What do start-ups and coffee beans have in common?

For both, the place they grow shapes who they become.

We don’t talk much about the role of place in shaping organizational identity, but the physical circumstance of where we are located as we do our work together helps to determine who we become as a company. Place shapes our character.

Terroir = Distinctiveness

For both coffee and companies, distinctive features of who they are come from the specific, physical place where they are grown. Coffee snobs, oenophiles and the French call this place terroir.  

Terroir is literally the dirt in which coffee plants are grown. The soil, the minerals, the decomposing leaves, the orientation of the sun, the slope, and the wind influence how the plants grow, which of their features mature and which do not, and ultimately how the plants perform to create a product. Two beans may be the “same” variety, but when they are grown in different dirt, in different places, how do they taste? Different. Why?

Because place matters.

Terroir matters to companies, too. Whether it’s the location of the founders’ parents’ garage or the co-working space where the team meets, the place where your company is planted influences how you feel about yourselves as a group and influences who you become.

We tend to forget the role of place, of physicality, of geographic circumstance, because so much of our work is digitized, and in that way removed from dirt, from damp, from light, and from elevation. We work internationally, across timelines, and even across language barriers, to the point where it all feels like the same black words in the same white box on the same grey-blue screen, no matter where you are.

And, when we do think about the effect of “place” on an organization’s identity or character, we think about the ways that the organization arranges their offices, or designs their new headquarters. These deliberate decisions telegraph and reinforce the ways that organizations want to shape their sense of self.

When I talk about ‘place’ though, I’m thinking not only about the ‘built environment’ – the physical locations that we rent, furnish, and decorate deliberately – but also the physical environment that is simply there. I’m thinking about the subway stations, the pavement, the streetscape, the falafel truck on the far corner, the wind, the shadows, the noise, the smell, and their effects on each other.

The other people in the place matter too — not so much as personalities, but as co-presence. 

You’re not the only entrepreneur, not the only team, walking in these shadows, feeling that dampness, stepping into this building that was a shirt factory before you planted your computers there. People in other companies near you also lose their breath climbing the stairs out of the subway, inhale the aromas of the falafel truck, and even on the hottest summer day feel braced by the cool dampness under the overpass.

Each person experiences this place in his or her own way, but nonetheless you all are responding to the physicality of that shared place.

The place tells us where we are, and our responses to it tell us who we are.

On Washington Street on a rainy day, you’re battered by the wind off the East River. Standing up to it, you feel resistant, oddly stronger, able to handle the against-the-current trajectory a start-up requires. The unevenness of the cobblestone pavement of the side street, the dips and edges in the pine planks on the workspace floor, require that you rebalance with every step. Each tiny re-positioning reminds you to adjust in real time, to be flexible, to stay steady while in motion.

Place is, quite literally, a way that we and our companies can stay grounded.

• Place gives us somewhere to feel centered, somewhere to start from, somewhere to return to.
• Physical places hold us, they are containers for our together-ness.
• Places help us mark who is ‘us’ and who is ‘not us’.
• Places each have a resonance, a unique energy that we can feel. We can tap into that energy to reinforce our own, we can tap into this energy to release ourselves from psychic constraints.
• Places have rhythms, cycles, and seasons that can help set a tempo to coordinate our work.
• Places connect us to the people who were there before us and help join us to the timeline of progress.

Of course, there are other forces shaping an organization’s character more powerfully than place. From the founders’ personality to the talents of the group to the type of business itself, there is much we can use, easily, to explain why we are who we are.

With place, though, the influence is usually sub-liminal, under our consciousness and far from our words.

Instead of being something we know, place is usually something we feel.

The ways that we stand and move in physical space and the ways we collectively respond to the physical texture around us work to connect our cognitions and our emotions. Even for people and companies that don’t want to pay attention to their place, their thoughts and feelings in the space anchor their experience of who they are.

Every organization has a certain ‘je ne sai quoi’, a uniqueness and difference that can’t be put into words.

