Division 4200

State and Economic Reform, Civil Society

Gender and Change
in the Organisational Culture
Tools to construct a gender-sensitive organisation


Deutsche Gesellschaft fr
Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH
Part 1





Within the framework of information management and
in order to reach the broadest possible readership,
the Pilot Programme Gender of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fr
Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH has
undertaken the task of translating selected publications
dedicated to gender. The content of this manual
does not necessarily represent the view of GTZ or
the Pilot Programme Gender.




















Published by:
Deutsche Gesellschaft fr
Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH
Dag-Hammarskjld-Weg 1-5
65760 Eschborn
Federal Republic of Germany
Internet: http://www.gtz.de

Division 42 State and Economic Reform, Civil Society
Pilot Programme Gender
Telephone: (+49) 6196-79-1615/1612; Fax: (+49) 6196-79-7332
e-mail: marion.thompson@gtz.de
Internet: http://www.gtz.de/gender_project

Responsible: Stefani Klos, Pilot Programme Gender

Author: Olga Sofa Daz Gonzlez

Editorial Committee: Jorge Enrique Guzmn, Kerstin Hagmann

Translation: M. A. Torres

Cover: soho! Werbeagentur GmbH, Wiesbaden, Germany

Layout: Chrystel Yazdani / GTZ

The Spanish edition
Gnero y cambio en la cultura organizacional. Herramientas para crear una
organizacin sensible al gnero was published by
PROEQUIDAD, DINEM, GTZ, Bogot, Colombia 2000.

Printed by: Universum Verlagsanstalt, Wiesbaden, Germany


May 2001


Division 4200
State and Economic Reform, Civil Society


Gender and Change
in the Organisational Culture
Tools to construct a gender-sensitive organisation






Eschborn 2001







The Cooperation Activities of the Pilot Programme Gender

The Pilot Programme Gender was a supraregional project of the Deutsche Gesellschaft
fr Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH located in Eschborn. It was financed by
the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Division 406
Equality; Womens and Childrens Rights; Participation. It was managed by GTZ
Division 4200 State and Economic Reform, Civil Society. Between 1993 and 2001,
the Pilot Programme supported sectoral and regional divisions as well as projects with
a view to operationalising the gender approach and developing implementation-
oriented concepts and tools. The Pilot Programme Gender was terminated in spring
2001 after its second and final phase.

The work of the first project phase focused on:
mainstreaming the gender perspective in sector concepts and instruments and in
project designs, in close cooperation with GTZ sector divisions in the Planning
and Development Department;
support to regional divisions in the design of country strategies from a gender
perspective, expanding and upgrading know-how and competencies among GTZ
staff and advisers as well as among personnel in partner countries; this included
the development of training modules.

During the second phase, measures having a model character were supported in a
range of partner countries. The following two goals were pursued in this context:
to implement gender issues as a cross-sectoral task in the German Technical
Cooperation with governmental and non-governmental partner organisations;
to make a visible contribution to the gender policy of the respective partner
country, as well as to the reduction of poverty and the improvement of the
dialogue between government and society.

The Pilot Programme Gender presents a series of publications reflecting the results
and findings of its work. This text deals with organisational change processes and
includes guidelines for gender-sensitive analysis and organisational change. It provides
conceptual and technical tools that can help to transform the organisational culture.

This manual is geared to GTZ staff, consulting firms, people and institutions from
partner countries, and it may also be of interest to other organisations involved in the
field of development cooperation.






CONTENTS

FOREWORD.................................................................................................... VII
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................1
1. CONCEPTUAL TOOLS.............................................................................3
1.1 REGARDING ORGANISATIONS.................................................................. 4
1.1.1 Organisations as systems within systems...................................................... 4
1.1.2 Organisations as machines and as living systems .................................... 5
1.1.3 Effects of viewing organisations as machines or as living organisms ...... 6
1.2 GENDER IN ORGANISATIONS.................................................................... 8
1.2.1 The notion of gender ...................................................................................... 8
1.2.2 How gender is expressed in organisations................................................... 10
1.2.3 Some common responses of organisations to the insertion of a gender
perspective................................................................................................... 13
1.2.4 Areas of gender analysis in organisations.................................................... 15
1.3 CHANGE AND ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE PROCESSES ................... 16
1.3.1 Development or organisational change........................................................ 16
1.3.2 What are paradigms ..................................................................................... 17
1.3.3 Paradigms and types of change................................................................... 18
1.3.4 Change and learning.................................................................................... 20
1.3.5 Types of learning.......................................................................................... 21
1.3.6 Links between change, learning and paradigms .......................................... 23
1.3.7 Change and resistance................................................................................. 23
1.3.8 Organisations receptive to learning.............................................................. 24
1.3.9 Organisational change is not problem resolution ......................................... 25
1.3.10 Phases of change......................................................................................... 26
1.3.11 The need for change: organisations in a rapidly changing environment ...... 27
1.3.12 Summary: assumptions regarding organisational change............................ 29
III




1.4 ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE: THE KEY TO A GENDER-SENSITIVE
ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE....................................................................... 30
1.4.1 Definition of organisational culture ............................................................... 30
1.4.2 Assumptions inherent to the notion of culture proposed .............................. 31
1.4.3 Paradigms, mental models and change in the organisational culture .......... 36
1.4.4 The visible and the invisible in organisations ............................................... 38
BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................................40
IV




FOREWORD
The Proequidad Project Planning and Management of Development with a Gender
Perspective was launched as the result of a special agreement between the
governments of Colombia and Germany
1
in 1992. Since then, it has had an advisory
role for government entities, training centres and womens groups, geared to facilitating
the planning and management of development favouring the construction of a more
just and equitable society.
One of the projects purposes has been to draft proposals and carry out actions leading
to the crosscutting insertion of a gender perspective into the management of
development. This has involved questioning two significant aspects of the work
ordinarily undertaken by development organisations: the first deals with what such
organisations have to offer, that is, the products and services they provide for their
clients, potential users or target groups. The second aspect concerns how these
organisations actually function, as reflected in their profiles, procedures, operational
systems and organisational culture.
This text deals with internal or organisational change processes. It is a follow-up of
Proequidads 1997 Gender and Organisational Development for Public Entities.
2
This
first publication offered the results of research carried out by the Project and included
guidelines for gender-sensitive analysis and organisational change. The aim of the
present text is to move that process forward, providing additional conceptual and
technical tools that can help to transform the organisational culture, an area where the
greatest barriers to the creation of gender-sensitive organisations are to be found.
We hope that this book, on a relatively unexplored theme, will be the final link in an
integrated proposal for change leading to more equitable social development.


