Readers and writers who visit this blog are engaging with facinating and powerful questions and ideas.
One recent search term that brought someone to this blog was, “the role of the unconscious in organizational transformation.” It raises the topic of the unconscious in both personal, organizational and cultural dynamics and transformation.
What do we mean by unconscious? We’ve learned that unconscious patients perceive and process information — they hear what is said and what they hear can positively or negatively affect their recovery. So the unconscious is part of our experience, but it is unexamined experience. The unconscious also contains the connections between experiences. If you touch a hot surface and are burned, that information is there; and such connections are the raw components of belief. We also develop attitudes and orientations towards our experience: life is an adventure; life is an ordeal; people will help you or hurt you, etc. The connections we make are influenced by the events themselves, our orientation/attitudes — or interpretative lenses, pre-existing clusters of associations, and our received cultural beliefs — both explicit and implied. We look for evidence to support our existing beliefs; and receive biological rewards when we find them.
However, like the proverbial iceburg, most of our beliefs, including our interpretative lenses, are below our conscious awareness. And many of the foundations for these beliefs were set at in our earliest experiences, a time when we lacked our present insight and experience. Yet it’s these beliefs, orientations, lenses that are the locomotives of our lives. Hence, Carl G. Jung’s assertion that until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our lives and we will call it fate. This also resonates with Socrates’ “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Although I think Socrates overstates his case a bit, as a coach, I can testify that the examined life can become a great adventure, because when we examine many of our limiting beiefs, we find that they are actually not true.
The same principles apply with respect to organizations. It’s interesting to think in terms of a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious, the interaction amongst our unconscious beliefs, shaped by our personal and organizational histories. This is potentially a very fruitful area for organizational transformation. Thank you to our visitor for raising the topic.
Our House
“We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.”
Hello Lisa,
Thank you for your discussion of consciousness in the context of organizational transformation. The sunshine of such examination shining through the tears of my lived experience has generated a rainbow of emotions and ideas. I will attempt to integrate some of these from your spectrum.
I especially enjoy the reference to Socrates who seemed to equate quality of life with self-examination. Freire put it this way, “Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p.66).
Your post includes references to “supports,” “connections,” and “foundations.” The image of the house or “dwelling that shapes us” comes to mind. Freire likewise speaks about “the structure of thought” in the context of oppression. Speaking about the oppressed, Freire says, “their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors” (p.27). He suggests that employees actually “house” the boss and that this habitation both determines their identity as men and women, and dictates their actions towards one another. Freire describes this process as “hosting” the oppressor (p.30).
Elsewhere he says that the “boss” is “inside them” (p. 46). The consequence is “adhesion” to the employer (p.27) within a colonized consciousness which renders us dual beings, “they are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized” (p30). In this state we might ‘strike out at our comrades [or loved ones] for the pettiest reasons’ (p.44).
“It is a rare peasant who, once “promoted” to overseer, does not become more of a tyrant towards his former comrades than the owner himself” (p.28) “Their ideal is to be men [sic]; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity” (p.27). According to this logic, we invariably take our work home with us because we house the “boss” within us. We are dual beings.
While I do concede that Freire is speaking about “peasants,” I also believe that the principles are applicable across a range of organizational experience. I am not suggesting that all employers are “oppressors.” Freire is primarily thinking about those who dehumanize others by treating them as “objects,” “things,” “inferiors,” “possessions.” Periodically, when a ‘comrade’ speaks about the work they are doing, or what “needs to be done” I want to ask, “Who is addressing me?” “Who is speaking to me?” because I sense that I am addressing a dual being. I confess that it’s difficult at times to know whose “voice” I am hearing—or what voice I am using. Many of us will, in fact, say “we” when speaking about our organization and its policies.
At times when I witness emotional fissures and interpersonal frictions I wonder to what extent we are expressing the duality dynamic Freire addresses. I also wonder to what extent sickness and stress are expressions of a conscious or subconscious inner battle between the individual and the employer?
Freire says, “The task of the humanists is to see that the oppressed become aware of the fact that as dual beings, “housing” the oppressors within themselves, they cannot be truly human” (p.70). He says that “liberation” is a childbirth, and a painful one (p.31). I am grateful to have a “midwife” like you Lisa to assist with such delivery.
Bye for now!
p.s. “we” are going for a seawall walk now.
🙂
Carman
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2007.