It would seem that “common values”, “team cohesion”, “synergy of talents”, “corporate culture” and all these expressions and the realities they cover are now smelling like mothballs. The collective to which business leaders cling with perseverance is today becoming a real challenge. How can we re-engage employees, called upon to adhere to a common project, in a society which succumbs to the power of individualization?
There is no point in calling on obsolete training courses team building teaching us in a more or less learned tone how to unite through stereotypical behavioral recipes or infantilizing fun-creative common exercises that transform seminars into conglomerating neurasthenic impasses. The collective attitude does not seem to arise from a “brand identity” that no one ever manages to define and in which everyone should nevertheless recognize themselves. Would the collective then come from a common objective, a meaning, a strategy? Meaning is necessary, but not sufficient. When we find ourselves in the metro alongside other individuals getting off at the same station, we do have a similar goal, but no unity is established between us. By determining a shared objective, the activity brings people together while being able to leave them apart from each other.
So where does collective commitment come from? Let’s take a few examples of gatherings to better understand what is permanent and common in them. The employees of a factory are clearly most supportive when the factory threatens to close and they are well aware of the disastrous consequences for their lives. A sports team demonstrates team spirit that is all the stronger when it is aware of the possibility of losing or winning an important title. The greater the stakes, the more the public is present, the stronger the solidarity. Why are associations created? Because awareness of a risk, often linked to a personal tragedy, wants to be more widely shared. Why do the military demonstrate incomparable esprit de corps? Because the risk of dying or being saved remains a possibility with almost every action they take. The danger posed by Hamas unites us in the face of the rise of anti-Semitism. The threat posed by the Israeli response unites Muslims even more intensely. Let’s remember Covid. Many people rushed to their balconies to applaud the nursing staff at 8 p.m. At that time, almost everyone feared being infected. The surge of solidarity was again directly linked to this risk. With fear now gone, solidarity has diminished to the point where no one applauds these exhausted healthcare workers.
It therefore seems clear that engaging in joint action presupposes feeling in one’s flesh the possibility of a risk. This remains pejoratively connoted when it designates a danger or peril, but it can also mean more positively an opportunity, a boon, an interest. In a society inclined to individualization, if the individual does not feel in himself and for himself the possibility of danger or the opportunity of an interest, it is difficult if not impossible to order him to do common cause. The feeling of a “we” is therefore not the result of an agglutinative formation, of abstract values, of an indeterminable culture, of moralizing injunctions or of a convergence of objectives, but much more surely takes its source in the event of a risk. Without this possibility, we come together, but we do not become one.
Since any eventuality is never constant or linear, the collective can only be fluctuating and punctual. It is therefore futile to ask individuals to be constantly engaged, motivated and united. It is just as vain to demand from managers constant fusional osmosis within their teams. The collective is not prescribed by prescription, but arises from the contingency of circumstances.