GERD JUNTERMANS ELSA GLADYS CIFUENTES
GTZ Representative Presidential Advisor
Womens Equity

1
The Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, the Presidential Advisory
Office for Womens Equity and the National Planning Department of Colombia were the entities involved in
the Proequidad Project.
2
Proequidad/GTZ Project (1997). Gender and Organisational Development for Public Entities.
Bogot, work advanced by Ellen Beattie.
VII










INTRODUCTION
Changes in the organisational culture need to affect systems of meanings and mental
models, practice and behaviour, structures, guidelines and procedures in order to be
stable and deep-rooted. They must also be reflected in the physical environment of an
organisation.

Changes limited to structures, guidelines and physical surroundings tend to prove
superficial and are quite fragile, however. This is because the strongest types of inertia,
those supported by systems of values and beliefs, assumptions and mental models
that is, by an organisations system of meanings are what ultimately determine how
an organisation gets things done.

This Gender and Change in the Organisational Culture manual contains a set of
concepts and tools designed to promote organisational gender analysis and to help
chart the course of gender-sensitive organisational changes in the specific area of
organisational culture, in both its individual and collective aspects.

The text is divided into two sections. The first contains the concepts constituting the
framework of this proposal and the second offers specific technical tools. The latter is
divided into three groups: tools to carry out gender analysis in a given organisation;
tools to guide and support a change process in its collective aspect; tools to facilitate a
personal process of change.

Also included in the last section are some guidelines for change processes,
recognising that processes of organisational change can take multiple and diverse
paths, and that all organisations undertake such processes in the light of their own
dynamics and unique characters.

This text is geared to members of organisations devoted both to products and
services involved in processes of organisational change in the private and the public
sectors, to NGOs and to organisational change consultants seeking to have gender
influence the way change is managed.



1



















1. CONCEPTUAL TOOLS


































We present a basic set of notions and
definitions that can help guide a gender-
sensitive organisational change in this
section. Emphasis is laid on organisations,
organisational change, gender and
organisational culture. We chose these
tools because we believe they are useful
and help to generate deep and lasting
changes in organisations.

These conceptual tools are set forth by
subject areas as follows:
1.2 Gender in
organisations

The notion of gender and
how it is expressed in
organisations
1.3 Organisational
change

Elements for the better
understanding of change in
general and organisational
change in particular; links
between change and learning
1.4 Organisational
culture

Elements for the demarcation
of the adopted concept of
culture, a key area of gender-
sensitive organisational
change.
1.1. Regarding
organisations

We attempt to define
organisations in general and
the notion of organisation
advocated in this text


3




1.1 REGARDING ORGANISATIONS
In general, organisations are basic forms of modern life and systems instituted to
achieve goals. Through organisations, the trends in the broader social systems that
they are associated with gain in effectiveness.

The following proposal lays emphasis on the systemic quality of organisations.
Organisations are complex systems embedded in other complex systems. Systems are
complex units whose components interact and are interdependent.

Organisations are ecological and self-regulated systems. They have the capacity of
self-repair (self-organisation), they are linked to their environment (ecological relation)
and their components are interdependent. Organisations can also become
disorganised (increase of entropy) or reorganised (self-repair principle) internally.
3



1.1.1 Organisations as systems within systems

A system is a whole in itself and it forms part of a larger system at the same time.
Because they are systems, organisations are also parts of larger systems. This means
that they can influence their immediate environment and generate effects beyond it.
The external environment, in turn, affects how organisations evolve. Likewise,
organisations have subsystems within themselves that interact and mutually affect one
another.

In organisations, tension prevails between the individual and the collective, the internal
and the external (context), the formal and the informal, as well as between their internal
subsystems.

There are visible, observable, quantitative and objective external aspects in
organisations (individual behaviour, group dynamics, expressed values, guidelines,
procedures, formats, documents, manuals, etc.). Organisations also have internal
aspects (meanings, beliefs, attitudes, identities, internalised values etc.) that are
invisible, impossible to observe or quantify. To the first (external) category, we gain
access through observation, and to the second (internal) through interpretation. Both
external and internal aspects have individual and collective facets. Individual and group
behaviours, for example, are part of the external category. Individual (subjective) and
collective (inter-subjective) meanings form part of the internal category.


3
Morin, E. (1995). Sociologa, p. 89.
4




1.1.2 Organisations as machines and as living systems
4


The logic of the artificial machine, when applied to humans, develops programmes at
the cost of strategies, hyper-specialisation at the cost of general competence,
mechanical properties at the cost of organisational complexity: the rigorous workings,
logic and synchronised tuning of the machine forces human beings to comply to a
mechanical way of functioning. This logic disregards living individuals and their
essence as subjects, thus disregarding subjective human realities.
5


Knowledge regarding organisations can be compiled in different ways, but it is usually
guided by two principal metaphors: the metaphor of the organisation as an artificial
machine and the metaphor of the organisation as a living organism. The implications of
regarding organisations according to one or the other metaphor are enormous. Each
metaphor pursues a dramatically different logic.

The Machine The Living Organism
A machine is composed of very reliable
parts, but is much less reliable as a whole
than when each part is viewed separately.
Any local alteration may block the entire
system. It can only be repaired from the
outside.
Living organisms are made up of extremely
unreliable components that easily become
degradable, but as a whole they are much
more reliable than their parts. They can make
new parts to replace the ones that die or wear
out; they can self-regenerate and repair
themselves if damaged.
An artificial machine is only capable of one
programme. It cannot tolerate or incorpo-
rate disorder; it strictly obeys its own pro-
gramme; it is made up of very specialised
parts and destined for very specialised
tasks.
Living organisms are capable of a strategy;
that is, they can invent their own behaviour
when uncertainty or confusion occurs. There is
a complex and intrinsic link between organisa-
tion and disorganisation, creativity and disor-
der in living organisms.
A machine is controllable; it follows a
certain logic. It is predictable, effective,
specialised, rigid, quantifiable, keenly
tuned, fast.
Living organisms are always uncertain. They
are never stable; they are always prone to
changes in their relations with the outside
world. The parts of living organisms are
multi-functional, polyvalent, flexible.

