The significance of organizational effectiveness and the development of "social capital,"—of unplanned, informal, face-to-face communications as they occur around the water cooler, at the coffee station, or in stairwell—is championed in a recent book, as reviewed earlier this year by Fred Andrews in the New York Times, February 25, 2001, sec. BU.

The book, In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work, is primarily directed -- with concern -- to the emerging popularity of many forms of distant, time-spaced cyberspace communications. The authors do not believe that there is any substitute for regular, informal, face-to-face, collegial communications. They see these kinds of traditional, old fashioned, and very commonplace personal exchanges as being central to the building of "social capital" within an organization. They are quoted as saying: "Telling and listening to stories, chatting, sharing a little gossip, are the main ways that people in organizations come to trust and understand one another."

These comments reminded us of some insights put forth in an early essay in Harmony. In this essay, "The Uniqueness and Commonality of American Symphony Orchestra Organizations," the author highlighted the "propinquity," or "togetherness," that characterizes the life and work of orchestral musicians. Along with the very unifying aspect of an orchestral score leading to the synchronized production of sound, there is the close physical closeness and face-to-face interaction of players on stage, in rehearsal and in concert, furthered by backstage, dressing room, and touring togetherness.

Couple all this propinquity with the fact that orchestra employees tend to have much longer institutional service than staff employees or board and other volunteers. Orchestras thus generally possess, as a group, more institutional memory than other constituent groups. As a group, orchestra members tend to "remember" what has gone on -- what has worked and not worked within the organization over the years -- and as a group, engage quite naturally in storytelling or "organizational narrative."

It is also clear that people who work together over a long period of time, on balance, begin to know and trust each other, and are able to predict and rely on each other's behavior, relatively more so than with respect to persons not known as long or well.

In addition, as pointed out in the earlier mentioned essay, orchestras generally physically work in spaces that are quite separate from the spaces used by staff, boards, and volunteers. Symphony office and meeting room space just doesn't typically adjoin and flow into performance hall and backstage space. Thus, the natural propinquity of orchestra members is magnified by the very distinct isolation of orchestral vs. staff/board workspace. This also means that, generally, the institutional memory within an orchestra is not informally shared by regular exchanges and storytelling with staff and volunteers around a central water cooler or coffee location. Storytelling does take place, but essentially between members of the orchestra, especially older members sharing history with newer members.

There are many steps that orchestral organizations could take (and perhaps some are taking) to better physically and intellectually mix personnel, break down separatism, and provide physical conditions for more informal, recurring personal communication and a sharing of institutional memory and narrative among all organizational participants.

Reading

Cohen, Don and Prusak, Laurence. 2001. In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work. Harvard Business School Press.

The Uniqueness and Commonality of American Symphony Orchestra Organizations. October 1995. Harmony #1

Action

If you are a participant in an organization which has found some answers to these issues, please send along a brief report of the steps taken. If you have suggestions for what might be done, send along your ideas. Your thoughts, edited with space and readability factors in mind, will be considered for publication below.