Exploring Plato’s Cave Organizations as Psychic Prisons Haman beings have a knack for getting trapped in webs of their own creation. In this chapter we will examine some of the ways this occurs by exploring the idea of organizations as psychic prisons. This metaphor joins the idea that organizations are ulti- mately created and sustained by conscious and unconscious processes, with the notion that people can actually become imprisoned in or con- fined by the images, ideas, thoughts, and actions to which these processes give rise. The metaphor encourages us to understand that while organi- zations may be socially constructed realities, these constructions are often attributed an existence and power of their own that allow them to exer- cise a measure of control over their creators. The idea of a psychic prison was first explored in Plato’s The Republic in the famous allegory of the cave where Socrates addresses the relations among appearance, reality, and knowledge. The allegory pictures an 207208 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION underground cave with its mouth open toward the light of a blazing fire. Within the cave are people chained so that they cannot move. They can see only the cave wall directly in front of them. This is illuminated by the light of the fire, which throws shadows of people and objects onto the wall. The cave dwellers equate the shadows with reality, naming them, talking about them, and even linking sounds from outside the cave with the movements on the wall. Truth and reality for the prisoners rest in this shadowy world, because they have no knowledge of any other. However, as Socrates relates, if one of the inhabitants were allowed to leave the cave, he would realize that the shadows are just reflections of a more complex reality and that the knowledge and perceptions of his fel- low cave dwellers are distorted and flawed. If he were then to return to the cave, he would never be able to live in the old way, since for him the world would be a very different place. No doubt he would find difficulty in accepting his confinement and would pity the plight of his fellows. However, if he were to try and share his new knowledge with them, he would probably be ridiculed for his views. For the prisoners, the familiar images of the cave would be much more meaningful than a world they had never seen. Moreover, as the person espousing the new knowledge would now no longer be able to function with conviction in relation to the shadows, his fellow inmates would likely view the world outside as a dangerous place, something to be avoided. The experience could actually lead them to tighten their grip on their familiar way of seeing. In this chapter we will use this image of a psychic prison to explore some of the ways in which organizations and their members become trapped by constructions of reality that, at best, give an imperfect grasp on the world. We will start by examining how people in organizations can become trapped by favored ways of thinking. We will then explore how organizations can become trapped by unconscious processes that lend organization a hidden significance. As we shall see, the perspective puts familiar patterns in a fresh light and contributes much to our under- standing of why people and organizations often find it so difficult to change. The Trap of Favored Ways of Thinking Consider the following examples: Following the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 the Japanese automobile indus- try began to make massive inroads on the North American market. Caught up in the mind-set of the American way of producing cars, the large U.S. manufacturers were completely ill equipped to meet theEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 209 Japanese challenge. For years they had taken their superior resources, technical competence, and skills in engineering and marketing as a given. Oriented to the large-car market and kept alive by annual model changes, the large firms ignored the potential of small, fuel-efficient cars. The myopia allowed the Japanese to capture a stronghold on their traditional market base. Asimilar pattern can be observed in the computer industry where IBM established a dominant position in the 1970s and early 1980s. The IBM view of the world was dominated by “hardware” and the development of large powerful computer systems. It was a view that blocked out the pos- sibility of a computer industry driven by software and networks of “PCs.” The myopia created the opportunity for Bill Gates’s Microsoft and other organizations to create a world completely at odds with the one in which IBM wanted to live. In times of change it is possible to look at almost any industry and find once successful firms struggling to survive. In 1982, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman wrote about excellent companies such as IBM. By the 1990s, many were struggling. Their particular style of excellence had become a trap that prevented them from thinking in new ways and from transforming themselves to meet new challenges. In his book The Icarus Paradox, Danny Miller offers a comprehensive analysis of some of the reasons why this occurs, arguing that organiza- tions can get caught in vicious circles whereby victories and strengths become weaknesses leading to their downfall. Icarus was the figure in Greek mythology who, flying with his artificial wax wings, soared so close to the sun that the wings melted, whereupon he plunged to his death. The power created through the wings ultimately led to his down- fall. In a similar way, strong corporate cultures can become pathological. Powerful visions of the future can lead to blind spots. Ways of seeing become ways of not seeing, All the forces that help people and their orga- nizations create the shared systems of meaning that allow them to nego- tiate their world in an orderly way, can become constraints that prevent them from acting in other ways. Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan noted that the last thing a fish is likely to discover is the water it is swimming in. The water is so fundamental to the fish’s way of life that it is not seen or questioned. The organizational world is full of similar examples. To illustrate, consider how manufacturing systems perfected through- out the twentieth century locked thousands of North American and European organizations into modes of industrialized inefficiency. Their mechanistic design required the creation of certainty. Thus assembly lines and other modes of mass manufacture were typically designed to prevent210 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION errors or unacceptable variances from traveling throughout a system. For example, buffer stocks of inventory or work in progress were typically held at different stages of the production process to “protect” one part from another. The procedure seemed inevitable and quickly became adopted as a foundation for effective production design. However, these very same buffer stocks that guaranteed the continu- ous operation of the system perpetuated inefficiency. Buffer stocks create “slack” in a system. They represent unused resources. They allow one part of the manufacturing process to become separate from another. They create the kind of autonomy and space on which politics and empire building thrive. People are able to struggle for control over their particu- Jar part of the system. The existence of adequate stocks of high-quality work in process also institutionalizes errors and sloppy work. If a person or machine produces a defective product, production can still continue at its regular pace. Traditional systems of quality control institutionalized the error-producing process further by accepting a certain percentage of damaged products, waste, and inefficiency as the norm. The challenge to this method of manufacturing, naturally enough, came from outside the system: in the form of “just-in-time” methods of production where parts and raw materials are delivered just before they are needed and in the related concept of “zero inventory.” Both were pio- neered in Japan. From the Japanese perspective, buffer stocks represented costs that could be eliminated. By building systems of production that relied on high-quality work being performed at every stage, the Japanese were able to develop production systems that resulted in high-quality, high-volume, low-cost production every time. When there are no buffer stocks to absorb error, there is no room for error. Systems of production must thus become error free. When people are no longer buffered from each other they must recog- nize the nature of their interdependence. Collaboration and mutual prob- lem solving are encouraged. Activities have to be synchronized. Root problems must be confronted and eliminated. “Just-in-time” manufacturing systems were unthinkable from a Western point of view. They contradicted all that seemed logical in design- ing manufacturing systems that could cope with the inevitable uncertain- ties of our uncertain world. The Western response was to try to eliminate and protect against uncertainty. The Japanese response was to learn from uncertainty and flow with it. Of course, just-in-time systems are now widely used in Western manu- facturing. But until they were demonstrated in reality by the Japanese they remained an unthinkable or crazy ideal.EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 211 Such is the nature of psychic prisons. Favored ways of thinking and acting become traps that confine individuals within socially constructed worlds and prevent the emergence of other worlds. As in the case of Plato’s allegory of the cave, disruption usually comes from the outside, But the hold of favored ways of thinking can be so strong that even the disruption is often transformed into a view consistent with the reality of the cave. Sometimes, this process is described as one of groupthink, a term coined by Irving Janis to characterize situations where people are carried along by group illusions and perceptions that have a self-sealing quality. One of the most famous examples is found in the abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs by 1,200 anti-Castro exiles. Launched on April 17, 1961, by the Kennedy administration, it almost led to nuclear