Changing Organizational Realities

The quest for having an objective idea of reality began with an intensely great zest primarily during the Enlightenment era. What started as a search for an absolute and concrete vision of Reason and reality, faith and belief, later transformed into what philosophers like Heidegger and Kant, would call ‘subjectivity’. That is to say, people gradually started to realise that there could not exist any absolute, objective definition of these subjective ideas.

The beginning of the previous century witnessed a drastic and rather, dramatic turn in this context when the disillusioned ideas as well as ideals centred on reality were questioned in the post-war era and a general understanding regarding the subjective nature of reality emerged. It is during this period modernism that where on one hand, the subjective ideals were spread and on the other hand, capitalism got many more wings to fly around the globe. Both of these approaches stand their ground in the present, post-modern world which celebrates the differences between them and maintain respect for co-existence of hierarchical and flat organizations.

The twentieth provided enough fodder for contributing hugely for developing management philosophies and without letting it mature, transgressions for responding to conditions for survival took away the whole focus.  The theories and practices drove researches into analysis of organizational realities.  As institutions of higher learning nurture traveling between transmission, transformation, and transcendence, business organizations started witnessing change in their kind of realities, change in their practices, change in their response to market forces with a divine intent of being relevant and sustainable for all times. What started as considering people as cost and machine is reaching to a level when machine is replacing individuals though from cost it has been recognized as resource and potential.  The whole premise of focusing on customer and serving him/her at any cost is also being questioned when it is being believed that employees come first and customers second.  The transformation in thinking from being product (or service) driven organization to becoming people driven organization is getting focused.  In these times, the twenty first century organizations are questioning all existed realities.  The challenge for organizations, scholars and practitioners is to draw a line and develop management through balancing objectivity and subjectivity.  And for that HR fraternity has much more important role to play as compared to other functions.

Nothing is absolute, we are all travellers, we all have our own realities, so is the case with organizations. Though technology is hugely impacting organizational dynamics, it is my humble wish that it should not convert human beings into machines.