Organizational Democracy

This is a kind of business storytelling I love doing, especially when many leaders are working together:

‘The first, and often the most difficult, story to get straight, is the leader’s own story. For any kind of enduring enthusiasm to emerge, this story must “hang together” — be consistent with the known facts — and the leader must believe in this story intensely and act consistently with it.’

-Steve Denning, WorkingStories Digest listserve

Jeff Jonas writes, “As a general principle, the deeper the think, the more simplistic and crisp the concepts must be presented. Don’t be afraid of bloating your presentation with pictures: pictures trump text 1000:1.”

He describes how Dick Hardt of Sxip Identity gives an incredible 15-minute PowerPoint Presentation with hundreds of slides, available online. The combination of images, printed and spoken words is the most influential presentation I’ve seen in a long time:

It’s similar to the short cartoon where Matt Parker and Trey Stone illustrate Alan Watts philosophizing on the music of life. (Thanks to Zohar for the link.)

Click to view video on YouTube:

‘A book coming out next month, a kind of “The Rules” for the office, would have been difficult to publish in 1991.

In “Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding — and Managing — Romance on the Job” (Adams Media, November 2007), the writers Stephanie Losee and Helaine Olen (who both married colleagues) say the workplace is the new village — and therefore an ideal place to find love.

…”we need to be physically near each other to feel happier and better in our everyday lives.” 

“Where do we still have that physical proximity of neighborhoodliness?” she said. “It’s at the office.”‘

- from ‘Boss’s Memo: Go Ahead, Date (With My Blessing)’ by Stephanie Rosenbloom, The New York Times

Browse through the ‘Passion Points’ interview which Michael Weitz and I did with Howard Bloom on telling your life story.

We talked about passion, empathy and confidence. Telling the story of your extraordinary self. Touring strategy, knowing who you are and not selling out, and “finding the place where your soul can interface with the public to make the whole thing spin.”

I’ve gotten a lot out of the anecdotes in this interview; they’ve helped me reflect on and make sense of my own life. And they’ve helped me tell my story and how I got where I am.

The first time I coworked was in 1999. I’d helped Paul Surdi and David Samuels start the Tisch Talent Guild (TTG) at NYU.

COWORKING:

Paul and Dave got a small office in the lobby of the Tisch School of the Arts. I helped with membership. In the first year, we got 1,000 members, and the number of active members has remained consistent ever since. Students and alumni filled out a form with their interests or with job postings, which we entered into a database and emailed out.

Before TTG, students would post on bulletin boards — directors seeking actors, playwrights seeking directors, that kind of thing.

I produced my first theatrical shows through the TTG. Film students came in and browsed through our wall of headshots. Budgets were planned and advertising campaigns were reviewed in this tiny office. We worked side by side on our own projects. Whomever wanted to drop in stopped by and chatted. I mentored theater students who wanted to produce, and then did produce, their own shows.

The database and listserve was a great way to meet people, and is how I found actors, designers and assistants for my first few shows.

FEDERALISM:

As a student organization, the TTG was under the umbrella of the Student Government, the Tisch Undergraduate Student Council (TUSC). This actually was a kind of federal system and organizational democracy, not so different from how the United States, with its fifty states and federal government, is a federal system and democracy.

TTG officials were elected by TTG members, and we had term limits — students had to leave office when they graduated. We had our own budget, which came from the Student Government but also from other sources, including the general Tisch administration. We made our own decisions about most things, from office hours to how the office was administered, to which projects we’d work on and what services we’d offer our members.

The Student Government had an executive council, elected by the Tisch students. The council met every week with representatives from each of the student clubs, who were chosen and sent by the clubs. The Student Government was given its power through the clubs gathering together, just like the U.S. states historically gave their power to the federal government.

I often attended, and enjoyed being a liaison between the interests of TTG members and members of other clubs. I helped get some partnerships started, some money raised, and generally represented constituent interests and brought back insights and updates from the council to the TTG.

The federal Student Council had a budget it distributed among the clubs. It coordinated broad publicity by organizing club fairs. But each club made their own choices within those parameters — I remember working on budget proposals and press releases. Some folks at TTG even campaigned for some salaried staff positions, which we started.
Sure, we were a student organization, and what we could do was limited. We couldn’t elect the Dean of the school, and we couldn’t set school policy, or choose which teachers were hired or fired. But within our goal to provide student activities and services, we had autonomy, we were motivated, and we had a great time getting a lot done.

WHY I’M SO PASSIONATE ABOUT ORGANIZATIONAL DEMOCRACY:

TTG and our Student Government set high standards for me. It was a hands-on experience with coworking and federalism, and showed me the power and joy of organizational democracy.

Coworking and federalist organizational democracy introduced me to lots of people who were passionate about what they worked on. We worked side by side and I learned a lot from them about budgeting, publicity, hiring, managing and getting things done.

That’s probably why I’m so passionate about organizational democracy — it’s a fun way to work with people, have a great time learning, and get more done than I ever imagined.