The Etsy grown in Brooklyn’s Dumbo is different from the Etsy that would have grown in Austin’s SoCo, or that could have grown in Vancouver’s Gaslight. The difference between the three possibilities– with the same founder, the same talents, and the same business model —  finds its source in the unique place. Why? Because it is that place, with all its specific feelings, thoughts, and actions,  where the core members of the organization experience being together.

A few weeks ago I went to visit a company just blocks away from where I lived just out of college. A few decades later, the neighborhood has more upscale shops, more business activity, fewer homeless people, and no broken windows. But the place is largely the same — still damp, still metallic, still punctuated by the constant rumble of the trucks on the BQE.

Still lifted by the arch of the bridge.

Still raw, still elevating, still inspiring.

And the companies growing there? 

Rooted there, to be shaped by that very place. 

Images from Flickr:

Hit the Road  Some rights reserved by Pensiero
Dumbo Manhattan Bridge Some rights reserved by wallyg
Water under the Bridge, Some rights reservedby moriza

Last week I went to a program sponsored by the NYC chapter of GirlsInTech and directed towards (women) tech entrepreneurs and (potential) venture capital professionals. After the program, I had great conversation with some of the entrepreneurs about their ‘pitches’ — the 5 sentence elevator speeches that they give to convey the core idea of the business they are creating.

So, what was my elevator speech? they asked.  While I’m always able to answer the question ‘what do you do?’ ¹ more or less succinctly, the next question ‘What is an Authentic Organization?‘ is harder to answer in a simple, concise and compelling way. So when one of the entrepreneurs teased me that I had to work on my ‘elevator speech’, I promised her that I’d post my elevator speech here.

What is an Authentic Organization?

An organization is authentic when its actions, its character, and its sense of purpose are aligned with and support each other.

An organization can be authentic only when:

The organization knows ‘who it is” and what characteristics make it distinctive. People in the organization understand why these distinctive features are meaningful.

The organization knows what it is striving to create in this world. It has a sense of purpose that goes beyond the products and services it offers.

The organization knows how its distinctiveness fuels and adds unique insight to the pursuit of organization’s purpose.

The organization has a few signature actions, behaviors and products that bring to life the organization’s meaning, and move it towards its purpose.

Both the purpose and the distinctive, meaningful characteristics of the organization resonate with stakeholders and draw members, customers, and constituencies to the organization.

The organization actively supports its members, customers, and constituencies in their own authenticity as they work with the organization to achieve its purpose.

At an average rate of 150 words per minute, this answer would take me 63 seconds to deliver.
– So, PKJ, did I meet the challenge?

¹ Answer: I help organizations align their identity and actions with a larger purpose, so that the organization, its members, and even its stakeholders, can be more authentic.

See also:
Authentic From the Start-Up: 4 Tips from Cindy Gallop and IfWeRanTheWorld
3 Questions for a Quick Assessment of Your Organization’s Authenticity
The 3 Inviolable Rules of Authentic Organizations

Images:
blue and green Some rights reserved by dawn_perry
Abstract (blue & green) Some rights reserved by tanakawho

I love it when basic business science can be applied to important causes. So, I was excited when my favorite FemaleScienceProfessor pointed me towards a clever website designed to teach about gender bias: The Gender Bias Learning Project.

The Gender Bias Learning Project is a great demonstration of how basic web skills, clever marketing skills, and thoughtful branding can be used for higher causes.

The Gender Bias Learning Project is a full-featured website with games, videos, interactive quizzes, clear graphics and a built in sense of irony.

The game and overall site developed from a collaboration between BayCreative and the Center for WorkLifeLaw at UCHastings. BayCreative, Inc., a full-service marketing agency, is “a nimble, results-oriented firm”. From the looks of the game and the overall site, BayCreative really delivers on their firm’s brand promise.

Engaging Learning

We all know that gender bias isn’t “funny” and that most feminists anti-gender-bias advocates are dour and humorless. That’s why the idea of turning learning about bias into a game is the first great application of branding expertise: If it has to be nutritious, make it delicious.

Although some parts of the site are serious, and some elements are ever-so-slightly dorky, overall the website is ‘light’ enough that it is pretty engaging. I watched some of the videos and I played spent my latte break testing my knowledge with the pop quiz “Sure, I Get It!”

