I am an organization activist.

I look at people in organizations. And I question what most people take for granted.

I see how people listen in their work: prejudiced, only hearing the things they expect or want to hear, ignoring everything else. And then I look at horses, and I see how they listen. They scan their environment with their ears. Horses turn their ears in all directions, finding out where the sound is coming from. I think people should try to listen more like horses do, listening to the unexpected as well.

I see how rules are used to replace responsibility, “rules are rules”. Take for example a Dutch experiment which involved removing all the traffic signs on a roundabout. People first of all feel insecure, but this feeling is soon overcome by a growing sense of awareness, care and responsibility. We should keep this in mind when we make rules: when rules are established, awareness and care seem to disappear.

I see how people can be very creative and pragmatic when creating their own rules to solve practical issues. For example, if a street runs out of parking spaces people park their car behind the other cars. They leave their brakes off so a driver who has to leave a parking space only has to push the other car out of the way. Problem solved. It is just a matter of trust and pragmatism.

Organizations change at an amazing rate. Some of them have become what I call “human intensive farms”: places where targets and procedures rule and people no longer matter, moving away from traditional values.

In these organizations professionalism, or the art of doing things with care and attention, is no longer the most important value. It is now about targets set by the managers. It is no longer about “knowing how to do things” but “having the power”. In such working places quality doesn’t matter anymore. And inspiration and creativity is replaced by money. Education, healthcare and government are slowly moving in the same direction.

Fortunately there are alternatives. We can deal with the complexity of the world. As long as people believe that they can make a difference, it is not too late.