How organizations grow up and become responsible …

Looking at the development of individuals to become responsible adults, who are fully in their power, one aspect has proved to be crucial: the consciousness about their own shadow part. Individuals need to have clarity about the unconscious and irresponsible mechanisms going on within them and undermining their noble objectives, to really have a choice and to be able to play a responsible game.

Every human being has a bright and responsible part and at the same time an irresponsible shadow part, acting normally from the unconscious. Other names for this part are for example one’s underworld, one’s weaker self, one’s shadow or demon. Perhaps you know the following situation: you want to spend a nice, relaxed afternoon together with your family and in the end you find yourself fighting about who is right in regard to a certain topic. It’s getting loud, you are slamming doors, feeling offended and you don’t talk with your partner for the next one or two hours. Or you want to complete your lunch with a small piece of chocolate and an espresso, but in the end you have eaten the whole bar, you have a bad conscience and no idea how this could have happened.

These are only two small examples of how your shadow part can unconsciously undermine your responsible intentions. It’s the part within you, who wants to avoid responsibility and to destroy relationship, intimacy, communication and community. This part has no problem to use even unfair means to achieve this goal, like lying, deceiving, ignorance, laziness, arrogance, etc. Every means is okay.

As long as you have no consciousness about that part, it unconsciously runs your life, to harm yourself or others and to constantly undermine what you are actually aiming at. When your conscious intention is e.g. to create teamwork and community, but the result of your actions is always rivalry and fight, your shadow part or the shadow part of a team member is probably undermining this intention of yours, to exercise power, avoid responsibility or to win and to be right.

It’s about consciousness

The first step into the direction of responsible adulthood is to recognize that you have a shadow part. From this point you can proceed with researching, which precise shadow principles this part of you is serving. Just to mention some more examples for shadow principles, so you have an idea what we are talking about: being right, knowing better, arrogance, revenge, abuse of power, manipulation, mobbing, ignorance, humiliation, betrayal, destruction, perfectionism, envy, jealousy, waste, corruption, nepotism, ruling, competition, etc. To get into your full power it is essential to take possession of your underworld. To do this it is necessary to get to know your underworld as good as possible, to understand when and how your shadow is at work, so you can consciously change the game with this new clarity.

So it is absolutely not about getting rid of your shadow part or condemning it. The shadow part is not bad – it just produces results according to its intention to avoid responsibility. You cannot get rid of this part. The more you would try to get rid of it, the more it would get pushed back into the unconscious, from where it could enfold its impact even more. It is about consciousness and about the conscious choice you get with this consciousness.

Even organizations have an underworld

Not only individuals have a bright part and a shadow part, but also companies and organizations. An organization is a community of individuals coming together to serve a particular conscious purpose. It’s the service the company provides for the greater good. It is often even formulated in a mission statement. Recently it has become fashionable for organizations to become clear about and communicate the guiding principles and values they serve. Modern company websites and brochures are full of it. This clear common purpose provides meaning, leads to greater clarity and a high identification of employees, suppliers and customers with the organization.

What is still totally unknown and unconscious to organizations is the fact, that they don’t have only a conscious purpose which they serve following responsible principles and values, but also hidden shadow purposes, serving irresponsible principles. Perhaps your first reaction to this is: “My company has unconscious and irresponsible purposes? No, I don’t think so.” Then it could be time to have a closer look. A closer look with the background that it is about consciousness and not about the demonization of irresponsibility. It’s not about good or bad, but about researching what game is unconsciously running in your organization, to get the chance to play a different game in a conscious way.

Let’s take a famous and impressive example of an organization with its light and shadow – the Catholic Church. The conscious and responsible intentions they serve are obvious and well known. Less obvious but still visible are the shadow purposes and principles, which are effective and have led to corresponding results. Just think of the times of the Crusades, the Inquisition or the fact that even today Catholic and Protestant Christians may not officially celebrate the Holy Communion together. What shadow principles could be at work here? Could be separation, abuse of power, hierarchy and oppression, being right or even war. Or let’s take more modern examples like Volkswagen AG with the current waste gas scandal or the NESTLE S.A., trying by all means to privatize water rights. Shadow principles such as deception, falsehood and greed could be at work in these cases. And it is not just the big players who have a shadow part, but EVERY organization – even NGOs or non-profit organizations or charities. It’s just less obvious.

Prerequisite for an adult organization

Why is it useful for an organization to become aware of their shadow purposes and principles that are unconsciously at work? We are in the middle of a cultural transition. The working world is changing or has to change because the old and well-known procedures and structures do not produce the same results as they have 10 or 20 years ago. In the context of movements such as “New Work” or “New Economy”, one thing becomes clear: the future kind of working together has to be more on eye level, classical hierarchical pyramid structures are replaced by network structures, where all stakeholders take more responsibility for the common vision. Away from the principle of “command and obedience” towards responsible co-creation and collaboration.

Organizations (have to) become more adult and more responsible and emancipate themselves step by step from the old paradigm of domination and hierarchy. Just as on an individual level, this transformation can only be achieved, when also the community becomes aware about the existing common irresponsible shadow purposes. Genuine responsibility can only be performed, when there is awareness about the unconscious irresponsible patterns.

What are the hidden purposes of your organization? What shadow principles are unconsciously at work? If you ask yourself these questions as a team, the result could be illuminating and painful at the same time. Is it exploitation, competition, destruction (e.g. environmentally), oppression, better knowing, lack of transparency or fraud? It is not easy to bravely face your own shadow – whether as an individual or as a group. At the same time, it could provide deep healing to admit that these things are also happening. The shared pain about the irresponsible results that you create together can be as strong a source of inspiration for necessary change as your common mission statement. It makes you more honest, more conscious and realistic – and it makes you look for corresponding alternatives and solutions.

The prerequisite for organizations to grow up is, that their individuals become aware about their personal irresponsible patterns, as well as the group uncovers the common irresponsible principles they serve. Doing this will also have an impact on the collective level of society. The culture we actually live in is also partly irresponsible with unconscious shadow principles at work, leading to results that go so far as to endanger the survival of all humanity and many other forms of life. So every form of shadow work – be it individual or organizational – will lead to a more conscious and more responsible culture and society.

But beware: a conscious journey into the underworld – no matter if it is your personal underworld or your organization’s underworld – is not a relaxed Sunday afternoon excursion, but a challenging, intensive and transforming journey, during which you say goodbye to naivety and self-deception. It is a trip for adults who are willing to take radical responsibility.

Have an exciting journey into the underworld of your organization!

Patrizia Patz (Servidio)

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