21st-century psychology and the future of human organisation
It's not people themselves that are the backbone of any organisation. It's the relationships between them. Outcomes depend not on people as individuals, but on the quality of their interactions and the synergy of the social organism. To foster that quality is one of the main tasks of a good leader.
All social organisation depends on groups, meetings and social events - people getting together and interacting, communicating. In a complex, global world no man or woman is an island, nor can they afford to be: to create anything large these days or make things work, requires the co-operation of many interconnected people. Yes, as a leader you need talent around you, and you need to recognise, foster, develop and reward talent. But a) talent is not simply like a piece of software that you can buy or develop to perform a job; and b) a collection of talents does not necessarily make for a great team or for a productive collective achievement.
a) Talent comes in a piece of hardware called a human. As with software, there are vast differences in the skill and sophistication you can buy (sometimes, though not always, related to how much money you are prepared to pay for it). As with software, you need adequate hardware to run it. But unlike software and hardware, human hardware comes packaged with circuits that were not designed for work and performance only. You cannot get human talent to work to its full potential unless you pay attention to the whole human being, including their social, emotional, psychological reality - aspects which on the face of it are extraneous to the performance you employ and pay them for. How much benefit you actually get out of the talent you pay for, depends significantly on how you understand and manage those social, emotional, psychological realities. Current leadership and organisational psychology is not at all equipped to do that well (see 'How the brain-bodymind revolution will affect your business').
b) Those social, emotional, psychological realities (which come packaged with those skills, functions, talents and jobs you want your staff to perform) do not only affect their individual performance. They exponentially affect their performance with others, in groups, teams, departments as well as their relationship with you, the leader. Current leadership and organisational psychology is even less equipped to do that well.
This is because organisational psychology - both in terms of individual, but more so in terms of group psychology - is out-dated by several decades. Its principles are utilitarian and behavioural, largely based on a 1950's psychology of reward and punishment. To many humans in the 21st century, that kind of psychology is an insult. It's a psychology that was developed on rats, and although not entirely invalid when transferred to human psychology, it neglects and leaves out vast areas of people's reality. That kind of psychology is like trying to navigate around the globe with a map of London.
Psychology and neuroscience have indeed moved on since the 1950's. Much of current coaching and leadership development is also influenced by the 1960's and humanistic psychology which was keen to recognise the impulse towards human potential and self-actualisation. But leadership, management and organisational psychology as well as coaching have not at all benefited yet from the recent integrative developments in psychology (especially in the UK) and the revolution in neuroscience. These developments bring a new understanding to people's inner and outer realities, integrating outer behavioural patterns with inner patterns of experience as well as interpersonal patterns of relating to others. These developments, for the first time, enable us to appreciate the underlying wholeness of a person in practice, not just as an idea. A detailed and systemic understanding of that wholeness enables us to grasp both people's full potential and the full extent of the patterns which block that potential.
Again, this is valid both on an individual and a collective level, for one person, for several or for many. A new, holistic, integrative psychology can link individual and organisational processes and how they mutually inform each other, bringing together inner depth and outer engagement. This is the kind of psychology which needs to underpin leadership and leadership development in the coming years. This is the kind of psychology which underpins the Communitas Project. That's why we would argue that you can have access to the psychology of the future now, long before the vast majority of leaders and organisations have even cottoned on. In simple terms, we could call this new psychology - to use an established notion - 'emotional intelligence'. The kind of emotional intelligence we are talking about, however, is not just touchy-feely - it's complex and sophisticated, yet powerful and humane. A more precise description would involve multiple intelligences forming a complex whole. This kind of perspective is necessary to do any kind of justice to the forces and patterns which operate in 21st century people and organisations.
Social structures - for better or for worse - are replicated, stagnate or evolve through groups. How productive or effective your business or your organisation is, depends on how people interact, how they do - or don't - work together. To some extent our future as a species depends on how productively we can co-operate in the various groups that constitute our social world. That in turn - it is our opinion - depends on bringing an integrative and depth-psychological perspective to groups and how to organise, lead and facilitate them as well as participate in them.
We strongly believe that all businesses and social organisations (local, national, global) can benefit from greater emotional intelligence. Current organisational psychology and human resource as well as learning and development technology are woefully inadequate to generate the kind of inspiration and synergy between people required to face current and future challenges. As a result the full human potential for creative co-operation and therefore organisational productivity cannot be accessed.
A new psychological paradigm is needed. Ingredients of such new psychological knowledge are beginning to be developed, but this has not yet been applied to the psychology of how people work together at work.
We have been involved at the forefront of new developments in psychology for several decades, participating in what we think of as a quantum leap into 21st century psychology. This leap is supported by an equivalent paradigm shift in modern neuroscience which is radically re-visioning how the human brain works - affecting our notions of the mind and its development, the significance of emotions and relationships, the connection between mind and body, to name just a few areas. The revolution in neuroscience will eventually transform all areas of work, management and business.
By joining Communitas, you can be part of this paradigm shift that will engender an evolution of the way humans organise their economic and social affairs and simply work together better.