4
Adapted from: Capra, F. (1982). The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture and (1998)
La trama de la vida: una nueva perspectiva de los sistemas vivos. Wilber, K. (1996). Sexo, ecologa y
espiritualidad: el alma de la evolucin. Morn, E. (1993). Tierra Patria and (1995a). Introduccin al
pensamiento complejo: el paradigma de la complejidad and (1995b) Sociologa. De Geus, A. (1997). The
Living Company.
5
Morn, E. (1993).Tierra Patria, p. 107.
5




According to recent research, certain common features are recognisable in
organisations with a long life span. Their logic is more akin to that of living beings than
to that of machines. Thus organisations may be seen as living organisms and not as
mechanisms.

If we add to the traits just mentioned the fact that living beings are goal-oriented,
sensitive to their environment and have a limited life span, we observe that
organisations also share these characteristics.

Furthermore, if living organisms are the only systems capable of learning,
organisations can also learn because they are living organisms. Inanimate objects
cannot learn. Organisations that have trouble learning are those that are not able to
adapt themselves or evolve when the world around them changes.


1.1.3 Effects of viewing organisations as machines or as living
organisms
6


Contemplating organisations as mechanisms or as living organisms is much more than
a metaphor. How we view them has immediate and direct implications for the everyday
life of organisations. It has significant implications for the ways in which people in
organisations tackle their work and take decisions.

Metaphors may be regarded as mental models having a very profound influence on
organisational dynamics. For example:



6
Adapted from: Senge, P. Foreword in De Geus, A. (1997). The Living Company.
6




Organisations according to the
metaphor of the machine
Organisations according to the
metaphor of the living organism
A machine belongs to someone. What does it mean to say that someone a
person, an organisation owns a living
organism?
A machine exists for the purpose it was
created for by those who built it, for example,
making money for its owners.
A living organism has its own purposes that
will never be replaced by the goals of
others. What happens to the life energy of a
living organism when it cannot pursue its
own purpose?
A machine must be controllable by those who
operate it. For example, the function of
management is to control an organisation.
Living organisms are not controllable; they
can be influenced through a series of
interactive processes in which both parties
are influenced, the one exerting the
influence and the one receiving it.
An external agent creates a machine. For
example, corporate systems and procedures
may be viewed as something created by
management or imposed on an organisation.
Living organisms create their own
processes, just as human organisms
manufacture their own systems. This is how
the informal part of organisations is
constituted.
A machine is fixed, static. It can only change if
someone changes it.
A living organism evolves naturally.
The identity of a machine is the one given to it
by those who build it.
Living organisms have their own sense of
identity, which is their own personality.
A machines actions are reactive; for example,
an organisation reacts to goals and decisions
taken by the management.
Living organisms have their own goals and
their own capacity for autonomous action.
A machine runs down unless it is
reconstructed by someone, for example, the
management.
Living organisms can self-regenerate. They
continue to be an entity and keep their own
identity through changes; for example, an
organisation maintains its identity even
when its members change.
A machine works as the sum of the
functioning of its parts. In an organisation, for
example, the members are human
resources, a reserve force waiting to be used
to contribute its individual resourses.
In living organisms, the whole is more than
the sum of all its parts. The whole
contributes qualities that need not be
present in all the individual members. In an
organisation, its members form working
human communities that can learn as a
whole, like theatre groups or sports teams.
Only living beings have the capacity to
learn.
7





All organisations display certain behaviours and characteristics present in living beings:
they are capable of learning, they have coherence since they have their own identity,
they construct links with other entities, they grow and continue to evolve until they die.
When managing organisations, we must accept this, in both its positive and negative
contexts.

The metaphor of the machine is so powerful, however, that it can shape an
organisations character. Many organisations become more like machines than like
living organisms, because their members see themselves as cogs in a wheel. Perhaps
the first task at hand, therefore, is to transform this line of thinking. As Albert Einstein
once said, the significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of
thinking we were at when we created them.
7



1.2 GENDER IN ORGANISATIONS
1.2.1 The notion of gender

The notion of gender is used interchangeably to refer to sex as a synonym for
women, to define relations between men and women, to refer to the complex
connection between nature and culture, or as a crosscutting category of social analysis
applicable to every sphere of human endeavour.

The view of gender as a crosscutting category of social analysis broadens the range of
its applications, facilitating, for example, studying the interaction between the biological
aspects of human sexual dimorphism and the cultural aspects relative to the human
species. It allows us to investigate the construction and reproduction processes of
gender-differentiated roles, upon the basis of the biological or sexual dimorphic
differences in the human species. It permits us to understand the individual and
collective implications that sexually divided cultural orders exert on specific women and
men. It allows us to examine the cultural implications of masculine and feminine
archetypes in human cultures, throwing light on how we perceive the processes of
construction of male and female subjectivities. The notion of gender helps us to
construct different, or at least revised, versions of history, psychology, economics,
arts and sciences.


7
Quoted by De Geurs, A. (1997) in: The Living Company, p. X.


8




Gender as a crosscutting category of social analysis deeply enriches our grasp of what
being human entails. The concept of gender greatly contributed to the paradigms about
human nature developed during the Twentieth Century. We now enter a new century
with a much more pliable, richer, more flexible image, a more wide-ranging notion of
human potential that includes, but also in many ways transcends, the narrowly defined
roles associated with sex/gender and all the other categories still in use.

Here we advocate a notion of gender that recognises both the similarities and
likenesses between men and women as human beings belonging to the same
species and having equal legal rights or opportunities and the differences not only
between men and women, but among women themselves or men themselves. To
focus on the similarities or the differences alone leads to a dualism that continues to
favour exclusion; to deterministic or essentialist approaches and ultimately to biological
and cultural reductionism.

Human beings invariably construct meanings for the Masculine and the Feminine.
These meanings vary among different cultures and social groups. Such meanings have
quite profound implications since they define the roles, spaces and values, chances
and potentials of specific individuals, women and men alike.

People are not influenced by biology alone or by culture alone. Individually and
collectively, we are shaped by the interaction between biology and culture. Many of the
notions we have acquired are learned, along with their allocations and implications.
Thus, they are also susceptible to being transformed.

