The Uniqueness Paradox in Organizational Stories

Critical Analysis

In this text, the authors examine the nature of stories that are told about organizations. These stories present lore of different types of organizational experiences that pit the organization against an individual. While the stories are typically presented as being unique to a given organization, they are actually patterned. The authors identify the different types of patterns.

Organizational stories are claimed as unique; one reason is that it is “vitally important for an organization to define its distinctive competence” and show that it performs work that no one else can do. This is representative of innovation and a unique type of culture, and this type of focus becomes a collective view of the organization. This is true in organizations, and also in occupations. A paradox exists: multiple organizations claim their stories as unique, but the stories are the same across organizations.

Stories are claimed as unique as they include unique details, often attributed to specific people doing specific things. They follow seven different common narratives and contain a script, which is the “skeleton of a story [with] what remains when the nonessential details have been stripped away.” These scripts focus on over-simplified causality, as if one person’s behavior or one organizational component can be attributable for a set of outcomes.

The different narrative types all have a positive and negative versions. The positive versions position the leadership in an organization as “admirable and approachable; superiors are competent and deserve status; the organization cares about its people and their personal well-being; disruptions… are kept to a minimum; mistakes are forgiven and obstacles clearly overcome.” In the negative versions, the opposite is true. In both types, a tension exists between the values of an organization and the values of an employee. This duality cannot be easily resolved, but there is a feeling that a resolution must exist. The duality frequently concerns status inequality, and security as compared to insecurity.

Often, the focus of the obstacle is aimed at control: that an individual has inability, but desire, to control their situation. In a positive story, this is resolved; but resolution is difficult, and the perseverance in the stories positions them “as a pressure valve, releasing tension that could not otherwise be dissipated.” The stories also serve as explanations for the behavior of organizations, and the role of individuals in them; “reputations and self-esteem are on the line,” and when success is attributed to individuals, it serves to validate that an individual actually can succeed within, or against, the larger organization. This is one reason that people organize into groups—to “extend the realm over which they believe they have control.”

Additionally, the stories position employees as good and sane, or as good and sane and in opposition to incompetence of an organization. Success is attributed to a person; failure is attributed to the organization.

The authors conclude that the story archetypes exist as a way for a person to rationalize having to participate in a negative organizational context. Employees need hope, and “even if a person belongs to a uniquely bad organization, work—even hard work, can make sense if it establishes a connection with good that exists elsewhere.”

Research Value

The value of this work in informing my own research is that it:

• Helps describe and further explore the lore of harsh critique and the stories of various abusive behavior in studio
• Describes how the telling of these critique stories acts as a rationalization for why a student would put up with them at all
• Positions the professor during the critique as an antagonist, representative of “the organization” of both the school and the profession at large
• Provokes a counter argument, that the stories in creative professions may have a separate quality not captured by the individual and organization story
• Can be extended into the context of identity (both of an individual and of a cohort) and how they view themselves in the story—gives students a way to wonder if they have the ability to apply the causal story to themselves