war. “How could we have been so stupid?” President Kennedy later remarked. In retrospect, the plan looked completely misguided. Yet it had never seriously been questioned or challenged. Kennedy and his advisers had unwittingly developed shared illusions and operating norms that interfered with their ability to think critically and to engage in the required reality testing. The president’s charisma and a sense of invulnerability set the momentum for all kinds of self-affirming. processes that produced conformity among key decision makers and advisers. Strong rationalizing tendencies mobilized support for favored opinions. A strong sense of “assumed consensus” inhibited people from expressing their doubts. Self-appointed people worked informally to pro- tect the president from information that might damage his confidence. As a result, the CIA-planned invasion went ahead with a minimum of debate about the core assumptions on which its success depended. This kind of “groupthink” has been reproduced in thousands of decision-making situations in organizations of all kinds. It may seem overly dramatic to describe the phenomenon as reflecting a kind of “psy- chic prison.” Many people would prefer to describe it through the culture metaphor, seeing the pathologies described in all the above examples as the product of particular cultural beliefs and norms. But there is great merit in recognizing the prisonlike qualities of culture. Culture gives us our world. And it traps us in that world! The psychic prison metaphor alerts us to pathologies that may accompany our ways of thinking and encourages us to question the fundamental premises on which we enact everyday reality. Plato’s allegory draws attention to blind spots in conscious awareness. But, as we shall see, there are also many unconscious dimensions to how we construct the reality of organizational life. When we explore this realm, the image of a psychic prison takes on a new quality.212 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION Organization and the Unconscious If the psychoanalysts are correct, much of the rational and taken-for-granted reality of everyday life expresses preoc- cupations and concerns that lie beneath the level of conscious awareness. This places the study of organization and management in an interesting perspective, suggesting that much of what happens at a surface level must take account of the hidden structure and dynamics of the human psyche. As is well known, the basis for this kind of thinking was laid by Sigmund Freud, who argued that the unconscious is created as humans repress their innermost desires and private thoughts. He believed that in order to live in harmony with one another humans must moderate and. control their impulses, and that the unconscious and culture are really two sides of the same coin. He saw culture as the visible surface of the “repression” that accompanied the development of human sociability. It was in this sense that he talked about the essence of society being the repression of the individual, and about the essence of the individual as being the repression of himself or herself. Since Freud’s early work, the whole field of psychoanalysis has become a battleground between rival theories of the origin and nature of the unconscious. While Freud placed importance on its links with various forms of repressed sexuality, others have stressed its links with the struc- ture of the patriarchal family, with fear of death, with anxieties associated with early infancy, with the collective unconscious, and so on. Common to all these different interpretations is the idea that humans live their lives as prisoners or products of their individual and collective psychic history. The past is seen as living in the present through the unconscious, often in ways that create distorted and uncomfortable relations with the external world. Whereas Plato saw the route to enlight- enment in the pursuit of objective knowledge and the activities of philosopher-kings, the psychoanalysts seek it in forms of self-under- standing that show how in encounters with the external world, people are really meeting hidden dimensions of themselves. As we shall see, the detailed images and ideas that have shaped the field of psychoanalysis have great relevance for how we understand organizational life. ORGANIZATION AND REPRESSED SEXUALITY Frederick Taylor, the creator of “scientific management,” was a man totally preoccupied with control. He was an obsessive, compulsive character, driven by a relentless need to tie downEXPLORING PLATO’S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 213 and master almost every aspect of his life. His activities at home, in the garden, and on the golf course, as well as at work, were dominated by programs and schedules, planned in detail and rigidly followed. Even his afternoon walks were carefully laid out in advance; it was not unknown for him to observe his motions, to measure the time taken over different phases, and even to count his steps. These traits were evident in Taylor's personality from an early age. Living in a well-to-do household dominated by strong puritan values (emphasizing work, discipline, and the ability to keep one’s emotions decently in check), Taylor quickly learned how to regiment himself. Childhood friends described the meticulous “scientific” approach that he brought to their games. Taylor insisted that all be subjected to strict rules and exact formulas. Before playing a game of baseball he would often insist that accurate measurements be made of the field so that everything would be in perfect relation, even though most of a sunny morning was spent ensuring that measurements were correct to the inch, Even a game of croquet was subject to careful analysis, with Fred working on the angles of the various strokes and calculating the force of impact and the advantages and disadvantages of understroke and overstroke. On cross- country walks, the young Fred would constantly experiment with his legs to discover how to cover the greatest distance with a minimum of energy, or the easiest method of vaulting a fence, or the ideal length of a walking stick. As an adolescent, before going to a dance, he would be sure to make lists of the attractive and unattractive girls likely to be present so that he could spend equal time with each. Even during sleep this same meticulous regulation was brought into operation. From about the age of twelve Taylor suffered from fearful nightmares and insomnia. Noticing that his worst dreams occurred while he was lying on his back, he constructed a harness of straps and wooden points that would wake him whenever he was in danger of getting into this position. He experimented with other means of overcoming his night- mares, constructing a canvas sheet hung between two poles so that he could keep his brain cool. The insomnia and sleeping devices stayed with him in one way or another throughout his life. In later years he preferred to sleep in an upright position, propped by numerous pillows. This made spending nights away from home a rather difficult business, and in hotels where pillows were in short supply he would sometimes spend the night propped up by bureau drawers. Taylor’s life provides a splendid illustration of how unconscious concerns and preoccupations can have an effect on organization, for it is clear that his whole theory of scientific management was the product of the inner struggles of a disturbed and neurotic personality. His attempt to organize and control the world, whether in childhood games or in214 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION systems of scientific management, was really an attempt to organize and control himself. From a Freudian perspective, Taylor’s case presents a classic illustra- tion of the anal-compulsive type of personality. As is well known, Freud’s theory of human personality emphasizes that character traits in adult life emerge from childhood experience, and in particular from the way the child manages to reconcile the demands of his or her sexuality and the forces of external control and constraint. Freud’s view of sexuality was a very broad one, embracing all kinds of libidinal desires and gratifications. He believed that children typically developed through different phases of sexuality, and that difficult experiences could lead to various forms of repression that resurface in later life. As illustrated in Exhibit 7.1, repres- sion may set the basis for all kinds of defense mechanisms that displace and redirect these unconscious strivings so that they appear in other less threatening and more controlled forms. From a Freudian standpoint, excessive concerns with parsimony, order, regularity, correctness, tidiness, obedience, duty, and punctuality are direct corollaries of what is learned and repressed as the child copes with early anal experiences. Taylor’s life is permeated with many of these pre- occupations and with “reaction formations” that manifest the opposite. For example, much of Taylor's life reflects an inner struggle with the puritanical discipline and authority relations of his childhood. There is good reason to believe that the relations that his scientific management struck between managers and working men were rooted in the disciplin- ary structure under which he grew up. His relish in the dirt and grime of factories and his identification with the workers (he always claimed that he was one of them) can be understood as reactions against the same family situation. Amid all the conflict surrounding the introduction of sci- entific management, including direct insults, threats on his life, and his appearance before a special U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on Taylorism, where he was presented as the “enemy of the working man,” Taylor clung to the view that he had the friendship of those whom he sought to control. Within Taylor’s mind the aggression of scientific management was turned into its opposite: the idea that it promoted har- mony. It was this view that allowed him to see himself as an industrial peacemaker at the very same time that scientific management was one of the major forces creating industrial unrest. Taylor had a productive neurosis! His preoccupations and ideas dove- tailed perfectly with the concerns