Five Ideas for Organizations From Michael Sandel's Thinking.

I came to Michael Sandel's ideas as a result of receiving the 2018 Princesa de Asturias Award for Social Sciences. Obviously, Sandel existed before, but I hadn't realized it, as of so many other things.

Professor of political philosophy at Harvard University, thinker and disseminator, Sandel is a figure of the current universe of ideas, who, fortunately, doesn’t need me either to make himself known or for his thinking to be understood.

I cannot say that I fully agree with all his lines of argument, among other things because I lack his ability to reflect and learn as broadly as he does. However, what I would like to do today in these lines is to try to bring some ideas from Sandel's thinking to the world of organizations and analyze how their application can help to manage them in a healthier way.

• The idea of the common good. Sandel argues that the goodness and justice of society cannot be based on a reality in which everyone competes against each other constantly, in their own little quest for success. A fair society is one in which the obligations and contributions that we all have toward each other and toward the common good are recognized as opposed to purely individualistic positions. This, in Sandel's thinking, requires the existence of public places that unite us and where encounters take place between people who come from different realities, who have different customs, who start from different conditions. Public places for mixing, because mixing is what unites us and only from this union can we make contributions oriented to the common good.

If we take this to organizations, which are nothing more than a reflection of society and, therefore, an amalgam of people and groups with different realities, customs and conditions, we will realize that the existence of public places for debate is also absolutely essential. Places and moments that make possible the real encounter among its members in order to, leaving aside the constant competition, have the possibility of participating in the practice of reasoning together. Only from the understanding of our own internal disagreements can we advance toward the idea of the common good for the organization.

• Another important axis of Sandel's thinking is that success does not only consist of having a good job with good remuneration. He understands success as the discovery of the way in which our talent is capable of contributing positive elements to the environment in which we live and in which we develop. This concept of success, which Sandel develops for individuals, I believe is also applicable to organizations. For organizations, success cannot only mean being able to present a healthy operating account, a robust financial position and a valuable contribution to shareholders. For organizations, success must also be measured in terms of their contribution to the society in which they operate, which they serve and from which, let us not forget, they feed in one way or another. This is probably the reason for the current boom in corporate social responsibility initiatives and the need that organizations are experiencing to offer, both to customers and shareholders and even to employees, a transcendent social purpose beyond the simple and legitimate obtaining of economic benefit.

• Meritocracy. In practice, merit is a good thing because it is rooted in personal work and effort that makes us grow as individuals and acquire the ability to positively influence others and our surroundings. Success defends us, says Sandel, from arbitrary decisions or decisions based on nepotism.

In the business world, the meritocratic arrogance of the winners makes it difficult to visualize the organization as a whole, or as a unit, that shares the same destiny with different responsibilities for each member, but all of them essential for success. It destroys the feeling of belonging.

Let us put merit in the foreground, understood as the ability to collaborate, share and work as a team, to understand that we are where we are, also because we have been pushed to that position. Being aware of what we owe to others, whether they are managers with respect to field workers, or operational staff with respect to managers and senior management, is essential to put in its rightful place the value that each one contributes to the achievement of business objectives.

• From the previous point it follows that merit is a value, but so is humility. Humility as a personal virtue is easily understood. But we have not reflected on its usefulness in its social aspect. Let us remember the role that luck plays in our achievements and successes. This will help us to be humble and to recognize that we are indebted for our achievements. We have mutual obligations to other actors in the market: customers, competitors, suppliers, regulatory bodies ... We also have mutual obligations to the different roles that people play in organizations: directors, managers, operators ...

• Finally, interdisciplinary cooperation. In recent decades, we have witnessed a growing emphasis on science and technology as the undisputed protagonists in the success of organizations. However, Sandel argues for society, and I bring it back to organizations, the importance of re-exposing ourselves to the humanities as a way to keep asking questions that challenge our convictions. This can generate discomfort because these kinds of questions, powerful questions, do not always go well with short-term visions of our business activity. But they help us to reflect critically. Reflection on our values as an organization, on our products and processes, on our relationship with customers, with employees, and on our organizational models.

In the medium and long term, only those who are able to live with these questions on a daily basis will have a real chance to grow and improve. Only organizations with a humanistic perspective of their operations, capable of questioning their "status quo" and their ways of doing things beyond the technological contribution, will be able to develop.

Hence the importance of this interdisciplinary collaboration. Collaboration that does not necessarily have to be based on clearly differentiated roles (although it helps). It is enough for us to be able to mentally consider the need to confront the scientific and technological visions of our activity with others of a humanistic nature. This will enable us to move toward a better balance between competitive approaches, economic success and the value of individual merit with those already expressed of the common good, contribution to our global environment and humility.

There are only five ideas developed, but it will have been worth the reading if we decide to take just one of them to our work environment. Because in the end, they are all closely related and it will be difficult to make progress on one without moving on to the others.