Organizing for change - Part II

BIMBO CABIDOG

The process of the people’s empowerment

What does an organization mean? Let’s avoid academic definitions or definitions by the book.

There are reportedly seven billion people now around the globe. It seems that every one of them has the mark of an organization. Each thinks, behaves and acts as a member of an organization.  Each conveys the profile of an organization itself. 

The world is now one huge organization of seven billion humans, connected to each and everyone across national boundaries and geographical limitations.

According to author Ernest Hemmingway, “No man is an island.” No single individual today is without any connection to other individuals, without any sort of relationship with fellow human beings. The connection or linkup is inevitable. No one can exist without it anymore.

The mode in which people relate to each other, do what they do as social beings, follow codes at how to do them, and observe norms at how to be, is the expression and manifestation of organization. It is the individual embodying down to the core of his/her being a system of collective existence. 

Perhaps, Hemmingway also meant: no man can be an island. No man can live alone, by himself. Human life depends on threads of relationship between fellowmen, between men and the environment, and between peoples. This relationship underlies the reason why, for instance, you do not just get goods from a store without paying for its price.

Nobody may just go out to the streets in underwear, because the weather is hot and it is discomforting to wear clothes. You have to wear clothes. Nay, you don’t just wear any kind of clothing, you have to wear what is agreed upon by everybody to be the proper clothing.

Folks behave and act in a certain manner no matter how inconvenient. They have to follow a rule about appearing in public, and even doing things in private, because that is what the organization to which they belong prescribes and demands from each one in order to live with everyone.

Living with each and everyone is in a nutshell what being organized is. It orders to be part of a social relationship. At the present stage of historical social development, to exist is always to be with fellow human beings. Hence, to exist is to belong to some form of organization.

The reality means two things. First, a set of instructions or code on how to live operates. Second, it must be followed in order to live. The people do not only know about it, they know they must heed it. They are under compulsion to do so by something other than brute force, that is: living with each other.

The law of survival compels humans to live with each other, instead of fight and try to eliminate each other. The code sets the instructions to make that happen.  The commonly felt need is self-preservation. This is satisfied by observing the rules of living together.

The shared value of co-existence and the vision of common development gave rise to the bond called organization. From the initial impetus at collective or community life evolved communal aspiration of the good life. Fulfilling the aspiration now necessitated not only avoiding antagonism and endless fighting against each other but advancing unified action.

Joint action means dividing everyone into different roles that fulfill different tasks, functions and responsibility. Structuring relationships between the individual parts is essential to working in harmony and doing bigger than life feats.  Hence, it is not enough for the people to be united, they must be unified. Division and coordination of tasks takes care of this.

To hammer the various individual members into a solid whole, a mode of inter-personal relationship between them on the one hand, and of identifying and connecting their particular working roles on the other, must be crafted. In addition, a manner of interaction and behavior to cement collectivity as well as manage conflicts must be enunciated.

The way to live and work together is simply what an organization is. It is the system that is shown by the consciousness, attitudinal reflexes, and manner of existence of the individual person.  

The organized person mirrors the organization to which he/she belongs, and becomes the personification of the system itself. From the first act in the morning as he/she rises from bed, to everything that he/she does the whole day, and up to the time of sleeping, the system can be seen to be graphically at work in the individual person.

By and large, the organization is embodied in the individual, showing through its actions and thoughts. The organization becomes so infused into the human system that it already even governs natural biological functions, like eating, breathing, heartbeat, expenditure of energy, and expulsion of body wastes.

The term organization is not hard to conceptualize or define. There is no need to get a dictionary, pore over tomes of writing, or bury oneself in scholarly materials, to understand what it means. With the world as it is today, each person in every clime is a good study of organization.