of the organizations of his day. Hence, rather than be dismissed as a crank he became a kind of infamous hero. The resolution of his own internal struggle resulted in productive inno- vations, ideas, and methods of control that had wide social impact.EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 215 Freudian psychology emphasizes how human personality is shaped as the human mind learns to cope with raw impulses and desires. Freud believed that in the process of maturation these are brought under control or banished to the unconscious. The unconscious thus becomes a reservoir of repressed impulses. The adult person deals with this reservoir in a vari- ety of ways, engaging in various defense mechanisms to keep them in check. Here are some of the important defenses that have been identified by Freud and his followers: Repression: “Pushing down” unwanted impulses and ideas into the unconscious Denial: Refusal to acknowledge an impulse-evoking fact, feeling, or memory. Displacement: Shifting impulses aroused by one person or situation to a safer target Fixation: Rigid commitment to a particular attitude or behavior Projection: Attribution of one’s own feelings and impulses to others Introjection: Internalizing aspects of the external world in one’s psyche Rationalization: Creation of elaborate schemes of justification that disguise underlying motives and intentions Reaction formation: Converting an attitude or feeling into its opposite Regression: Adoption of behavior patterns found satisfying in childhood in order to reduce present demands on one’s ego Sublimation; Channeling basic impulses into socially acceptable forms idealization: Playing up the good aspects of a situation to protect oneself from the bad Splitting: Isolating different elements of experience, often to protect the good from the bad Exhibit 7.1 Glossary of Some Freudian and Neo-Freudian Defense Mechanisms SOURCE: Hampden-Turner (1981: 40-42) and Klein (1980: 1-24). The relationship between Taylor’s anal-compulsive approach to life and the mode of organization embraced by scientific management raises a number of intriguing questions about styles of organization generally. For example, to what extent is it possible to understand organization as216 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION, an external reflection of unconscious strivings? What are the detailed links between the rise of formal organization and libidinal repression? To what extent do modes of organization institutionalize defense mecha- nisms? Is there a pattern? Do tightly controlled bureaucratic forms reflect the influence of compulsive preoccupations? Do they attract and reward people who share these characteristics? Do organic and other forms of organization reflect and institutionalize preoccupations concerned with Freud’s other personality types? These questions may seem rather far fetched. But interesting links can be drawn. For example, it is clear that there has always been a highly visible connection between the rise of formal organization and the control of sexuality. If we return to the Middle Ages we find a libidinal society where few distinctions were drawn between public and private life. Open displays of sexual behavior were common. As my colleague Gibson Burrell of Warwick University has shown, even in medieval monasteries, convents, and churches, outrageous sexual behaviors presented a major problem. Manuscripts from the seventh and eighth centuries reveal that punishments for different classes of sexual misconduct were calculated in elaborate detail. Some of the most extreme offenses called for castration; others required extensive penitentials. Thus, a monk found guilty of simple fornication with unmarried persons could expect to fast for a year on bread and water, whereas a nun could expect three to seven years of fasting and a bishop twelve years. The punishment for masturbation in church was forty days’ fasting (sixty days’ psalm singing for monks and nuns). A bishop caught fornicating with cattle could expect eight years’ fasting for a first offense and ten years’ fasting for each subsequent offense. The very fact that these schedules existed indicates the extent to which these behaviors posed an ever-present problem to the order and routine of monastic life, one of the earliest modes of formal organization. They provide a graphic illustration of Freud's point that to promote social order and “civilized” behavior the libido has to be brought under control. In the view of the French historian Michel Foucault this conflict between organization and sexuality should come as no surprise, for mas- tery and control of the body is fundamental for control over social and political life, He thus encourages us to note the parallels between the rise of formal organization and the routinization and regimentation of the human body. This is evident in the examples above, in how Frederick the Great made a disciplined Prussian army out of an unruly mob (discussed in Chapter 2), and in early forms of industrial organization. For example, the British “Factory Acts” of 1833 gave much attention to the problem.EXPLORING PLATO’S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 217 of controlling sexual behavior at work. Modern legislation on sexual. harassment seeks to tackle the residue of this problem in today’s work- place. Virtues of abstinence, restraint, and clean living were actively pro- moted in the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of the early industrialists in Europe and North America had Quaker and Puritan affiliations, the background against which Frederick Taylor was later to emerge. In Freudian terms this process of acquiring control over the body hinges on a social process in which the kind of organization and discipline of the anal personality becomes dominant. This sublimation has provided much of the energy underlying the development of industrial society. As we examine the bureaucratic form of organization, therefore, we should be alert to the hidden meaning of the close regulation and super- vision of human activity, the relentless planning and scheduling of work, and the emphasis on productivity, rule following, discipline, duty, and obedience. The bureaucracy is a mechanistic form of organization but an anal one, too. Not surprisingly, some people are able to work in this kind of organization more effectively than others. Historically, a strong case can be made for the idea that anality has been the major form of repressed sexuality shaping the nature of organizations. However, as we look around the organizational world, it is easy to see signs of other forms. Take, for example, the more flamboyant, flexible, organic, innovative firms now making such an impact on the corporate world. These organizations often call for a creative looseness of style that is quite alien to the bureaucratic personality. Freudian theory would sug- gest that the corporate cultures of these organizations often institutional- ize various combinations of oral, phallic, and genital sexuality. Consider, for example, the driving ambition behind boardroom conquests, acquisitions, and mergers or the exhibitionistic “me-oriented” behaviors through which managers and organizations may lavish attention on themselves. In aggressive, individualistic organizations the corporate culture is often characterized by what Wilhelm Reich would describe as a phallic-narcissistic ethos, where satisfaction is derived from being visible, adored, and “a winner.” Such organizations regard and encourage this kind of narcissistic behavior exactly as rigid bureaucracies institutionalize anality. Freudian theory thus provides an interesting twist to the kind of exhi- bitionistic behavior found in some of the corporate cultures discussed in Chapter 5. It suggests a new kind of contingency theory. Organizations are shaped not just by their environments. They are also shaped by the unconscious concerns of their members and the unconscious forces shap- ing the societies in which they exist.218 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION ORGANIZATION AND THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY While the Freudian perspective creates many novel interpretations of organizational life, in the view of many critics Freud was too hung up on sexuality and took the argument too far. Notable among these critics are members of the contemporary women’s movement who see Freud as a man espousing male values and trapped in his own unconscious sexual preoccupations, especially as they interacted with the Victorian morality of his day. Rather than place emphasis on repressed sexuality as a driving force behind modern organization, these critics suggest that we ought to try and understand organization as an expression of patriarchy. From their standpoint, patriarchy operates as a kind of conceptual prison, producing and reproducing organizational structures that give dominance to males and traditional male values. The evidence for a patriarchal view of organization is easy to see. Formal organizations typically build upon characteristics associated with Western male values and, historically, have been dominated by males, except in those jobs where the function is to support, serve, flatter, please, and entertain. Thus men have tended to dominate organizational roles and functions where there is a need for aggressive and forthright behav- ior, whereas women have, until fairly recently, been socialized to accept roles placing them in a subordinate position, as in nursing, clerical, and secretarial work, or roles designed to satisfy various kinds of male narcis- sism. The bureaucratic approach to organization tends to foster the ratio- nal, analytic, and instrumental characteristics associated with the Western stereotype of maleness, while downplaying abilities traditionally viewed as “female,” such as intuition, nurturing, and empathic support. In the process it has created organizations that in more ways than one define “a man’s world,” where men, and the women who have entered the fray, joust and jostle for positions of dominance like stags contesting the leadership of their herd. In the view of many writers on the relationship between gender and organization, the dominant influence of the male is rooted in the hierar- chical