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Lonely BoyThe first thing you see in Piazza del Campo in Siena is the Civic Tower.
It was nice to see it again after so long, in the sunshine, without screens.
Why it’s called “Torre Del Mangia” I only found out some time ago over lunch with a local colleague.
It seems that one of its first bell ringers, Giovanni di Balduccio, used to squander everything he earned and this propensity earned him the nickname of “Mangiaguadagni”, later shortened in time to “Mangia”.
But there is another story that makes the city suggestive.
About 700 years ago Siena was in fact a flourishing banking and proto-industrial center with over 50,000 inhabitants, a number comparable only to the great medieval “megalopolises” of the time such as Paris, London and Milan.
Then, in 1348, just when it was at the height of its golden age, its prosperity was suddenly interrupted by the Black Death.
In a few years, in fact, it lost 60% of its population and entered into a sharp decline, falling into obscurity.
It took seven centuries for the city to recover its pre-pandemic size.
Pandemic, depopulation, rebirth (so is it history repeating itself?), Mutatis mutandis, perhaps.
Because if it is true that the contextual conditions have totally changed in terms of acceleration, impact and progress, it is equally true that the social and economic upheaval caused by Covid-19 is already leaving physical and emotional marks in the cities of Europe: the pulsating and busy neighborhoods of the past have emptied while people have chosen or been forced to work in different conditions (e.g. from home).
There is also reason to believe that this pandemic may have an even more lasting impact than historical precedents.
For the first time since the first cities emerged in the Fertile Crescent some 6,000 years ago, concentrated urban centers no longer have a monopoly on the economic and cultural connections that move civilizations forward.
For many workers worried about viruses and employers trying to cut costs during the economic downturn that followed, technologies like video conferencing, shared documents and instant messaging provide viable alternatives to the skyscrapers whose effectiveness we’ve all, to varying degrees, ultimately experienced.
Meanwhile, services like streaming video and social media and websites like Reddit and Twitter offer a taste of the cultural effervescence and sense of community in motion that has drawn most to large centers over the centuries.
Suddenly, everything that seemed to us to be electrifying about cities has lost its appeal and its exclusive physical dimension, both in work and in our personal lives.
On reflection, we wouldn’t even need a bar or a restaurant to meet our soul mate anymore: the Tinder algorithm takes care of that.
From Tinder to the non-places of Marc Augé, the step is short.
Non-places are born by definition as opposed to anthropological places and are therefore all those spaces that have the peculiarity of not being identitary, relational and historical.
Non-identitary, non-relational, non-historical: some would say this is the portrait of our infamous new normal.
But isn’t the new normal also a historical recourse? Nothing new under the sun, then.
Because of the new normal, dear Marc would have spoken of it in terms of supermodernism, that is, of the effects of that hyperconnection between social, intellectual and economic phenomena in complex contexts in continuous, rapid evolution.
In this 2.0 supermodernism of ours, there seem to remain some basic characteristics that we have had to come to terms with, even in our daily lives.
First, an excess of time.
The present temporality is crowded with events that soon end up in the oblivion of the past and their fleeting nature leaves no room for planning a long-term future.
Second, an excess of space.
The world is expanding its settled horizons and there are ever-increasing urban concentrations, relocations of populations and multiplication of installations and means of accelerated movement.
The Covid-19, despite a setback in the short term, seems not to stop this trend (in 2030, 70% of the world’s population will still be concentrated in large cities).
Thirdly, an excess of ego: the disproportionate increase in spatial and temporal references makes it necessary for everyone to search for a personal path that responds to the demands of contemporary dynamism.
Time, space, ego.
Raise your hand if you haven’t felt and then lived in this period a feeling of suspension in time, space, personal purpose.
In life as in work, in cities as in organizations.
As the boundary between these formerly opposing worlds becomes increasingly blurred, we sense that there is a correlation between the changing skin of cities and that of organizations.
The emptying of cities corresponds to the emptying of organizations.
If we try to demonstrate this assumption with the dynamics observed in recent months, we must accept that the meaning of “emptying” is not only physical and spatial.
It is not the chair, it is not the meeting room, it is not the building that is being emptied. It is the meaning.
We have the possibility of always being hyperconnected.
This is the spell of non-places, those that have “the curious property of being in relation to all other places, but in a way that allows them to suspend, neutralize and invert the set of relationships that are themselves delineated, reflected and mirrored”.
To be in relation without being in relation, Augé seems to be saying here, who sustained in unsuspected times and with sophisticated words what we all experienced in the period of forced isolation and the first international reports that attempt to give a form to the new ways of working experienced with the pandemic also confirm.
Reconstructing the sense and tracing it back to hybrid work is the priority for organizations, on pain of losing their catalytic power of talents, skills, innovation.
It would reassure me to know that someone, somewhere in the world, has already developed the formula for doing this.
But there is no formula and, bad news, you won’t find it even when you get to the bottom of the article (maybe).
But then, if there isn’t, let’s start by inspiration and imitation.
And if we accept that there may be a correlation between the dynamics of the city and the dynamics of organizations, let’s start by observing cities.
Eurocities 2020, a European project on the evolution of post-covid cities, is an excellent exercise in this regard. The starting point, solidified at last November’s fully online conference, is that a new reality is taking shape in cities, both in Europe and around the world.
So leaders and experts from the cities involved – Athens, Brussels, Ghent, Helsinky, Leipzig, London, Mannheim, Paris and Turku – explored pathways to post-pandemic recovery and resilience and discussed the future of cities.
A conversation that is still open, about reinventing the urban future, aggregated around six attributes: inclusivity, prosperity, vigor, well-being and movement, localization, and governance.
A number of statements accompany these attributes for the future of cities.
All, wonderfully applicable to our organizations:
Number 1. All people must be enabled to live and experience their full potential. This is what makes a city (and an organization) inclusive.
Number 2. A city (and an organization) is prosperous if it is good for people and the environment.
Number 3. Kind to the environment, not just the natural environment. This is what makes a city (and an organization) healthy and moving.
Number 4. Culture and public spaces will rebuild the future of cities (and organizations).
Number 5. Cities (and organizations) are going through global problems. With leadership that rethinks itself, they will be able to address them effectively at the local level.
Number 6. Good city (and organizational) government works not just for people but with people.
(For those who believe in numbers, 6 is the number of balance and perfect order).
The non-places are focused only on the present and are highly representative of our age, which is characterized by absolute precariousness (not only in the field of work), temporariness, transit and passage and by a solitary individualism.
People transit in non-places but no one lives there.
Conclusion
I want to close this article with the words of the American author Max Ehrmann (1827-1945), perfect to define man’s perennial search for meaning between “place and non-place”.
“Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant,
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble,
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is,
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy”.