Transforming acquired notions is desirable because the systems of meanings
allocations implications of the Feminine and the Masculine have paved the way for
inequity and discrimination in virtually every culture on the planet. Today we begin to
realise that women have been affected by discrimination and inequality in a particularly
adverse fashion and in all spheres of human interaction (productive, reproductive,
political, communal, cultural and personal). From a general human and gender
perspective, in which the masculine role model is not the only reference point for
human potential, we can understand that human inequities, discriminations and
mutilations affect women and men alike, although in very different ways in the
different aspects of their lives.

The search for equity and equality, therefore, cannot focus on women alone or on the
most highly-valued social spheres alone the productive and the political the
spheres in which men interacted exclusively until not so very long ago.

9




We must strive for equity and equality in every sphere of interaction, in making a
balanced assessment of the sexes, in recognising the essential contributions both
sexes make to the creation and preservation of human life and in the need for women
and men alike to occupy these spheres of human interaction under conditions of
equality.


1.2.2 How gender is expressed in organisations

We are not simply seeking to add a gender dimension to organisations. As a matter of
fact, organisations are always being influenced by gender factors that contribute to
shaping them. Gender affects an organisation at every one of its working levels: in its
culture, structure, processes and procedures; in its systems, infrastructure and beliefs;
in its individual and collective practices and behaviours.

Gender is expressed in multiple forms. Some are more obvious, some subtler. These
forms are often accepted as givens, as the natural way of doing things. Thus, they
are not even questioned or viewed as problems.

Research on the influence of gender in organisations has revealed the following:
Women, who constitute 51% of the worlds population, do not occupy even 10%
of the worlds top managerial positions.
Men are mainly in charge of decision-making posts, while women mainly fill
subordinate and service jobs.
The wage pyramid shows strong sex biases: different wages are paid for the
same jobs, according to whether men or women perform them. On average,
women earn much lower salaries than men do when performing the same jobs.
Throughout the world, women earn 75%, on average, of what men occupying
the same jobs and having the same expertise earn.
Women climb the hierarchical ladder much more slowly than men do: they start
at lower levels and advance much more slowly than men; they tend to remain
longer at each post and to conclude their careers at lower levels. Men usually
begin working at higher levels, stay less time at each post and conclude their
careers at higher levels.
Women more often specialise in one field and are less mobile than men, both in
terms of work and working location.
Differentiated demands are placed on women and men with respect to working
requirements, dedication and performance. Female work is stigmatised. Often
10




women must be overqualified to meet working requirements. Women must have
more attributes and score more winning points in order to gain access to the
same jobs that men hold.
Sexual stereotypes influence how posts are filled; men enter service or
supporting roles at an even slower rate than women enter top management.
Women carry out over 95% of the general service jobs in organisations, jobs
with less prestige and lower salaries attached to them.
Informal-style ties both at work and in personal relations, foster and reproduce
sexual stereotypes; women are underestimated or discriminated against most of
the time as a result.
Women tend to have part-time jobs much more often than men do.
Women are more prone to interrupt their jobs or to become unemployed.
Men tend to suffer serious or fatal accidents at work more often than women.
In two-income households, women earn less than their partners, on average; a
husbands career tends to take precedence over a wifes career.
Women in organisations tend to interrupt their work more often than men do,
due to their domestic obligations. This has negative repercussions when it
comes to female promotion or performance evaluation.
To succeed in the labour market, women postpone or avoid marriage or having
children much more often than men; the conflict between working and having a
family is not as critical for men.
Professional and executive women tend to marry men with equal or higher
educational levels.
Men tend to marry women with lower educational and professional levels.
Women employees devote many more hours to domestic chores and childcare
than men employees do.
Men who would like to spend more time with their children are prevented from
doing so by their working conditions and the expectations placed on them.
Women employees enjoy significantly less leisure hours per week than men
employees do.
In every country in the world, women work between two and five hours more, on
average, than men.
11





A great number of organisations lack a female success pattern. With respect to
success and leadership, a good worker is invariably defined within parameters that are
easier for men to meet, on account of their personal and domestic situations. Women
always need to strike a balance between work and the home.
Management processes tend to be inflexible and are universally conceived for an
abstract and homogenous (male) employee. They have few flexible mechanisms or
mechanisms receptive to change. This actively contributes to perpetuating gender
stereotypes and inequities in organisations. (Male) homogenisation and gender
stereotyping are manifest in specific management processes such as selection, pay,
working shifts, promotion, qualification, welfare programmes, training, performance
recognition and evaluation systems.

Research carried out by the Proequidad Project in public entities has revealed that:

Selection: The tools used to recruit and train personnel are applied to men and women
uniformly, without taking into account how their lives might differ. Given the
organisational bias in favour of male attributes, male recruitment is promoted over
female recruitment. At the same time, there are formal and informal systems of
segregation when it comes to job descriptions, which mean that personnel of a given
sex is often sought according to the type of job in question.

Working shifts: Identical demands are placed on men and women with respect to the
number of hours and types of shifts worked, as if the sexes had the same domestic
obligations. Frequently, top management posts demand 12-hour shifts or longer and
complying with this taxing schedule forms part of the evaluation criteria.

Promotion: Top managerial posts tend to be filled by free appointment and dismissal.
Individuals gain access to them via professional prestige (their unconditional devotion
to the institution) or political considerations (their connections to those who wield the
power of decision in government.) Both these parameters help men to reach these
posts, since men can devote themselves more wholeheartedly to their organisations
and cultivate the political ties that are relatively closed to women. The fulfilling of
technical criteria is more likely to be found among men. Such criteria also influence
promotion, although they become less important at top decision levels.

Qualification: How people are graded or deemed qualified depends on what is known
as the administrative career in Colombia. Yet this system does not take into account
the interests of men and women. It favours competition and the exams applied for it
promote technical know-how. Women tend to remain longer at their posts, which
makes their careers more horizontal and with fewer promotions.
12





Pay: Very often women are paid less than men when occupying the same type of post
and having the same kind of responsibility, though in many countries this is not legally
permitted. Wherever women and men who occupy the same posts do receive the same
salary, the majority of the women still occupies lower posts and earns lower wages.
This implies that women not only have less influence on decision-making and resource
allocation, but also that their average pay is lower.

Welfare: The definition of welfare is standard and often ultimately tends to promote
male interests, or welfare programmes are geared to reinforcing traditional gender
roles and spheres. Training programmes often have a gender bias and do not promote
the access of many women, also on account of how working shifts, frequency, etc. are
designed. Another example of this is holding recreational programmes on days off,
coinciding with the time women perform domestic chores.


