{"id":10766,"date":"2024-05-02T12:45:09","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T12:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.com\/?p=10766"},"modified":"2024-05-02T12:45:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T12:45:09","slug":"on-human-and-organisational-sensemaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/on-human-and-organisational-sensemaking\/","title":{"rendered":"On human and organisational sensemaking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Enjoyed this from Studio D&#8217;s Jan, who is currently researching his next book on human and organisational sensemaking. Sharing\u00a0his work in progress here, which was shared on <a href=\"https:\/\/studiodradiodurans.com\/pages\/radar-mailing-list\">Radar<\/a>, the Studio D newsletter.\u00a0<br><\/em><br>We\u2019ve\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/studiodradiodurans.us7.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=cc95ece1c33de55e570e18ab5&amp;id=7ff8384069&amp;e=ea25cdcb4a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">covered a lot of ground<\/a>\u00a0to exploring the role of an\u00a0organisational purpose to inspire employees and to provide meaning to their day to day work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now, we\u2019ll broadly define organisational purpose as encapsulating its:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>mission,\u00a0<em>why it exists<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>vision,\u00a0<em>what it wants to be<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>core values,\u00a0<em>what its employees believe in<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course there are plenty of reasons why people want to join a company beyond its purpose such as\u00a0compensation and benefits, flexible working arrangements, training, and career advancement. That said, in a crowded marketplace for\u00a0talent, purpose is often considered\u00a0a means to stand out from the competition.<br><br>The thinking goes that job candidates attracted by the organisation\u2019s purpose\u00a0will become employees that integrate well by arriving motivated, and sufficiently aligned to mindset and cultural expectations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If this is true, then the organisational culture will still evolve, albeit at a slower pace and in different ways than if it\u00a0did not have a clearly defined or sufficiently aspirational purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a fast paced operating\u00a0environment stewarding\u00a0a slower cultural pace of change makes everything more manageable for most (although definitely not all) employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My current research focus is exploring how organisations define their purpose and as an extension, the positive and negative consequences of relying on purpose as filtering mechanism for current and potential-future employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the strands that I\u2019m attempting to unravel is the language used to define is whether an employee is considered a \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cpoor\u201d cultural fit. For better or worse, a term that is sometimes used by executives is to make the distinction between missionaries and mercenaries:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Missionaries<\/strong>\u00a0are aligned to the mission, vision and core values.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mercenaries<\/strong>\u00a0are in it for themselves: their\u00a0compensation, career advancement, adding another line to their resume.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"453\" height=\"669\" src=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/On-human-and-organisational-sensemaking.png\" alt=\"On human and organisational sensemaking\" class=\"wp-image-10767\" srcset=\"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/On-human-and-organisational-sensemaking.png 453w, https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/On-human-and-organisational-sensemaking-203x300.png 203w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 453px) 100vw, 453px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One way we can visualise\u00a0this, is by highlighting the alignment, or lack of, between personal and organisational puposes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m uncomfortable with this level of reductionism especially when it becomes\u00a0the default that is reverted to in day-to-day language, but am still aways from proposing alternatives.\u00a0Pointers to good articles welcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How organisations define their purpose and as an extension, the positive and negative consequences of relying on purpose as filtering mechanism for current and potential-future employees. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}