relations found in the patriarchal family, which, as Wilhelm Reich has observed, serves as a factory for authoritarian ideologies. In many for- mal organizations one person defers to the authority of another exactly as the child defers to parental rule. The prolonged dependency of the child upon the parents facilitates the kind of dependency institutionalized in the relationship between leaders and followers and in the practice where people look to others to initiate action in response to problematic issues. In organizations, as in the patriarchal family, fortitude, courage, andEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS, 219 heroism, flavored by narcissistic self-admiration, are often valued qualities, as is the determination and sense of duty that a father expects from his son. Key organizational members also often cultivate fatherly roles by acting as mentors to those in need of help and protection. Critics of patriarchy suggest that in contrast to matriarchal values, which emphasize unconditional love, optimism, trust, compassion, and a capacity for intuition, creativity, and happiness, the psychic structure of the male-dominated family tends to create a feeling of impotence accom- panied by a fear of and dependence on authority. These critics argue that under the influence of matriarchal values organizational life would be far less hierarchical, be more compassionate and holistic, value means over ends, and be far more tolerant of diversity and open to creativity. Many of these traditionally female values are evident in nonbureaucratic forms of organization where nurturing and networking replace authority and hier- archy as the dominant modes of integration. In viewing organizations as unconscious extensions of family relations, we thus have a powerful means of understanding key features of the cor- porate world. We are also given a clue as to how organizations are likely to change along with contemporary changes in family structure and par- enting relations. We see the major role that women and gender-related values can play in transforming the corporate world. So long as organi- zations are dominated by patriarchal values, the roles of women in orga- nizations will always be played out on “male” terms. Hence, the view of many feminist critics of the modern corporation: The real challenge facing women who want to succeed in the organizational world is to change organizational values in the most fundamental sense. ORGANIZATION, DEATH, AND IMMORTALITY In his book The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker suggests that human beings are “Gods with anuses.” Among all the animals we alone are conscious of the fact that we will die, and we are obliged to spend our lives with knowledge of the paradox that while we may be capable of spiritual transcendence beyond our bodies, our exis- tence is dependent on a finite structure of flesh and bone that will ulti- mately wither away. In Becker’s view, humans spend much of their life attempting to deny the oncoming reality of death by pushing their mor- bid fears deep into the recesses of their unconscious. He in effect reinter- prets the Freudian theory of repressed sexuality, linking childhood fears associated with birth and the development of sexuality with fears relating to our own inadequacies, vulnerability, and mortality.220 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION These views lead us to understand culture and organization in a novel way. For example, they encourage us to understand many of our symbolic acts and constructions as flights from our own mortality. In joining with others in the creation of culture as a set of shared norms, beliefs, ideas, and social practices, we attempt to locate ourselves in something larger and more enduring than ourselves. In creating a world that can be per- ceived as objective and real, we reaffirm the concrete and real nature of our own existence. In creating symbol systems that allow us to engage in meaningful exchanges with others, we also help to find meaning in our own lives. Although we may in quiet times confront the fact that we are going to die, much of our daily life is lived in the artificial realness created through culture. This illusion of realness helps disguise our unconscious fear that everything is highly vulnerable and transitory. Thus, as Becker shows, when viewed from the perspective of our own impending death, the artifacts of culture can be understood as defense systems that help to create the illusion that we are greater and more pow- erful than we actually are. The continuity and development that we find in systems of religion, ideology, national history, and shared values help us believe we are part of a pattern that continues well beyond the bounds of our own life. No wonder, therefore, that people are so quick to defend their basic beliefs, even if it means going to war and confronting the real- ity of death. In doing so, they can help preserve the myth of immortality when they are alive. This perspective suggests that we can understand organizations and much of the behavior within organizations in terms of a quest for immor- tality. In creating organizations we create structures of activity that are larger than life and that often survive for generations. In becoming iden- tified with such organizations we ourselves find meaning and perma- nence, As we invest ourselves in our work, our roles become our realities, and as we objectify ourselves in the goods we produce or the money we make, we make ourselves visible and real to ourselves. No wonder that questions of survival are such a high priority in organizations, for there is much more than the survival of the organization at stake. In decoding the unconscious significance of the relationship between immortality and organization, we realize that in attempting to manage and organize our world we are really attempting to manage and organize ourselves. Of particular importance here is the fact that many of our most basic conceptions of organization hinge on the idea of making the com- plex simple. Thus, the bureaucratic approach to organization emphasizes the virtue of breaking activities and functions into clearly defined com- ponent parts. In much of science and in everyday life, we manage our world by simplifying it; in making it simple we make it amenable toEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 221 control. In doing so, we create the myth that we are actually in control and that we are more powerful than we really are. Much of the knowledge through which we organize our world can thus be seen as protecting us from the idea that, ultimately, we probably understand and control very little. Arrogance often hides weakness, and the idea that human beings, so small, puny, and transient, can organize and boast mastery of nature is, in many respects, a sign of their own vulnerability. People use detailed myths, rituals, and modes of involvement in every- day life to defend themselves against consciousness of their vulnerability. A splendid illustration of this has been presented by Richard Boland and Raymond Hoffman in a study of the operation of a machine shop producing custom-tooled parts, where jokes and humor are used to cope with difficult working conditions. The jobs on which the men are involved are often hazardous, yet are made even more dangerous by practical jokes. The study illustrates how jokes help the men deal with a difficult work situation and questions of self-identity and allow them to exert a measure of control. In other organizational contexts, processes of goal setting, planning, and other kinds of ritual activity perform similar functions. In setting personal or organizational goals, we reassert confi- dence in our future. In investing our time and energy in a favored project, we convert the flight of time into something concrete and enduring. Whereas Freudian analysis would view excessive concerns with produc- tivity, planning, and control as expressions of sublimated anal concems, the work of Becker leads us to understand them as an attempt to preserve and tie down life in the face of death. ORGANIZATION AND ANXIETY In his later work, particularly in his book Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud came to place increasing emphasis on the struggle between life and death instincts within the individual. This relationship became a special focus for study by Melanie Klein and the so-called English school of psychoanalysis based at the Tavistock Institute in London, who have spent a great deal of time tracing the impact of childhood defenses against anxiety on the adult personality. The Kleinian school has placed great emphasis on the role of the mother and on rela- tionships between the child and its mother’s breast in identifying the links between the conscious and unconscious. Klein's work thus helps rectify a great bias in Freud’s research, which in being overly concerned with the role of the father as the key figure in early childhood experience had tended to ignore or underplay the importance of the nurturing role of the mother.222 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION Klein’s work builds on the premise that from the beginning of life the human child experiences unease associated with the death instinct and fear of annihilation and that this fear becomes internalized in the form of “persecutory anxiety.” To cope with this anxiety, the child devel- ops defense mechanisms, including splitting, introjection, and projection (see Exhibit 7.1). In Klein’s view, this first occurs in relation to the mother’s breast or surrogate, which becomes identified with good and bad experiences, resulting in severance between feelings of love and hate. While experiences of the “good breast” provide a focus for affirmation and integration of the child’s existence, experiences of the “bad breast” (where feeding is frustrating, slow, or difficult) become the focus of persecutory anxieties within the child. These anxieties are projected onto the “bad breast,” which is often attacked with anger. Although the split between the good and bad breast occurs in the unconscious fantasy life of the child, it is real in its effects: It gets translated into specific patterns of feelings, object relations, and thought processes