1.2.3 Some common responses of organisations to the insertion of a
gender perspective

Organisations react and respond in different ways to the insertion of a gender
perspective. Some responses are to dodge the issue, while others show different
levels of acceptance and understanding of the subject.

Common ways of resisting change, which are expressed in various ways, are to
trivialise or ridicule the situations that cause inequity in the organisation; to deny the
existence of inequity in general; to blame a specific group; to blame women only, or
men only; to admit that the problem exists but do nothing about it; to carry out
unnecessary or inadequate research; to assign the responsibility for gender issues to
someone lacking the means or the expertise to generate true change; to point to the
exceptions in order to argue that change already took place; to regard the issue of
gender awareness as an imposition from outside.

The Proequidad Project has made it possible to observe the following attitudes towards
gender, both within organisations and regarding what they have to offer:
8



8
Adapted from: Guzmn, J. E. (1999). Ideario del Proyecto Proequidad.
13




Invisibility: Gender has not been given any thought at all. The organisational style and
the forms in which services or programmes are offered are seen as something
independent from the influence of the specific people carrying them out or receiving
them. People are viewed as an abstract, uniform mass and thus inequity is not
perceived; it remains invisible.

Denial: Inequity is admitted at the level of society, institutions and programmes but it is
not perceived to form part of the specific institution. The reasons for this are
purportedly strong, for example, the fact that there are no wage differences between
men and women; that every post has specific tasks; that there are mainly women in the
organisation or that it carries out technical programmes.

Organisational marginalisation: The problem is acknowledged and some importance
is even allocated to it, but the assumption is that it is already solved because some
actions were already undertaken, for example, a special gender division was created,
or one or more people were assigned to the gender issue.

Programmatic marginalisation: The problem is recognised, but it is assumed that it
can be solved through isolated actions, separate from the project as a whole or the
organisations overall functioning. Such endeavours are meant to cater to the specific
needs of a specific disadvantaged sector of the population, usually women. As a result,
gender projects or project components have been created.

Focal demand: Gender is viewed as something of secondary importance, a problem
easy to overcome by making the staff more aware with a bit of extra information. Thus,
gender issues are thought to be resolved by holding lectures or workshops, or by
bringing in an expert from outside to define what should be done.

Lack of information or expertise: The problem is recognised or its effects are
guessed at, but no data about its specific characteristics exists and no effort is made to
clarify what might lead to a solution strategy. Nothing is known about the problem in
this sense, or about its dimensions; no specific tools are available to facilitate finding a
solution.

Complexity of the problem: Gender inequity must necessarily exist, but not even its
effects are clearly discernible. There is knowledge about gender in general, but no
studies have been carried out and no concepts have been developed regarding the
organisations particular setting.

Structural problems: Gender inequity is acknowledged, there is a general grasp of
the situation or there are tools at hand. In fact, the staff has received some gender
14




training, but this training has not been put into practice for various reasons. People do
not accept the proposed changes, the technical staff offers resistance, the top
management level believes that the financial and managerial implications of the whole
thing are too expensive.


1.2.4 Areas of gender analysis in organisations

Using the organisational approach as a reference point, four areas or groups of
variables may be identified in which interventions can take place:

1 The profile
2 The management processes
3 The organisational culture
4 The personal factor.

We will emphasise the last two points because of the weight that they exert on
processes of organisational change with a gender perspective. The underlying
assumption is that if human beings change, and the ways in which they relate also
change, structural changes are more likely to occur.

To analyse how gender influences the organisational culture, further distinctions must
be made: the implications of gender on mental models and beliefs, on practices and
behaviours and at the physical/material level. These subdivisions are made assuming
that the organisational cultures system of meanings visibly affects behaviour as well as
the physical corporate environment.

15





1.3 CHANGE AND ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
PROCESSES
Order is all that is repetition, permanence, invariability, all that fits under the aegis of a
highly likely relation, framed within dependence on a law. Disorder is all that is
irregular, deviation from a given structure, a random, unpredictable happening. There
would be no room for innovation, creation and evolution in a perfectly ordained
universe. No human or living existence would be possible. Nothing could exist under
complete disorder either, because there would be nothing stable upon which to build an
organisation Degradation and decadence are normal phenomena. It is normal for
things not to last forever... there are no recipes for perfect balance. The only way to
fight degeneration is through constant regeneration; in other words, through an
organisations ability to regenerate and reorganise as a whole, counteracting all
disintegration processes
9



1.3.1 Development or organisational change

It is essential for an organisation to understand the logic of change when it embarks on
a substantial transformation that implies breaking with past paradigms of reality.

How change is perceived, its rhythm and the forces it brings into play, are in
themselves instruments of change and awareness. People committed to change, who
know the uncertainty it may cause, must develop a flexible, alert attitude. This is
difficult for those who reject any modification of their status quo.

Recognition and acceptance of change as the only sure, constant variable, allowing
room for its uncertainty, both at the personal and collective levels, implies looking at life
from a different angle from that taken by those who see change as something
undesirable and inconvenient, those who only seek security and certainties for the
orientation of their lives.

Change involves processes of imbalance and rebalance, order and disorder, being
generated inside or outside a given system. Although every change involves
movements in systems themselves, not every change implies breaking with an existing
order. When changes in the existing order take place, we are developing something
akin to, or better than, of the same.


9
Morin, E. (1995a). Introduction to Complex Thought, pp. 125-126.
16




Given the unequal relations between men and women that subsist in organisations,
however, a gender-sensitive organisational change is not designed to improve what
already exists. It is also intended to break with the existing order and transform certain
norms, guidelines, routines and perspectives.

For changes in the status quo to last, producing a different kind of order and not more
of the same, we need to promote and extend the new trends intended to become the
mainstream, should they thrive. Eventually such tendencies are bound to create a new
perspective and a new normality: equitable relations between women and men in
organisations.

Thus, we are not referring here to organisational development more or better of the
same but to organisational change: a qualitative break with what previously existed.

Although change processes involve a myriad of human aspects thinking patterns,
emotions, behaviour, appearances and lifestyles we will concentrate on two aspects
for the moment: thinking patterns and systems of meanings.

We therefore refer to:
The notion of paradigms as a filter through which to read reality
The relation between paradigms and types of change
The relation between types of change and types of learning
Resistances as forces inherent to change
The phases following change
The difference between change and problem resolution
The application of this approach to organisations receptive to change in a
quickly evolving environment such as the present one.