(11 for 11, I’ll have you know. And even though I did teach Women’s Studies, I learned some new things about gender bias.)

What’s great about Bias Bingo

The standout element of the website is the game, Bias Bingo. Bias Bingo will look familiar to anyone who’s gamed played games of  irony-plus-insight. (Examples of this game genre include The ASA bingo game for sociologists, White Liberal Bingo, and Phat: The Game of White Appropriation).

But, Bias Bingo is a little bit special. Bias Bingo has two built-in advanced learning levels:

(1) Bias Bingo collects data about people’s actual experiences with gender bias, which can be shared with others. And,

(2) Bias Bingo makes you look for real-life examples– you know, the kind of examples that demonstrate that something like ‘gender bias in academe’ actually exists.

Beyond basic branding

There’s even an actual prize at the end of the game.

If you can make it through the buzz kill that is generated by writing out examples of your own experience of bias (no easy feat, I assure you), you can win a free T shirt! The T-shirt announces to all your skill at the game of Bias Bingo.

And, in another brilliant, brand-extending move, the T-shirt creates a brand community. Wearing the T-shirt makes you a brand advocate. It creates community interaction by inviting people to ask you about your experience with Bias Bingo and to play the game themselves.

Clever marketing. I hope it goes viral.

Create the missing tagline

However, there is one piece missing to this marketing strategy… Bias Bingo has no tag line. The game needs a pithy, polysemous, memorable phrase to complete its branding portfolio.

Let’s make “Create the missing tagline” the next Bias Learning Game  ….  I’ll start first with a tagline idea:

“Sexism. The problem that now has a game.”

Your turn…  Add your suggestions in the comments, below, and I’ll send them off to the scholars at The Gender Bias Learning Project.

See Also:
New Game Plays on Women’s Experience of Bias in Academe by Robin Wilson in The Chronicle of Higher Ed
Bias Bingo! at FemaleScienceProfessor
Gender Bias Bingo at Discover

This just in from the The Journal of ‘I’m Not Sure I Can Believe It’ … Well actually, from the The Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies:

Research published in the August 2009 issue suggests that coming back to full-time work after a few years on the Mommy Track can make you look “unusually” motivated and committed to your career.

Is this a “Mommy Track Bump“?

Some details:

In an lab study, participants were asked to assess a female employee’s file and evaluate whether she was suitable for promotion.

One group of participants got the personnel file of an employee had just come back to a full time schedule after 3 years at a reduced workload (80% time) to care for a child. A second group of participants got the very same personnel file, except that this female employee had worked full time the entire time, with no mention of whether or not she had children. Both profiles had the employee working a full-time schedule for the past 6 months and had been with the company 5 1/2 years.

Since the profiles were otherwise the same, what the researchers were testing was how a mother who took a reduced work schedule to care for children and then came back to full time compared to a woman (presumably without children, but you don’t know) who always worked full time.

Here’s what the researchers found:

“A woman who was previously on an AWA (alternative work arrangement) but who had returned to a regular schedule was actually perceived as having greater advancement motivation and advancement capability than a woman who had never been on an alternative work schedule. She was also somewhat more likely to be recommended for a promotion than a woman who had never been on an alternative work schedule. (p. 79)”

This result was not what the authors Margaret Padgett, Lynn Harland and Stephen Moser expected.

Could it be that coming back from the mommy track can actually make you look more committed to your career?

The authors believe so.  Offering employees a variety of “Alternative Work Arrangements” has been shown to benefit organizations (with increased employee commitments and increased attractiveness to job applicants). However, it’s been unclear how much these Alternative Work Arrangements have helped the employees themselves. These arrangements have helped to reduce work-family conflict and stress, and burnout, and yet employees are often reluctant to use them.

Employees fear – often rightly- that their careers will be derailed, or that they will be seen as less committed to their careers, if they use an alternative work arrangement. This concern is even more pronounced when the alternative arrangement is made to facilitate child care. (Note, Mothers are also discriminated against with fewer job offers and job offers with salaries lower than those offered to non-mothers and to men.)