that have a significant impact on later life. In Klein's view, the formation of the ego begins in these very early experiences, the “good breast” providing an integrative focus that helps to fight the destructive forces projected onto the “bad breast.” The child splits the good feelings from the bad, internalizing, idealizing, and enjoy- ing the good, often as a means of denying the existence of threatening states, while attacking the bad, often by projecting them onto the outside world. The life of the infant thus tends to be a world of extremes, in which ego characteristics associated with idealization, projection, and denial are all visible. In Klein’s view, these characteristics are associated with normal as well as maladapted development. The infant passes through a perse- cutory (paranoid-schizoid) phase during the first few months of life and then into a “depressive position,” where the child begins to appreciate that the good and bad breast are one and the same and that he or she has hated and attacked what is also loved. Klein believed that the necessary synthesis between loved and hated aspects of the breast gives rise to mourning and guilt, which represent vital advances in the child’s emo- tional and intellectual life. She believed that if the persecutory fears within. the child remain strong the infant has great difficulty leaving the paranoid- schizoid position and working through the necessary depressive phase. Then these early experiences may become the focus for fear, hate, envy, greed, anger, sadism, frustration, guilt, paranoia, obsession, depression, fantasy, and other feelings that are carried in the unconscious and trans- ferred to other objects and relations. Klein’s theory of human develop- ment thus suggests that many of the disorders that Freud attributed to human sexuality have their origins in earlier patterns of “object relations.”EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 223 Klein’s approach to the analysis of object relations suggests that adult experience reproduces defenses against anxiety originally formed in early childhood, with the techniques of splitting, projection, introjection, ideal- ization, and denial shaping the way we forge relations with our outside world. From this perspective, it is possible to understand the structure, process, culture, and even the environment of an organization in terms of the unconscious defense mechanisms developed by its members to cope with individual and collective anxiety. This approach to organizational analysis has been systematically devel- oped by many members of the ‘Tavistock Institute. For example, in his analysis of group behavior, Wilfred Bion has shown that groups often regress to childhood patterns of behavior to protect themselves from uncomfortable aspects of the real world. When a group is fully engaged witha task, its energies tend to be occupied and directed in ways that keep the group in touch with an external reality of some kind. However, when problems that challenge the group’s functioning arise, the group tends to withdraw its energies from task performance and use them to defend itself against the anxieties associated with the new situation. We have all experienced this in one way or another in our personal lives and in count- less organizational situations where we become so anxious about the dynamics of a situation that we lose sight of the tasks that are supposed to be performed. Concerns about group functioning obliterate concerns relating to the role of the group in the wider world. Bion has shown that in such anxiety-provoking situations groups tend to revert to one of three styles of operation that employ different kinds of defense against anxiety. In some groups, a dependency mode is adopted. It is assumed that the group needs some form of leadership to resolve its predicament. The group’s attention is split from the problems at hand and projected onto a particular individual. Group members often proclaim helplessness in cop- ing with the situation and idealize the characteristics of the chosen leader. Sometimes, the group projects its energies onto an attractive symbol of its past, celebrating the way things used to be instead of coping with the cur- rent reality. Such a climate makes it easy for a potential leader to step in and take charge of the group's affairs. However, he or she often inherits an extremely difficult situation, as the very existence of a leader will pro- vide an excuse for personal inaction on the part of others. The leader will also have to embody traits fantasized by people in the group who project desired aspects of their own egos onto the leader figure. As a result, the leader often fails to live up to expectations and is soon replaced by another person, often one of the least able members of the group. He or she in turn usually fails, and so the problems continue, perhaps leading to fragmentation and infighting within the group. Group functioning thus224 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION tends to become immobilized as all kinds of petty wrangling and divisionary issues serve as substitutes for real action. In another pattern of response, a group may attempt to deal with its problems through what Bion calls pairing. This involves a fantasy where members of the group come to believe that a messiah figure will emerge to deliver the group from its fear and anxiety. The group’s dependence on the emergence of such a figure again paralyzes its ability to take effective action. A third pattern of response is what Bion describes as fight-flight, in which the group tends to project its fears on an enemy of some kind. This enemy embodies the unconscious persecutory anxiety experienced by the group. The enemy may take the form of a competitor in the environment, a government regulation, a public attitude, or a particular person or orga- nization that appears to be “out to get us.” While uniting the group and making a strong form of leadership possible, the fight-flight process tends to distort the group’s appreciation of reality and hence its ability to cope. ‘Time and energy tend to be devoted to fighting or protecting the group from the perceived danger rather than taking a more balanced look at the problems that are evident in the situation. A good example of this process is the way automobile manufacturers and many other branches of the manufacturing industry in North America first reacted to the challenge posed by the import of goods from Japan and other parts of Asia. While this new source of competition was very real in its effects, preoccupation with “the enemy” and the need to fight or pro- tect oneself through legislation and import quotas diverted attention from an equally important aspect of the situation: the need to reexamine the nature of one’s own products to find how they might be modified or improved to compete in the new market conditions. The fight-flight response illustrated in this example tapped an unconscious paranoia that is common to many group situations. The relevance of these ideas for understanding the dynamics of leadership, group processes, the enactment of organizational culture, relations between organization and environment, and other day-to-day aspects of organizational functioning is clear. The defense mechanisms elucidated by Klein and Bion pervade almost every aspect of organiza- tional activity. People construct realities wherein threats and concerns within the unconscious mind become embodied in structures for coping with anxiety in the outside world. People may project these unconscious concerns as individuals or through patterns of unconscious collusion that tap shared fears, concerns, and general anxiety. These ideas can also help explain many of the more formal aspects of organization. For example, Elliott Jaques and Isobel Menzies, formerEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 225 members of the Tavistock Institute, have shown how aspects of organiza- tional structure can be understood as social defenses against anxiety. Jaques has shown that many organizational roles are the focus of various kinds of paranoid or persecutory anxiety in that people project bad objects and bad impulses onto the occupant of the role, who, more often than not, will introject these projections or deflect them elsewhere. Thus, the first officer on a ship is typically held responsible for many things that go wrong, even if he is not responsible for them. By common unconscious consent, he is usually the source of all trouble, allowing the crew to find relief from their own internal persecutors. The process also allows the captain to be more easily idealized as a good protective figure. All kinds of organizational scapegoats serve similar functions—people in roles everyone “loves to hate,” convenient “troublemakers” and “misfits,” and people who are “just not playing the game.” They provide a focus for unconscious anger and sadistic tendencies, relieving tension in the wider organization and binding it together. Jaques has shown that this kind of defense against paranoid anxiety is often a feature of labor-management relations, bad impulses being pro- jected onto different groups who are then perceived as villains or sources of trouble and who become the objects of vengeful attitudes and actions. The process also occurs in many patterns of interorganizational relations. For example, Robert Chatov characterizes many of the relations between government and business as “regulatory sadism,” where regulators inflict burdensome and superfluous requirements on regulatees. The process can also be observed in the way organizations in competitive environ- ments may attempt to dominate, punish, and control their rivals or other organizations with whom they work and in the way some organizations punish themselves. For example, one part of an organization may set out to create punishing problems for another, or build various kinds of pun- ishment into its general policies and procedures. This becomes very evident in times of economic recession when key people often take great pleasure in “tightening up” organizational practices and privileges estab- lished in the preceding “fat” years. Similar attitudes can be found in the field of labor-management relations, where a weakened position of trade unions