1.3.2 What are paradigms

The word paradigm is of Greek origin. Nowadays, it is commonly used in the sense of
model, theory, perception, assumption or reference framework. In a more general
sense, it is the way we see the world not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in
terms of perceiving, understanding, interpretation.
10



10
Covey, St. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 23.
17




One way to think of paradigms is to view them as maps. A map is a representation of
certain aspects of a given territory, but the map is not the territory. A paradigm is just
that. It is a theory, an explanation or a model of something else.

Maps or representations refer to the interpretation we make of how things are and how
we believe they should be. Often we are not even aware that these versions of reality
exist and so we seldom question them. We simply assume that how we see things is
how they truly are. These ways of interpreting reality are an important source of our
self-image and of the way we are. They shape how we relate to the world and to
others.

We see the world, not as it is, but as we are or, as we are conditioned to see it.
11

Different people see things differently because everyone looks through the prism of
their own experiences. It is not that facts do not exist in themselves. The interpretation
each human being makes of facts, however, is tinged by past learning experiences.
Facts lack meaning when they are devoid of interpretation.

The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps or assumptions, and the extent
to which they have influenced our experience, the more we can take responsibility for
those paradigms, examine them, confront them against reality, listen to others and be
open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective
view.
12


A paradigm shift, whether it takes place instantly or gradually over time, or leads in
negative or positive directions, means shifting from one way of regarding the world to
another. It is a change that generates powerful transformations.

If we intend to carry out relatively minor changes in our lives, it may be sufficient to
focus on our attitudes and behaviour. However, if we aspire to a meaningful, well-
balanced change, we need to concentrate on our basic paradigms.


1.3.3 Paradigms and types of change

Changes take place in varying degrees and have different effects on systems.
Basically, there are two types of change: the first type takes place within the principles
or assumptions of a given system Change 1 and the second transforms a systems
principles or assumptions, that is, it transforms the system itself Change 2 .

11
Covey, St. (1989) op. cit., p.28.
12
Covey, St. (1989) op. cit., p.29.
18





In Change 1, continuity of the existing patterns subsists. The paradigm is not modified.
Change 2 involves dismantling previous assumptions, bringing about a transformation
in the existing paradigm. Both types of changes occur in real life.

Change 2, no matter how modest it is, introduces ways of understanding that are
incompatible with our former ones. It is like looking at the same thing with a different
lens: the same facts are interpreted in a different way, a way that is not the opposite
of the previous one either. When change involves going from one end of a spectrum to
the other, we are still at the level of Change 1.

It is one thing to notice, take into account or argue about something as patent as a
change of something into its opposite, but it is very difficult, especially in human
relations, to be aware that this change is actually no change in the overall pattern. One
of the most common human fallacies is to believe that if something is bad, its opposite
is necessarily good: Much human conflict and many conflict-engendering solutions are
due to this unawareness.
13


Change 2 always involves a process of starts and stops. It is a quantum leap in logic and
thus its practical manifestations may seem illogical and paradoxical. Although Change 2
also takes place during the course of our everyday lives, it tends to be seen as
something beyond our control, incomprehensible even. But second-order change
appears unpredictable, abrupt, illogical only in terms of first-order change, that is, from
within the system. Indeed, this must be so, because, as we have seen, second-order
change is introduced into a system from the outside and therefore is not something
familiar or something understandable in terms of the vicissitudes of first-order change.
14

People therefore may find it irritating and extravagant. Viewed from outside the system in
question, It merely amounts to a change of the premises governing the system as a
whole.
15


An example of Change 1, shifting from one pole to the other, is the notion some people
defend that going from a men-bossing-women-around situation to a women-bossing-
men-around situation is desirable, not really understanding what the quest for gender
equity entails. Nothing would be gained in terms of achieving equality between women
and men by such a scheme.

Change 2 means shifting from unequal, hierarchical and discriminatory relations to
relations not tarnished by privileges for, or discrimination against, either gender or any

13
Watzlawick, P. (1974). Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution, p. 22.
14
Ibid.
15
Watzlawick, P. op. cit., p. 24.
19




human group. This means changing the assumptions underpinning inequitable systems
of relations to other forms of assessing human beings, irrespective of sex/gender,
ethnic origin or age. Those who base their lifestyles and identities on hierarchical
values, whose thinking patterns do not include equality and equity for everyone without
exception - for example racist, sexist and xenophobic individuals, are bound to find
such changes disagreeable, incomprehensible or unacceptable.

Usually a lot of time is invested in changes of the first type, covering the whole gamut
offered by the logic of a given system. Solutions that failed in other instances are
repeated over and over again, reproducing vicious circles in relations, institutions and
societies as a whole. This occurs until some options outside the system can be
discovered, for which one needs to examine the assumptions upon which options are
formulated and not the formulation itself, finally breaking vicious circles and gaining
other perspectives from which to interpret problems and tackle them.


1.3.4 Change and learning

Learning is inherent in human nature. Through permanent learning processes, we
construct ourselves and the world around us. We human beings reach our potential
and self-fulfilment through learning.

In our culture, however, learning tends to be restricted to formal education cycles, or to
the periods during which we train for a new job or occupation. There is also the strong
human urge to embrace routine and repetition and stop learning. This type of
behaviour, which would obviously be lethal during the first years (childhood and
adolescence), becomes almost mandatory when we turn into adults. Adulthood and
old age are not regarded as favourable or appropriate learning periods or deemed
desirable for undertaking new kinds of work or occupations.

The search for security and stability in adults also contributes to the drastic halt in the
learning process just mentioned. As adults, we appear to live according to the cultural
mandate of closing ourselves to new worlds.

People who stop learning and do not draw sustenance from remaining open to new
options and worlds, may apparently live safe and stable existences but, in fact, they
have shut down their universe so as to only let in what they already know. This means
they stop growing as individuals. Fear and mistrust of the changes that take place
around them make their lives impoverished.
20





Therefore, promoting organisations that are receptive to learning also means promoting
an enriched lifestyle, conducive to learning.