The authors’ conclusion

As the authors explain, previous research has suggested that individuals who take alternative work arrangements “run the risk of being perceived as poor organizational citizens who are uncommitted to their jobs and therefore unworthy of promotion. (p 76).”  They believe that their data show, not that there are no negative perceptions when mothers reduce their work schedules, but that the negative effects of adopting that AWA may not be permanent. Rather, a period of time back at 100% may reverse these negative effects.

What’s going on for evaluators that makes their perception of these mommy track returnees more positive?

The authors propose that:

1. Evaluators see a mother who returns to full-time after reduced time as being “unusually committed to her career”.
2. Evaluators see a mother who chose to remain in the workforce even at 80%, rather than dropping out altogether, must possess an unusually high commitment to her job.
3. Evaluators see view a mother who returns to full-time as being “very capable anyway” if she could handle full-time work (again) as well as childcare/parenting.

An alternative interpretation

It is disappointing that evaluators may be viewing this returning-to-full-time mother as someone “unusual”. That perception does not reflect reality.

While it is true that some women do not return to full time work after becoming mothers, and that some mothers drop out of the paid work force altogether, what is “usual” is for mothers to stay in or to go back into the workforce.

Which makes me wonder– if the evaluators had an accurate perception of what workers who become mothers actually do, would there still be a mommy track bump?

What’s your interpretation?

What do you think of this finding (putting aside any caveats about their research methods)? Do you think that there really might be a Mommy Track Bump? If there is, what does that say about our perceptions of women who work and have children?

Margaret Padgett, Lynn Harland, & Steven B. Moser (2009). The Bad News and the Good News: The Long-Term Consequences of Having Used an Alternative Work Schedule, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, 73-84.

Photo: “Kim, due in November” by dkjd on Flickr

One of my blogging e-mentors asked “If you had one question about blogging that you could have answered with a magic wand, what would that question be?” I’m a big fan of magic wand questions– I use them all the time with my kids, and so I took the bait.

My one question? Where do I find (more) reflective executives? Not just executives who are more reflective, but more of them, too.

Why this question? It comes down to the whole idea of niche blogging and blogging for a particular audience. As I have been putting together advice and insights to share at our Workshop on Blogging for Management Scholars, I’ve been contrasting my practice with ‘best practice’.

Probably the thing I do the least “well” as a blogger is target my audience. Despite having a regular group of readers, a happy number of subscribers, and gradually rising ‘good quality’ traffic, I haven’t put much effort into targeting my niche as “authority bloggers” would recommend.

Why? I think it’s because I’m not sure that the ‘niche’ exists. So, my questions for you, dear readers:

Where do you should I look for the reflective executives, the managers who think not only about their own leadership, or their own personal branding, but also about corporate strategy and reputation?

Where can we look for the managers who, despite their place in the middle of an organization, rise above the limitations of their defined roles to take an enterprise perspective? (And yes, Darden EMBA students, I’m talking about you…)

Where can we find the managers, in both for-profit and not for profit organizations, who put organizational purpose first?

Most importantly, where can we find any of these kinds of reflective executives online (beyond the HBR site).

As I encourage more management scholars to turn outwards toward practitioners (managers & consultants), how can I help them and all of us find the kind of readers who’d be interested in posts that engage their critical thinking, connective thinking, and personal reflection?

Any ideas? Where do we go to find more readers like you?

Figure from:

Executive MBA Programs: The Development of the Reflective Executive, K. D. Roglio & G. Light (2009). Academy of Managment Learning & Education, v 8 (2) June 2009

… And I’m not talking about Swine Flu.
MomsRising.org is spreading a virus . .. it’s their "Mother of the Year Award" video, and I got one! Hooray for me! Mom of the year!

Does it matter that every other working mom is also receiving the "Mother of the Year Award" too? Heck no, I think we’ve all earned it….

MomsRising.org has created a terrific video in appreciation of all the amazing mothers everywhere. It allows you–and anyone you know–to embed the name of any mother as the winner of the 2009 Mother of the Year award – and the award is then announced online in a faux newscast video that is really funny!

Check out the video at: http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/index2.html

If you haven’t seen the video already, go click the above link to take a peek.

