The mystery of great wines
Many of the great historic European wines can be found in places with suboptimal conditions for the cultivation of vines. Excessive humidity and little sun in Bordeaux and Burgundy, a poor quality substratum in Jerez, the Canary Islands and Catania, water stress and extreme temperatures in Toro, steep and stony slopes in the case of high altitude wines, and so on.
On the other hand, biologically optimal areas, with perfect soil, sun, water and manageable temperatures such as Guadiana, La Mancha or the plains of Southern Italy, make good wines but have only just started to strive towards producing “great wines” relatively recently. And since the path that they took was to innovate incrementally, they still have a long way to go.
Wines are only one example among many. We can see this same surprising phenomenon in a thousand different fields, which begs the question: Is excellence more attainable for those who have it harder?
In reality, yes. And the reasons for this are rooted in the very nature of our species: competitive, cooperative and above all oriented towards survival through the sustainable solution of collective problems.
The Nature of Happiness... and Commitment to a Cause
Anthropologist Desmond Morris defined happiness as the state of pleasure we feel when something suddenly improves. In other words, it is the result of successful goal-driven behavior. Whether it be a personal goal, recognition and belonging, a competitive goal or a cooperative goal.
This last type is the one that would generate stronger commitments and community spirit. It is nothing other than the pride that one feels once they are able to solve in a lasting way the problems of the community in which they belong. A definition that fits perfectly with the goal-driven behavior model defined by Adlerian psychology, the usefulness of which we will not ever get tired of pointing out in any communitarian environment.
Incremental improvement or management based on challenges?
The three worker cooperatives that in recent months have become the focus and beacon of the movement against deindustrialization in Europe (GKL in Ittacklingaly, Duralex and Bergère de France in France) share one element in common: the collective commitment and organizational effort involved in transforming the companies to worker cooperativas has in turn transformed the workers.
The driving force consists in generating for the workers the feeling and conviction that they are making a real contribution, that they are providing a lasting solution for the families linked to the company in which they worked for during a lifetime as well as a new option for the greater community of the region, the country, and the continent. The way in which the manager of Bergère de France recounts the story demonstrates these very Adlerian motivations at play:
We observed three types of reactions. There were those who immediately joined the project, those who stayed behind out of caution and, finally, those who ended up joining the adventure once they saw that it was working. What touched me most was the motivation of some employees, especially those close to retirement, who chose to stay on to participate in this transformation. Some people told me, ´I have a year left before I retire, but I want to keep participating´. This kind of talk reveals the link that employees have to this company.
How to ensure for the new phase the continuity of this energy and capacity to transform?
- By keeping the engine of happiness running and well oiled. That is to say, by working and by having a clear strategy aimed at tackling sufficiently clear and difficult challenges that permit the achievement of excellence.
- We are not referring to the type of objectives that arise from a quality control system. Nothing stifles the engine of enthusiasm and commitment more than the logic of improvement and instrumental innovation. We are not talking about moving decimal points on a scorecard, we are talking about transforming processes to change basic outcomes. We are talking about challenges that can be expressed as decisive, lasting collective contributions that benefit the surrounding environment: reducing the consumption of raw materials to save costs and reduce ecological impact, transforming the supply chain so that, in itself, it could be valuable, creating a new sales channel that can bring the coop closer to its customers and create a stronger link with them, or promoting social behaviors in the world surrounding the coop that result in greater interaction with the social environment, and generate greater demand and social meaning for the product we make. In short, these are challenges that relate to and respond directly to the needs of both the working community and the community in which the coop is inserted.
- The natural subject of these challenges is the work team. Working on the basis of tackling challenges is working with objectives in small working communities with a certain level of intimacy. Teams that are responsible for responding collectively through solutions that are also challenges on their own oriented towards achieving broader collective objectives.
- Any organization that places work at the center also needs to put knowledge at the center. True innovation, the one that enables fundamental changes and improvements, usually involves new learning. The point is that this necessary knowledge cannot be planned, it is simply discovered in the process of solving problems and overcoming barriers. Workers will demand this knowledge. Cooperative management, that orchestra that balances and aligns the objectives of each team, must find ways to provide the tools to obtain them: studying outside working hours, exchanges of members between teams, etc.
In the end, management and work based on the tackling of challenges consists only in maintaining the type sof incentives and logic that mobilize efforts and motivate workers to create a cooperative. Then follows the enjoyment of the happiness of contributing and the capacity to produce the extraordinary.