can open the door to “union bashing,” and in major restructurings that are motivated as much by desires to take revenge and punish indi- viduals and groups as by the genuine rationalization of work practices. Isobel Menzies has developed related insights in a pioneering study on nursing staff in hospitals, showing how defenses against anxiety under- pin many aspects of the way nursing work is organized. As is well known, nurses often have to deal with distressing tasks that can arouse mixed feelings of pity, compassion, love, guilt, fear, hatred, envy, and resentment.226 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION Hence, in the nursing profession the splitting up of the nurse-patient relation into discrete tasks distributed among different nurses, the deper- sonalization, categorization, and denial of the significance of the patient as an individual in favor of the patient as a “case,” and the detachment and denial of personal feelings often have unconscious as well as bureau- cratic significance. They are coping mechanisms. Sometimes, they con- tribute to efficient health care. At other times, they get in the way. In both cases, they may be extremely difficult to remove or change. In yet another area of research, Abraham Zaleznik of the Harvard Business School has shown that patterns of unconscious anxiety often exert a decisive influence on coalition building and the politics of organi- zational life. In some situations leaders are unable to develop close relations with their colleagues and subordinates because of unconscious fears, or because some form of unconscious anger or envy leads them to resent any trace of rivalry. Such concerns may motivate the leader to maintain control by dividing and ruling subordinates in ways that ensure that they are “kept in place.” Often, the unconscious fears prevent the leader from being able to accept genuine help and advice. For example, policy suggestions put forward by subordinates may be interpreted as rivalry and hence dismissed or suppressed regardless of their substantive merit, When relations are dominated by this kind of unconscious compe- tition, the leader frequently becomes isolated, providing an ideal situation for subordinates to club together in a way that may actually lead to his or her demise. In this manner, unconscious projections often have self- realizing effects. It is easy to see that the patterns of meaning that shape corporate cul- ture and subculture may also have unconscious significance. The com- mon values that bind an organization often have their origin in shared concerns that lurk below the surface of conscious awareness. For example, in organizations that project a team image, various kinds of splitting mechanisms are often in operation, idealizing the qualities of team members while projecting fears, anger, envy, and other bad impulses onto persons and objects that are not part of the team. As in war, the ability to create unity and a feeling of purpose often depends upon the ability to deflect destructive impulses onto the enemy. These impulses then con- front the team as “real” threats. In organizations characterized by internal strife or an ethos of cutthroat competition, these destructive impulses are often unleashed within, creat- ing cultures that thrive on various kinds of sadism rather than by project- ing their sadism elsewhere. For example, deep-seated envy may lead people to block the success of their colleagues because they fear that they will be unable to match that success. This hidden process may undermineEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 227 the ability to develop teamlike cooperation, which requires organizational members to enjoy success through affiliation with successful others as well as through their own achievements. Again, unresolved persecutory anxi- eties, which invariably inhibit learning because they prevent people from accepting criticism and correcting their mistakes, may lead to a culture characterized by all kinds of tension and defensiveness. Considerations such as these suggest that there may be muchmore to cor- porate culture than is evident in the popular idea that it is possible to “man- age culture.” Culture, like organization, may not be what it seems to be. Culture may be of as much significance in helping us avoid an inner reality as it is in helping us cope with the external reality of our day-to-day lives. ORGANIZATION, DOLLS, AND TEDDY BEARS As children, most of us had a favorite soft toy, blanket, piece of clothing, or other special object on which we lavished attention and from which we were virtually inseparable. Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott has developed the Kleinian theory of object relations in a way that emphasizes the key role of such “transitional objects” in human development. He suggests that they are critical in developing distinctions between the “me” and the “not me,” creating what he calls an “area of illusion” that helps the child develop relations with the outside world. In effect, these objects provide a bridge between the child’s inter- nal and external worlds. If the favored object or phenomenon is modified (eg., Teddy is washed or cleaned), then the child may feel that his or her own existence is being threatened in some way. In Winnicott’s view, the relationship with such objects continues throughout life, the doll, teddy bear, or blanket gradually being replaced by other objects and experiences that mediate relations with one’s world to help maintain a sense of identity. In later life, a valued possession, a col- lection of letters, a cherished dream, or perhaps a valued attribute, skill, or ability may come to act as a substitute for our lost doll or teddy, sym- bolizing and reassuring us about who we actually are and where we stand in the wider world. While they play a crucial role in linking us with our reality, on occasion these objects and experiences may also acquire the sta- tus of a fetish or fixation that we are unable to relinquish. In such cases, adult development becomes stuck and distorted, a rigid commitment to a particular aspect of our world making it difficult for us to move on and deal with the changing nature of our surroundings. In other words, adults, like children, can become overly committed to the comfort and security provided by their new teddy bears in disguise!228 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION If Winnicott is correct, the theories of transitional phenomena and associated areas of illusion add to our understanding of how we engage and construct organizational reality. They also provide a powerful per- spective on the role of the unconscious in shaping and resisting change. ‘These issues have been studied in depth by Harold Bridger of the Tavistock Institute, who has run numerous seminars exploring the uncon- scious significance of transitional phenomena in organizational life. His perspective leads us to understand that many organizational arrange- ments can themselves serve as transitional phenomena: They play a criti- cal role in defining the nature and identity of organizations and their members and in shaping attitudes that can block creativity, innovation, and change. For example, in many organizations a particular aspect of organi- zational structure or corporate culture may come to assume special signif- icance and be preserved and retained even in the face of great pressure to change. A family firm may cling toa particular aspect of its history and mis- sion, even though it is now operating in new conditions where this aspect is no longer relevant. Trade-union officials or a group of employees may want to fight to the death to defend a particular principle or a set of con- cessions won in previous battles, even though they are no longer of any real value to their members. A manager or work group may insist that they have the right and discretion to make particular decisions or that work be performed ina specific manner, even though when pressed they recognize that their requirements are ritualistic rather than substantive in nature. In each of these cases the phenomenon to be preserved may be of transitional significance to those involved. Just as children may rely on the presence of the doll or teddy bear as a means of reaffirming who and where they are, managers and workers may rely on equivalent phenom- ena for defining their sense of identity. When these phenomena are chal- lenged, basic identities are challenged. The fear of loss that this entails thus often generates a reaction that may be out of all proportion to the importance of the issue when reviewed from a more detached point of view. This unconscious dynamic may help explain why some organiza- tions have been unable to cope with the changing demands of their envi- ronment and why there is often so much unconscious resistance to change in organizations. The general principles are well illustrated in the case of an engineering company that, like many others in its industry, experienced difficulties in adapting to changes being created by new developments in computer technology. One of the interesting features of the culture of the company was its commitment to the use of slide rules, Even though the new com- puter technology offered a radically new and vastly more efficient way ofEXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS. 229 making engineering calculations, many of the engineers insisted on continuing to use their “slides.” The theory of transitional phenomena leads us to understand this in terms of an unconscious process where the use of slide rules was associated with a past that was fast disappearing and a reluctance to relinquish an old identity and move on with the changing times. As might be expected, the firm lost its position in the industry and eventually got taken over by another firm. The theory of transitional phenomena contributes important insights to the practice of organizational change and development. It suggests that change will occur spontaneously only when people are prepared to relin- quish what they hold dear for the purpose of acquiring something new or can find ways of carrying what they value in the old into the new. The engineering firm in the above example was committed to a symbolic object that could not