Send the video to moms you know!

Write in the names of all your favorite mothers and send it to them so that they can be congratulated by President Obama, celebrated by Hollywood stars, praised by a remarkably articulate baby, and more. And remember to check out the text crawl under the newscast. There’s a little educational content that you’re sure to appreciate.

Thanks to colleague Nanette Fondas and all at MomsRising.org for the chance to share what we know is true — (1) Every mom is a full-time mom, and (2) Every mom is a working mom.

My esteemed colleague and fellow Michigan PhD alum, Aneil Mishra, is a well-known expert on the ‘softer’ organizational affects of downsizing and layoffs: morale, commitment and trust. Writing today about furloughs at GM on his blog Total Trust, Aneil mentions that

"In our research on downsizing, we’ve found that across-the-board cost cutting like this (specifically, pay reductions) rarely achieves its intended goal of actually reducing costs. That’s because such measures have a significant negative impact on employee morale, among other negative outcomes."

For reasons that became clear to me a little later, this comment stopped me in my tracks. I wondered: Have I been advocating alternatives to layoffs, like voluntary pay reductions, that actually don’t reduce costs any better than layoffs themselves?

Are we really stuck between two options, Layoffs and Alternatives to Layoffs, where both options fail to reduce costs and instead depress morale and commitment — and thus obstruct productivity and innovation? What’s a leader to do? What have we missed?

Then, reflecting on Paul Levy at Beth Israel Hospital, Diane Hessen’s post about "Return on Openness" and my own experience in the Ivorydale Soap Plant with high-commitment/high-involvement work systems, I remembered:

It’s not what you do, but how you do it. More specifically, it may not be ‘layoffs’ or ‘pay reductions’ per se that fail to reduce costs, or depress morale. Rather, it may be how these decisions are made and implemented in each organization that generates these less-than-desirable outcomes.

Said another way– Which is preferable: Layoffs or Alternatives to Layoffs ?

Neither?! W hat’s preferable is a democratic, transparent, high-involvement, decision-making process for creating a cost-cutting, ‘right-sizing’ strategy.

Because I think of Aneil’s research as being focused on situations where layoffs and downsizing were inevitable , I hadn’t considered how Aneil and his colleagues’ findings might offer insights about getting the cost and commitment benefits that alternatives to layoffs are supposed to bring. Although their research doesn’t address situations where alternatives to layoffs are chosen, the steps for increasing commitment while reducing costs are the same:

Consider: Mishra & Spreitzer (1998) argue that if employees:

1.  Feel they can can trust top management,

2.  See the outcomes of the process as being just (i.e., using a fair process, sharing the burden fairly, having a reasonable rationale), and

3.  Feel empowered to address the additional problems created by the solution they agree to (such as adding new roles to current jobs, or managing different work schedules),

=> Employees will respond to downsizing/layoffs in a "hopeful" way.

"Hopeful Responses" are active (not passive) and constructive (not destructive).

When members respond in a hopeful way, they are excited about the future in spite of the present difficulty, they are optimistic, they focus on solving problems rather than complaining, they take initiative, and they become "active advocates" within the organization. They are more able to cope with the complexities of downsizing (both psychologically and operationally), because they experience a sense of ownership and take responsibility for making the plan work.

It’s all about "cost plus…"

… A focus on cost PLUS a process that centers on democracy, transparency and involvement. Whether the choice is layoffs, pay reductions, furloughs or reduced work weeks, it is the process that cuts costs while sustaining morale and commitment– or not.

So a little reminder to myself

– I need to advocate strategic alternatives to layoffs decided upon through transparent, democratic organizational processes.
– Advocate both a goal and a process. Don’t assume that a goal that seems to disrespect employees (e.g., layoffs) is always achieved through process that disrespect employees.

Layoffs chosen through democratic, transparent processes, rather than by executive fiat, can actually sustain morale and generate commitment.

Similarly, don’t assume that goals that appear to respect employees are always achieved through process that respect employees.

Alternatives to layoffs decided by executive fiat may save jobs, but alternatives to layoffs chosen though transparent and democratic processes preserve and sustain organizations.

