People in organizations and who they become

Chapter introduction

Companies do not produce only goods, services, or financial results. They also produce behaviors, habits, fears, and possibilities. Every organization, consciously or unconsciously, educates the people who pass through it.

This third step focuses on people and on what they become inside the systems in which they work. Some organizations develop responsibility, autonomy, courage, and talent. Others, often unintentionally, generate adaptation, dependence, fatigue, and cynicism. Not because people are weak, but because every environment shapes behavior.

The question then becomes radical: what kind of human being is this organization producing? Only by answering this question can we understand whether work is becoming a place of growth or merely a place of survival.