If we consider Human Development (HD) one of the four pillars of HR, does that mean it gets equal attention with the other three: rights, justice and organizational productivity? What happens in practice and what should happen, in this case, as in so many others, is not always the same. HD tends to not get equal attention, but I believe the case can be made that it should.
Amitai Etzioni (2002) mulls over the question of particularistic obligations (concern for those of one’s kind or those in one’s community, above concern for humankind universally) and concludes that we do have such obligations and meeting them, helps not only our local community, but also humankind, in the end. We would be, he implies, doing a disservice to all of mankind by not acting to defend the moral and social ecology of our community of residence.
Corporations or public institutions, deliberately include some and exclude others (Etzioni, 2001). In this way, they are no different from perhaps less formal, often more bottom-up communities, such as political parties, neighborhood watch groups, or fraternities and sororities. Organizational communities can justify creating such artificial barriers among people on several grounds, including the economic well-being of those included, and also, the moral well-being of those included.
Robert Putnam (2000) defines bonding (creation of community) and bridging (creation of social links among communities). Clearly, business organizations, as well as public or political organizations, must be actively involved in both of these creative processes. In fact, bonding and bridging are necessary inside and outside the organization; that is, within and among organizations.
It would not be possible for people to build effective communities without elaborated social as well as technical skills. Organizations that are bonded and bridged inside and out, have more social capital than those that are not developed in these ways. Technological, economic and political resources can be parlayed into profit, money, capital. People who communicate effectively and who value human progress are more apt to succeed in the development of social capital.
Viewing organizations as generators of social as well as monetary capital, allows us to more easily prioritize economic productivity and social productivity. In fact, ultimately the distinction between these two types of productivity, breaks down. It is a false dichotomy. There are only illusory priority concerns because in the integrated system that is the world’s economy, there is no meaningful difference between economic and social outcomes.
The flow of events that occur within and among organizational communities are a type of text to be read by the actors involved. Those in power tend to be both writers and readers of text, whereas those who are relatively disenfranchised, but often nonetheless affected by these texts, tend to be strictly readers of texts. We can go further than this, though, and say that those who are powerful also tend to have the capacity to not only write the text, but to greatly influence how those who are less powerful, read the text written by the powerful. This combination of writing and influencing is often called (political) spinning.
In organizations where power is shared, many texts are written and offered for others to read. Perhaps the classic case is that of union and management. Both of these groups help create events and then seek to interpret them for their shared constituency. It serves no one for any of those involved in this writing, reading and spinning, to be incompetent at any of the three.
Even when power is unevenly distributed and primarily vested in the top of the organization, it is essential that those outside of power be competent in their ability to read and respond in a sophisticated fashion. Historically, those who have been in power have also tended to be the most developed intellectually, socially and politically. When this is not the case, a natural strengthening of the organizational community occurs. The organization is less likely to take action that will be against the best interests of the majority of its membership, when its membership is broadly capable.
The healthiest communities have well-developed, sophisticated leaders and followers. Nothing is more dangerous to a leader, or to the community he or she leads, than a broad gap between his or her human capacity and the human capacity of those being led. Nothing is healthier than a balance between a community’s leaders and its followers. Respect, trust, and communication, are all benefited by such an arrangement.
Thus, the case can quite easily be made that broad HD is in the best interest of not only the individuals who make up a given organizational community, but also in the best interest of the community itself. One reason this is so, is that leadership is most effective when it flows among members of the community, as opposed to staying in the hands of a few. The most adaptive social systems are the ones in which responses to the environment are led by those in the best position to formulate optimum responses (Pfeffer, 1992).
Collective action organizations (CAOs) are agencies that challenge the status quo by advocating for innovative solutions to social problems (Knoke, 1990; Salem, Foster-Fishman & Goodkind, 2002). You might say that the most adaptive organizations are not only those where leadership swirls among members, rather than staying in one place, but also those organizations comprised of various interconnected (bridged) CAOs. Such organizations are built on the capacity of individual members to bond, bridge and collectively innovate. It is this type of organizational community that will be the most resilient in the face of dynamic circumstances; and it all begins with individual HD.
HD is both an outcome of, and an input to, all organizing processes. The very process of creating and maintaining an organization, and the community within it, develops new skills among those in its membership. But such natural HD can be enhanced by interventions at the individual level. A large group of interacting people who begin their interaction each speaking a different language, may ultimately figure out how to communicate in one super-language, but just think how much time would have been saved, and how much mental energy turned toward organizational outcomes, if the people had been taught to speak the same language, early on in the process of building the community. Organizations filled with people at many different stages of development, are like modern-day Towers of Babel. Organizations comprised of highly-developed member-musicians all playing the same well-orchestrated song, can bring down the walls of Jericho.
References
Etzioni, Amitai. (2002). Are particularistic obligations justified? A communitarian examination. The Review of Politics. 64(4), 573-599.
Etzioni, Amitai. (2001). Is bowling together sociologically lite? Contemporary Sociology, 30(3), 223-224.
Knoke, D. (1990). Organizing for collective action: Commitment in voluntary associations. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey. 1992. Managing with Power. Harvard Business School Press.
Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Salem, Deborah A., Pennie G. Foster-Fishman, & Jessica R. Goodkind. (2002). The adoption of innovation in collective action organizations. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30(5), 681-610.
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