perform transitional functions in the current situa- tion. Some new object, insight, or experience was needed to aid in the transition to microprocessing. Interestingly, consultants and other change agents often become transitional objects for their client firms: The client refuses to “let go” and becomes crucially dependent on the change agent's advice in relation to every move. In helping facilitate any kind of social change it may thus be necessary for the change agent to create transitional phenomena when they do not exist naturally, Just as a father or mother may have to help his or her child find a substitute for Teddy, a change agent—whether a social revolution- ary or a paid consultant—must usually help his or her target group to relinquish what is held dear before they can move on. Significantly, this can rarely be done effectively by “selling” or imposing a “change pack- age,” an ideology, or a set of techniques. The theory of transitional phe- nomena suggests that in situations of voluntary change the person doing the changing must be in control of the process, for change ultimately hinges on questions of identity and the problematic relation between me and not-me. To create transitional situations, a change agent must help create that area of illusion identified by Winnicott, which, in his terms, is “good enough” for people to explore their situations and the options they face. People frequently need time to reflect, think over, feel out, and mull through action if a change is to be effective and long-lasting. If the change agent tries to bypass or suppress what is valued, it is almost sure to resur- face at a later date. The theory of transitional phenomena thus provides a way of under- standing the dynamics of change and offers important ideas that can help individuals and groups make effective transitions from one state to another.230 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION ORGANIZATION, SHADOW, AND ARCHETYPE In the above analysis we have focused on Freudian and neo-Freudian interpretations of the unconscious. It is now time to turn to the implications of the work of Carl Jung. Whereas Freud was preoccupied with the demands that the body, as carrier of the psyche, placed on the unconscious, Jung cut loose from this constraint, viewing the psyche as part of a universal and transcendental reality. As his thinking developed, he came to place increasing emphasis on the idea that the human psyche is part of a “collective unconscious” that transcends the limits of space and time. Many criticize this aspect of Jung’s work as bordering on the occult. However, a more informed inter- pretation encourages us to see how this concept links with developments in modern physics. Jung dematerialized our understanding of the psyche just as Finstein, whom Jung knew well, dematerialized our understand- ing of the physical world. In the light of evidence on premonitions and other psychic phenomena, Jung came to see matter and psyche as two different aspects of one and the same thing. The physical energy that Einstein saw as underlying all matter came to be paralleled in Jung’s work by a conception of psychic energy, which, like physical energy, was open to many kinds of transformation through conscious and unconscious activity. Hence Jung’s holistic view of the psyche as a universal phenom- enon that is ultimately part of a transcendental reality linking mind to mind and mind to nature. One of the most distinctive features of Jung's analysis is his emphasis on the role of archetypes. Archetype, which literally means “original pat- tern,” is defined by Jung in a variety of ways and plays a critical role in linking the individual to the collective unconscious. At the most basic level, archetypes are defined as patterns that structure thought and hence give order to the world. Jung’s use of archetypes was inspired by Plato's view of images or schemata, and he talks about them in various ways, for example, as “living ideas” that constantly produce new interpretations and as “ground plans” that give experience a specific configuration. He also speaks of them as “organs of the prerational psyche” and as “inher- ited forms and ideas” that acquire content in the course of an individual’s life as personal experience is taken up in these forms. In other words, archetypes are structures of thought and experience, perhaps embodied in the structure of the psyche or inherited experience, that lead us to mold our understanding of our world ina patterned way. Jung devoted great time and energy to demonstrating the universal and timeless character of these archetypal structures, showing how they are found in the dreams,EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS: 231 myths, and ideas of primitive, ancient, and modern man. Although the empirical contents may vary in detail, the principles that lend them shape and order seem to be one and the same. For Jung, these archetypes shape the way we “meet ourselves” in encounters with the external world and are crucial for understanding links between conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche. Jung’s work thus has major implications for understanding how people enact organization reality, We will focus here on two of the more important ones: the way Jung encourages us to understand the general relations between internal and external life and the role that archetypes play in shaping our understanding of the external world. The first theme has been explored in some detail by Robert Denhardt. In his book In the Shadow of Organization, he invites us to examine the repressed human side of organization lying beneath the surface of formal rationality. Jung used the term shadow to refer to unrecognized or unwanted drives and desires, the other side of the conscious ego, stand- ing in relation to the ego as a kind of submerged opposite that at the same time strives for completeness with the ego. For Jung, the development of the ego always tended to be two-sided. He thus placed particular empha- sis on understanding conscious and unconscious life in terms of an inter- play between opposing tendencies. He believed that full development of self-knowledge and human personality, a process that he described as individuation, rests on a person's ability to recognize the rival elements within his or her personality and to deal with their contradictions in a uni- fied manner. In his view, neurosis and human maladaptation stem from an inability to recognize and deal with the repressed shadow, which typ- ically contains both constructive and destructive forces. Like the other theorists we have considered in this chapter, he also believed that many of these unresolved tensions in ourselves are projected onto other people and external situations and that to understand our external reality we must first understand what he called “the other within.” Thus, in the shadow of organization we find all the repressed opposites of rationality struggling to surface and change the nature of rationality in practice. Sociologist Max Weber noted that the more the bureaucratic form of organization advances, the more perfectly it succeeds in eliminat- ing all human qualities that escape technical calculation. However, Jung's work suggests that these can never be eliminated, only banished or sub- merged. His work also leads us to understand that these irrational quali- ties never accept their banishment idly and are always looking for a way to modify their rational other side. We see this in much of the unofficial politicking that shapes organizational life and also in stress, lying, cheat- ing, depression, and acts of sabotage. From a Jungian standpoint, such232 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION factors reflect inevitable yet neglected or suppressed tensions in a two- sided process. Just as the unconscious of the individual strives to achieve completeness with the ego, the shadowy unconscious in an organization can also be seen as crying for recognition, warning us that the develop- ment of one side of our humanness (e.g,, the capacity to exercise technical reason) often does violence to other sides. The pathologies and alienations we find in organizational contexts can, from a Jungian standpoint, be interpreted as a manifestation of this essential wholeness of the psyche. The theme of the unity in opposites is a powerful one running through- out Jung’s work. It has been constructively used by many organization theorists interested in understanding how people relate to their realities and in improving organizational decision making. Jung distinguished two ways of perceiving reality (through sensation and intuition) and two ways of judging reality (thinking and feeling). These two dimensions are often combined to identify personality types (Exhibit 7.2) and to demonstrate styles of decision making. This scheme provides a nice illustration of how repressed elements of the psyche may signify unused skill and potential within the human that, if tapped, could contribute much to an individual’s ability to cope with the problems he or she faces. Jung’s work shows that the repressed shadow of organization acts as a reservoir not only of forces that are unwanted and hence repressed but of forces that have been lost or undervalued. For example, as the male archetype has asserted itself, val- ues associated with the female have been submerged. By recognizing and coming to grips with the resources of this reservoir, Jungian organization theorists are at one in suggesting that we can tap new sources of energy and creativity and make our institutions much more human, vibrant, and morally responsive and responsible than they are now. Jung's analysis of personality in terms of the way people relate to their world conveniently brings us to consider the role of archetypes in shap- ing the details of our reality. As noted earlier, archetypes are recurring themes of thought and experience that seen to have universal signifi- cance. For example, as Northrop Frye has shown, mythology and litera- ture are dominated by a small number of basic themes—apocalyptic, demonic, romantic, tragic, comic, and ironic. The characters, situations, and actions may change, but the stories remain pretty much the same. In other aspects of life, too, powerful themes that