1.3.5 Types of learning

Three types of learning are directly associated with the two types of changes we just
described:
Type I or proto-learning applies to the simple solution of a problem, the classic
stimulus/response situation.
Type II or deutero-learning refers to a progressive change in proto-learning
velocity. It implies exploring the nature of contexts, enhancing our ability to
solve problems, recognising sequences and learning to learn. Proto-learning
is thus about the solution to a problem within a certain context, and deutero
learning is about figuring out what the context itself is learning the rules of the
game. Character and reality originate in the second type of learning and
character and reality are surely inseparable.
16

Deuterolearning takes place from our very early infancies. For many people,
their reality becomes the reality. They cannot imagine a differently structured
reality. People who learn almost only in this way are likely to be self-centred.
They consider anything that contradicts or questions their reality abnormal. In
other words, the person shapes the total context to make it fit his/her
expectations. The self-validating character of deutero-learning is so powerful,
that it is usually impossible to eradicate and lasts from the cradle to the
grave.
17
At this level of learning, someone can jump from one extreme to
another, as attested by the numerous cases of political, religious or other
conversions. In these cases, Type II or deutero-learning is strictly maintained.
A way to stop focusing on a single reality as the only true one is by means of
Type III learning, where it is no longer one paradigm versus another, but
understanding the nature of the paradigm itself. Changes like these involve a
deep reorganisation of the personality a change in the form and in the content
(). These changes rupture Type II learning categories.
18

In Type III learning, an individual learns to change the habits acquired during
Type II learning (...), s/he learns that s/he is a creature automatically used to
Type II learning, who imitates or follows Type II learning exclusively. Type III

16
Berman, M. (1987). El reencantamiento del mundo, p. 214.
17
Berman, M. (1987), op. cit., p. 215.
18
Berman, M. (1987), op. cit. p. 215.
21




learning helps us to learn about Type II learning. In it, people learn about their
own character and their vision of the world. This awakening necessarily involves
redefining the self, the self as a product of previous deutero-learning. In fact, the
self itself begins to become irrelevant; the I stops functioning as a central
reference point of experience.
19


Type III learning, to the degree that it means learning about the nature of a
paradigm itself, is also about apprehending the assumptions on which any human
activity are based, such as science, art, religion, commerce, war and even
sleeping.
20



19
Berman, M. (1987), op. cit. p. 229.
20
Bateson, G. (1993). Espritu y naturaleza.
22




1.3.6 Links between change, learning and paradigms

Level of learning Type of change
LEVEL I OR PROTO-LEARNING

Simple solution to a problem:
Stimulus response.

LEVEL II OR DEUTERO LEARNING

Learning to learn. Improves ability to solve
problems. Learns rules of the game. Learns
the nature of contexts. Self-centred individual:
his/her reality is THE reality. Limited identity.

CHANGE 1
Takes place within the premises or
principles of a given system.
Continuity of existing patterns
existing paradigm is not modified.
The more things change, the more they
remain the same: the same reality, the
same identity.
LEVEL III
Knowing how to know. Learns the nature of
paradigms themselves. Learns assumptions
underlying all human activity. Subject is not
centred on his/herself: his/her reality is ONE
reality. Redefinition, broadening of identity.

CHANGE 2
Breaking with former premises
transforms existing paradigm. Changes
with respect to the rules governing the
internal structure or order of systems.
Introduces understandings no longer
compatible with the previous ones:
change of reality, of identity.

Type I and Type II learning generate Type 1 changes. Usually, these are changes in
form and they do not affect the habitual ways of interpreting reality. Type III learning
causes in-depth changes, shifts in awareness. It transforms both contents and form,
hence affecting how the self and reality are interpreted.


1.3.7 Change and resistance

Systems tend to be flexible and conservative at the same time. Persistence (the
apprehended) and change (the new) are two conflicting forces present in every system.
Resistances are inherent in changes. Resistances express persistence, its
conservative forces. If a desired change process is to take place, resistances can and
must be tackled.

Processes of change do not always flow smoothly. It is only to be expected that
questioning the very assumptions on which relations between men and women are
constructed, as in the case of gender-sensitive organisational change, for example, is
23




bound to produce psychological resistance to transforming fundamental attitudes.
Applying new learning in this area implies unlearning former ways of learning. This
does not only mean changing perspectives, or approaches, but also behaving in
accordance with the newly founded approach.

Mainstream values and habits cannot be expected to change overnight. Changes that
are undertaken responsibly and not just superficially are bound to generate fear and
uncertainty, especially at the beginning.

Approaching organisations and change processes from the perspective of a given
system changes the ethical approach of such processes. This means that instead of
looking for scapegoats or problem individuals, as tends to happen when things go
wrong, we seek to identify the relations and attitudes existing between people, looking
for underlying common assumptions.

In other words, this requires a transition from the process of blaming one or a few
individuals, to each member in a whole assuming responsibility for a group-fed
process. Being part of a problem also means being part of a solution.

Lasting, effective learning cannot be imposed. It can only take place when a collective
form of learning strives to create consensus about the need for change and the type of
change required. Resistances can emerge as the result of ignorance, fear or anxiety
about a broad range of subjects. The answers to them are not confrontation but
dialogue and negotiation instead.


1.3.8 Organisations receptive to learning

To learn means to change. To change means to learn. And it is people who can learn
and change. Changing implies learning to interpret things differently from the way in
which we traditionally perceive them. Learning means changing the internal frames of
reference we use to understand and interpret the events taking place during the course
of our daily lives.

An organisation open to learning understands that it is composed of individual people
interacting, learning and unlearning. In the learning mode, people are the most
important factor in an organisation.
24





Interest in organisational learning has broadened and this can partly be explained by
the need that organisations are experiencing to respond to fast-changing environments
generating new demands. These responses require creativity and creativity is directly
connected with the capacity that people in a given group have to take risks, learn and
change. Learning risk - openness flexibility creativity change, are all terms
referring to the same process.

The current fast-changing environment has shown how important an organisations
capacity to learn is. At a deeper level, it reminds us that life is not under our control. It
allows us to regain the certainty that life is essentially a flow; that flow is change,
uncertainty is part of life, and chaos and order are two sides of the same coin. Both of
them are necessary in order to preserve natural and social life.
21



1.3.9 Organisational change is not problem resolution

Learning for change implies a creative-proactive orientation of peoples energy and
attention span, not a reactive one. A reactive orientation geared to problem resolution
can only provide temporary solutions to previously defined problems. This type of
reaction only serves to respond to what there is. It does not allow advancing towards
a broader scenario recognising the existence of problems, not only concentrating on
analysing these problems and drafting proposals around them, but also on proposing
altogether new scenarios. The aim of this kind of learning is not to perpetuate the
same scenario minus one particular problem (absence of the problem identified).

