From the beginning of civilisation we have categorised people between Us and Them. Us being the category the individual belongs to and then logically Them is everyone else. It started with the Royalty (us) and the countrymen (them) and expanded to the whites (us) and the blacks (them) and then to political divides of Democrats and Republicans (don’t know which one is the us and them in this e.g.). We also saw the industrial revolution bring this to organisations where the divide was between Management (Us) and Employees (them) and even White collar (us) and Blue collar (them).
This categorisation was well accepted and in fact the ones who didn’t accept it were called the rebels. There have been many definitions to create such divides between the “haves” and the “have-nots” on the basis of power, riches, religion, colour, caste and whatever could be utilised to create this categorisation. This worked cause we had linear thinking and often being logical was about thinking in a straight line. Also we never did have vastness of knowledge or any other stimulus coming to us like today so thinking linear worked.
Technology and globalisation have changed our worlds and taken us away from linear thinking to now thinking patterns. We now look for trends and use that knowledge to build our strategy. From linear bureaucratic systems we are now building matrix organisations. From the “Us vs Them” world we are moving to a collaborative culture that defines “We” that we long to be a part of.
Today with almost 4 generations of employees going to work many organisations are struggling to manage inclusiveness. The challenge also becomes larger cause beyond gender and races we are now connected by our thinking patterns. You may read this article sitting in any part of the globe and have a view-point on it and this platform gives you easy access to share your view and to find others who agree with your view. This is the power we are using to talk of global issues like climate change across the globe with our own insights.
Recently, I have noticed many organisations are embarking on transformation initiatives and many of them are driven by the need to build a “we” culture. It’s not Sales (Us) and operations (them) but its customer success teams (we). Its not Seller (Us) and buyer (them) but transformation project teams (we).
While on one hand we love personalization on the other hand we also want to be collaborative and this is weaving a new pattern of existence. Air BnB and Uber are examples of successful models that have emerged taking care of these two insights really well.
What are you doing to build this “we” culture around you?
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality. – Yoko Ono
By
Priya Sachdev – Sales Director
businesssaltblog 