Imagining Better Places to Work: Individual-Organizational Interfaces and Coaching Practices

In 1936, Karel Câpek ironically illustrated in his satirical science fiction novel War With the Newts the difficulties and occasional incoherencies of communities without a shared vision and a sense of trust and collaboration. He described how a new kind of animal has been discovered by a pearl diver. The strange beasts walked on two legs and, in addition, they were able to talk. In their attempts to describe what they were, the scientific community hypothesized about their nature. Their conclusions were: Of course, there were some people, who because of their scientific knowledge, were sure that the pictures showed that they were not prehistoric lizards, but salamanders. Even more expert people then claimed that this type of salamander was not scientifically recognized and therefore did not exist. Long debates were held in the newspapers. Long discussions about priorities and other purely scientific questions. But finally, the Natural History Department of each country created its own salamander, cruelly criticizing the salamanders of other countries. This is why a scientific explanation for the problem of the salamander was never found.1 As funny as we may think this story sounds, it can also resonate strongly with us. We can probably find, without digging very deep in our personal and professional experiences, projects that were turned into tournaments to win, and work colleagues turned into rivals to defeat. In fact, organizations are riddled with examples of group envy and conspiracies where the others (other departments, other members of our own department, or our closest work neighbor) are translated into quixotic enemies to beat.