Success depends not only on desirable, humane goals (avoiding layoffs) but also on desirable and humane strategies (transparency and democracy) for choosing these alternatives.

The takeaway?

It’s not just alternatives to layoffs, but also cost cutting strategies that involve, empower, and trust organization members, that lead to increased productivity and innovation, and to cost-savings in times of crisis.

For more detail, see : Explaining How Survivors Respond to Downsizing: The Roles of Trust, Empowerment, Justice, and Work Redesign, Academy of Management Review (1998) Aneil Mishra and Gretchen Spreitzer

At soccer practice this week, I came up with a great idea for my 3rd/4th grade girls team. As coach, I have great ambitions for my team this Spring — I want them to do more than chase the ball all around the pitch whilst squealing.  So, I need to teach them to think just a little bit about strategy , and about what they need to do together .

I hit upon the idea of distilling soccer strategy down into a few pithy sayings. I’m calling it "Soccer in 16 words."

Despite what I know about the dangers of reducing complex ideas into short sentences (e.g., mission statements, corporate values statements), I thought that this would be a great way to get my players thinking about what they each should be doing with the ball once they get their foot on it.

Tomorrow’s game will be the true test…but the girls left practice feeling really excited that they now "know so much" about soccer strategy– all because I could get it down into 16 words that each player can remember . And execute. And shout to her teammates from the sidelines. And use to confirm that she played her own part well.

So this got me to thinking, can I distill down a strategy for moving towards Organizational Authenticity, in  16 words?

Here’s what I came up with:

Organizational Authenticity in 16 Words

Walk the Talk.

Point towards purpose.

Reflect on our future.

Learn, to adjust.

Care a lot.

So that’s sixteen words. If we give ourselves some leeway, and allow maybe 5 more words, is there anything we should add? Let me know in the comments, below.

(And no, that’s not me in the photos. Being a mom as well as coach, I was the one taking the photos.)

To keep things clear for future conversations, here are 3 important things to know about "Mothers Who Work":

1: Every mother is a working mother.
Mothers work inside the home and outside the home, they earn money directly (with pay) and indirectly (supporting a partner in his;/her paid work). Barring a few aberrations here and there, there is no such thing as a non-working mother. Consider: A ‘stay at home mom’ is a ‘working at home’ mom.

2: Every mother is a full-time mother.
Whether or not she works outside the home, and whether or not she works directly for pay, a mother is a mother all the time. A mother doesn’t take time off from being a mother while she is working at a paid job. Consider: No school nurse waits until mom is home from her paid employment to call the mom and tell her to pick up her sick child from school.

3: For families with means, the opportunity for either parent to work at home as a full-time, primary caregiver is a privilege made possible by economics.
Very few parents "get" to stay home. It is possible only for parents who have some economic support. At the same time, and in an almost contradictory way, having a parent staying at home enables the other parent to be fully employed, since so many jobs are predicated on having some besides the employee being responsible for "managing" the family.

Any questions?

Photo of his mom by S. Bennett.

Organizations are always more than an efficient way to control collective efforts, more than the aggregate of their individual members, and more than the sum of their productive parts. We can put people together to do something, but that doesn’t make them an organization. Those of us who study organizations, and who of us who pay attention to the organizations we’re part of, know that organizations have something more– and we find it very hard to describe. Is it soul? is it character? Is it mission? Is it magic?

What is it that brings an organization to life?

I often resort to my sixth-grade science class for the metaphor: A collection of individuals is a mixture, and an organization is a compound. And so I ask "What is it that takes a group of people and turns them into an organization?" I’ve been thinking about this question of what brings an organization to life as I’ve been observing what looks like an organization’s death.

What causes an organization’s death?

When we think about what makes a group of individuals into an organization, we look for the catalyst. But what happens in the opposite direction? What makes an organization dis-integrate and break into its component parts? What’s happening at the Rocky Mountain News , an organization that purportedly died on Feb. 27th, is making me think again about the life source of an organization and what it really takes to blow that life source out.

