, etc.) that the Analytic mindset is the least effective of the three we’re considering here. Oh yes, it can get the job done, just about, but at what cost to the people involved, to wider society, and to the planet? Not to mention the bottom line (that’s an appeal to the head).

Heart

More rarely, I see organisations acting from the Heart. Where people are regarded as valuable precisely because of their individuality and humanity. Where the organisation, it’s structure and rituals are geared, more or less, to creating a joyful experience for all concerned. Marshall Rosenberg might call this a Giraffe organisation. An organisation where empathy and compassion come before intellect and logic. I see it as no mere coincidence that these heartful organisations share the Synergistic mindset. Causation, indeed.

Soul

Rarer again, are organisations with a Soul. I have seen maybe one or two examples in my whole career. How does a soulful organisation differ from its (less effective) heartful cousins? I see heartful organisations focussing on people, on joyful relationships, and on compassion. Soulful organisations (those with a Chaordic mindset) remain joyful, compassionate, and empathetic. But they add something else. A sense of their place in all things. Chaordic organisations transcend a static purpose, and seek to become. To become all that they can be. To find their connection with all things. To develop an understanding of their place in the Universe. If that sounds bizarre, alien, laughable, worrying, nonsensical, spiritual, then so be it. Chaordic organisations are all those things. And so far removed from common mental models of what organisations should be like as to be rationally, intellectually and logically ineffable.