help people make sense of their experience are used time and again to create patterns of meaning. These archetypal structures give people a sense of place in their own lives and in history and thus help them to make sense of who and where they are in the grand order of things. If Jung’s theory of archetypes is correct, then we would expect the pat- tern of organizational life to be created and re-created in accordance withEXPLORING PLATO’S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 233 Thought Sensation Intuition Feeling Jung suggests that people tend to process data about the world in terms of sense or intuition, and to make judgments, in terms of thought or feeling. According to which functions are dominant (or in the shadow), we can identify four ways of dealing with the world and of shaping one’s reality: ST individuals tend to be empiricists who sense and think their way through life, making judgments and interpretations on the basis of “hard facts” and logical analysis; SF individuals also tend to pay a great deal of attention to data derived from the senses, but arrive at judgments in terms of “what feels right” rather than in terms of analysis; IT individuals tend to work their way through life by thinking about the possibil- ities inherent in a situation. Their actions tend to be guided by a combination of insight and feeling that pays much more attention to values than to facts. When one style of action is dominant, the other styles occupy background roles. Clearly, since each style presents an alternative way of understanding the same situation, opportunities are lost in this imbalance. This scheme has been used by lan Mitroff and various colleagues (Mitroff and Kilmann 1978, Mason and Mitroff 1981, and Mitroff 1984) to analyze managerial and decision-making styles, and to develop dialectical approaches to planning and decision making that attempt to take rival points of view into account. The scheme has been used by Ingalls (1979) as the foundation for a Jungian analysis of the use and direction of human energy in organizations, and by Myers-Briggs (1962) to develop a personality test that has many managerial applications. A vari- ation of the scheme has also been developed by McWhinney (1982) as a means of tackling complex problems. Exhibit 7.2 The Jungian Interplay of Opposites234 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION the structures found in the history of myth and literature. Unfortunately, very little research has as yet been conducted on this topic. Ian Mitroff of the University of Southern California has made an important theoretical contribution to our understanding of the links between archetype and organizations and has suggested that organizational life can be under- stood in terms of the relations between fools, magicians, warriors, high priests, lovers, and other symbolic characters. His analysis suggests that we may be able to understand the unconscious significance of much orga- nizational behavior in terms of the great themes that have shaped history. It appears that even though we may use the latest electronic technology and management technique to plan and execute our affairs we do so in ancient ways, for we are all primitives at heart, reproducing archetypal relations to make sense of the basic dilemmas of life. THE UNCONSCIOUS: A CREATIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE FORCE Our exploration of organization and the unconscious has drawn on many images of the psychic prison, tracing relations between our conscious and unconscious life in terms of repressed sexuality, patriarchy, fear of death, mother’s breast, teddy bears, and shadows and archetypes—the list is by no means exhaustive. These metaphors encourage us to become more sensitive about the hid- den meaning of our everyday actions and preoccupations and to learn how we can process and transform our unconscious energy in construc- tive ways. They lead us to see how aggression, envy, anger, resentment, and numerous other dimensions of our hidden life may be built into work and organization. These hidden concerns influence whether we attempt to design work to avoid or to deal with problematic aspects of our reality and how we enact our organizational world. They lie at the center of many issues associated with group dynamics, effective leadership, and innovation and change. The overall significance of these ways of understanding organizations has been vividly grasped by Frances Delahanty and Gary Gemmill of Syracuse University, who suggest that we should understand the role of the unconscious in organizational life as a kind of “black hole.” As is well known, this metaphor has been used in physics to characterize invisible yet intense gravitational fields that capture all passing matter. Ina similar way, the invisible dimension of organization that we have described as the unconscious can swallow and trap the rich energies of people involved in the organizing process.EXPLORING PLATO'S CAVE: ORGANIZATIONS AS PSYCHIC PRISONS 235 However, the challenge of understanding the significance of the uncon- scious in organization also carries a promise: that it is possible to release trapped energy in ways that may promote creative transformation and change and create more integrated relations among individuals, groups, organizations, and their environments, This promise is in perfect har- mony with the metaphor of the psychic prison, for a vision of confine- ment is invariably accompanied by a vision of freedom. For Plato, this freedom rests in the pursuit of knowledge about the world. For the psychoanalysts, it has rested in knowledge of the unconscious and in the capacity of humans to create a better world through an improved under- standing of how we construct and interpret our realities. Why do we get trapped by favored ways of thinking? Why do we pro- tect our illusions? Why do we find it so difficult to change established and even uncomfortable modes of behavior? Why do we create so many prob- lems for each other? The ideas that we have explored point toward some answers and offer some interesting ways of gaining new perspective on critical problems. The image of a psychic prison is itself a powerful image for approach- ing this task because it encourages us to recognize how we may be caught in a self-sealing environment. We see each other, and we see the world around us. But what are we really seeing? Are we seeing an independent world? Or are we just seeing and experiencing projections of ourselves? Are we imprisoned by the language, concepts, beliefs, and a general culture through which we enact our world? Paradoxically, by posing these kinds of questions we take the first steps in finding an escape. We are encouraged to look for messages coming from outside our particular “cave” and to use them for gaining new leverage on our world. This can bring enormous benefits to individuals and organizations, offering a way out of the “groupthink” and “cognitive traps” that may lock us into ineffective and undesirable patterns of behavior. Strengths and Limitations of the Psychic Prison Metaphor The psychic prison metaphor offers a powerful set of perspectives for exploring the hidden meaning of our taken- for-granted worlds. It encourages us to dig below the surface to uncover the processes and patterns of control that trap people in unsatisfactory modes of existence and to find ways through which they can be transformed.236 SOME IMAGES OF ORGANIZATION One of the major strengths of the metaphor, as far as organization studies is concerned, rests in its many contributions to our understanding of the dynamics and challenges of organizational change. All the per- spectives considered in this chapter have a lot to offer here, because they show that in seeking to change organizational practice we are usually trying to change much, much more. Structures, rules, behaviors, beliefs, and the patterns of culture that define an organization are not just corporate phenomena. They are per- sonal in the most profound sense. Any attempt to change these aspects of the organizational world can thus mobilize all kinds of opposition as indi- viduals and groups defend the status quo in an attempt to defend their very selves. As has been showy, structures and rules may be crucial in cre- ating boundaries and rigidities that help to symbolize a manager’s sense of who he or she really is; an outdated practice may reflect an effort to cling to a cherished experience or mode of life; high regard for a particu- lar person or leader may be carrying all kinds of unconscious anxieties, aggressions, and energies of those being led; bloody mergers, acquisi- tions, downsizings, or combative relations with competitors or the world at large may veil all kinds of individual and group fears and inadequa- cies; a corporate group's understanding of its external environment may be dominated by the unconscious projections of a few key managers; a strong corporate subculture may be mobilizing neglected aspects of a corporate “shadow” that are truly worthy of attention and of being brought to light. In understanding these hidden dimensions of everyday reality, man- agers and change agents can open the way to modes of practice that respect and cope with organizational challenges in a new way. They can learn to see when and how unconscious concerns are being projected or buried in a dysfunctional manner and find ways of releasing the energy in a more positive form. They can learn the art of carrying valuable dimensions of “old ways” into the new. They can begin to untangle sources of scapegoating, victimization, and blame and find ways of addressing the deeper anxieties to which they are giving form. They can approach the “resistance” and “defensive routines” that tend to sabotage and block change with a new sensitivity, and find constructive ways of dealing with them. In showing that change initiatives often attack unconscious psycho- logical defences, the ideas explored in this chapter thus add a valuable new dimension to our understanding of the challenges of innovation and change. They also put the whole issue of organizational rationality in new perspective. As has been shown in earlier chapters, the drive to create tightly controlled rational organizations has been a major feature of the