With the Rocky Mountain News, we may be watching how (maybe even whether ) an organization dis-integrates. What pieces does it break into? How do the pieces come apart? Which parts fall away first?  What makes the ineffable, inchoate and yet palpable stuff of life disappear, so that it is no longer an organization?

Come and see what I mean. Open this window onto the next iteration of the Rocky Mountain News.

"I Want My Rocky"- the "new" Rocky Mountain News ?

Right now, and who knows for how long, the Rocky Mountain News , "exists" in the re-manifested, re-imagined organizational form of IWantMyRocky . You might almost say the Rocky is re-incarnated– but the bodies, the humans, are the same. They haven’t changed. And, it’s not quite clear that the Rocky Mountain News has actually died. Not all of its original parts are here, that’s for sure.

The for-profit mechanisms are certainly gone. Scripps took them all away when it closed the paper at the end of February. And what is still here? Is there something here that is still making this an organization?

At IWantMyRocky ‘s website, professionals from the Rocky Mountain Times newsroom are publishing their own online newspaper of sorts. Without the support of the Scripps for-profit machinery, these journalists are working together and continuing to create an information and entertainment product for their Rocky Mountain Times reader community.

What has allowed IWantMy Rocky to stay/become an organization?

It helps that the cost of creating and distributing the collective product of IWantMyRocky is low. The website requires little physical structure and doesn’t cost much to host. The costs of keeping writers connected and coordinated is also low. And, none of the writers is working for pay. All of this reduces (temporarily) the IWantMyRocky ‘s need to generate profits to fund its operation.

When Scripps stripped away the for-profit element of the Rocky Mountain News , what remained?

What remains, and what we can see in IWantMyRocky , is the members’ coordinated pursuit of their individual and collective purpose. All of these professionals, as individuals, are continuing to create, to practice their profession and ‘be’ who they are. Collectively, they putting together a product that is more than the sum of their individual columns, and they are creating and sustaining a reader community. No one involved is doing this for profit. They are all doing it for purpose .

What do we know now, about the Rocky Mountain News and about IWantMyRocky that has kept them alive as an organization?

The Scripps Corporation tossed an acid bath on the Rocky Mountain News . But rather than killing the Rocky , this just stripped the organization down to its bones. Now, in IWantMyRocky , we see the real structure that held the Rocky Mountain Times together, and that is still holding IWantMyRocky together. What remains is the collective purpose — telling their stories to community of readers — and the interpersonal working relationships and shared vision that let them achieve that purpose.

Based on what remains, we can conclude that the Rocky Mountain News, at least for its members if not for its corporate management, was driven more by purpose than by profit.

How long with IWantMyRocky live? Hard to tell. When I emailed the folks at IWantMyRocky to ask them about their plans, member Steve Foster replied:

It’s hard to say at the moment. We have put some advertising on the site, but just to cover the costs of maintaining it while we sort through our options. The intention is not to make I Want my Rocky itself a for-profit Web site. It was created on behalf and in support of the employees of the Rocky Mountain News. At the moment, it is being used as a temporary base of sorts, a place where readers can find their favorite writers, where writers can continue to do what they love doing while we all regroup from the devastating news of last week.

While its for-profit structure was critical to the endurance (or lack thereof) of the Rocky Mountain News, its for-profit component was not what made it an organization. The withdrawal of its for-profit structure critically damaged that organization, but it didn’t kill the organization. Instead, it stripped the organization down to its fundamental component, its purpose . For these writers, editors, cartoonists, critics, professionals, and organization members, what made the Rocky Mountain News an organization is the same thing that brought IWantMyRocky to life.

At the end, and at the beginning, it was the members’ collective purpose that made them an organization.

So can we conclude:

Organizations that exist for profit alone die the quickest deaths. Organizations that exist for purpose live as long as members find meaning and value in working together.

Organizations that are kept alive by their purpose may not look the same from one manifestation to the next, and they may not stay alive forever. But they create and recreate a shared structure where a group of individuals can achieve a purpose that is collectively meaningful.

The stuff that makes individuals into an organization, the stuff that brings an organization to life, is (still) here. And here. And here .

Call it magic, call it mission, call it soul. See it in action at IWantMyRocky.