Creating visions in organisations and during social development processes allows us to
create new scenarios that will have different dynamics and components than the
previous ones. At the same time, it makes it possible to create not only broader but
different options from those sure to emerge when we only limit ourselves to the solving
of one particular problem.

It is crucial to ask ourselves the question What do we focus our attention on? The
problem resolution approach is useful in responding to emergencies such as droughts
and illnesses, but it does not tell us anything about the deep-rooted causes, or the
dynamics, leading to these and other such emergencies. There is a great difference
between curing an illness and generating health.

21
De Geus, A. (1997), op. cit., p. 20.
25





1.3.10 Phases of change

Changes are not linear. They are subject to advances and setbacks, stagnation,
acceleration and deceleration, blockages, resistances, crises. Their results cannot be
guaranteed. Changes can be consciously induced or forced by circumstances. They
can be pro-active and anticipated, or hasty and reactive.

Every change involves introducing disorder, disrupting a systems dynamic balance. It
involves the emergence of options, possible paths, new perceptions and new quests. It
leads to reorganisation, new balances and a new restructuring of the components in a
system. It always increases uncertainty and risks.

Disorganisation introduction of innovations
Emergence of multiple options
Restructuring new balances

The following phases may be regarded as the three transitional zones:

BREAKAGE OR RUPTURE ZONE: De-structuring takes place. Contains the
seeds of what is to come. Implies slow-motion changes.
JUNCTION ZONE: Emergence of multiple options, rethinking and redesigning.
Uncertainty increases. Change at fast pace, acceleration. Qualitative change is
not guaranteed. It requires reviewing priorities, goals and values that will
support change. Upsurge of more good and bad news is to be expected.
EMERGENT ZONE: New order. Old problems and crises are seen as new
opportunities. News only appears to be good or bad. New kinds of learning take
place through crises; restructuring, new forms and adaptations can be
appreciated. Restructured knowledge, new maps, new success criteria, new
measuring indicators.

These three zones can overlap.


26




1.3.11 The need for change: organisations in a rapidly changing
environment

Many reasons can be found for conscious, intentional or planned decisions to change,
whether at an individual or collective plane. These reasons may involve:

The working aspects of organisations, such as improving the efficiency of their
performance; improving the quality of their services or products in order to
survive in a highly competitive market; increasing their profits or incomes.
The changes in macro and micro levels that organisations are undergoing, such
as globalisation: of industry and technology; finances, communication and
information; employment and migration; consumer patterns
22
; increasing
awareness of conservation; increasing demand for green products and many
other aspects associated with the global cultural change now under way.
More people-centred motivations. Accepting that more creative, empowering
and satisfactory human relations than the present ones can be constructed.
Improving the quality of human life and human relations, we can reach the first
set of objectives, those traditionally sought, until now, by means of control.

The signals issued by the macro-context data yielded by macro tendencies demand
that organisations adapt and make adjustments that will necessarily affect how they
function internally, from the perspective of a cultural change. Changing their concepts,
values and relations with respect to the outside context, however, is their chief priority
at present. The following chart illustrates this:



22
Henderson, H. (1995). Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics, p. 74.
27




The changing environment
23


Old tendencies New tendencies
Industrial society
National economy
Standard products and services
Uniform clientele
Initial qualification
Single disciplines
Life-long practices
Employment or sub-employment
Perpetual succession
Cartels, barriers and oligopolies
Diversification
Institutional aid
Representative
Facts and theories
Attitudes
Quantity
Procedures
Individuals
Getting ahead
Absolutes

Information society
Global economy
Customised products and services
Informed and demanding clientele
Continuous learning
Multiple disciplines
Mobile careers
Portfolio careers
Temporary arrangements
Competence and selectivity
Focalisation
Self-help
Participatory
Values
Feelings
Quality
Processes
Groups and teams
Balance of achievements
Relative/contextual

A gender-sensitive organisational change thrives best in organisations that adopt open
learning models and see people themselves as their most valuable asset. These types
of organisations are not necessarily gender-sensitive, but their principles and values
are far more compatible with seeking equity than dominant, vertical organisations, in
which the goal is profit and people are seen as resources or means to a proposed
service goal.



23
Huffington, C., Cole, C. and Brunning, H. (1997). A Manual of Organisational Development: The
Psychology of Change, p. 3.

28




1.3.12 Summary: assumptions regarding organisational change

Persistence and change are two forces always present in every system.
Change and learning are part of the same process. Learning involves
unlearning and it also involves changing.
Changes can be forced by circumstances or they may be introduced
consciously.
Resistance and change are part of the same process.
Organisations are living organisms and therefore they can learn as a whole
being (collective learning).
Processes of change do not tend to be fluid or stable. They have various
rhythms, periods of advancement and stabilisation.
Change in its most intangible, least material aspects (systems of meanings:
levels of consciousness, mental models, abilities, attitudes) is the most
profound and durable, because it involves changing the notions of reality and
identity, how we understand the world and act in it.
Resistances can be used constructively to support a process of change.
People are capable of learning and thus of changing throughout their whole
lives.
No one can force anyone to change. No one can change consciously and
intentionally unless they are motivated to do so; unless a vital urge leads them
to seek.
Organisations change through the changes taking place in the people that
constitute them. Therefore, organisational changes are always mediated by
individual changes.
29





1.4 ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE: THE KEY TO A
GENDER-SENSITIVE ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Advancing equity between men and women in any sphere of social life chiefly implies
that simultaneously profound cultural changes need to take place: changes in concept
and belief systems, in social imagery or representations, in systems of association and
assessment. Organisational change processes are no exception.

As a matter of fact, given the demands of a gender-sensitive organisational change,
the organisational culture is the main arena of change. For transformations to be deep
and lasting that is, effective, real and stable the key features of the existing
organisational culture must be directly and explicitly examined. This is valid for any
overall attempt at organisational change, but it becomes much more critical when an
organisational change with a gender perspective is involved.

Processes of change often hinge on operations, systems and procedures: that is, on
the most readily identifiable aspects of an organisation, also those most likely to be
measurable. Focusing on these aspects alone, however, can mean the failure of
organisational change attempts, since such changes tend to take place at a formal and
superficial level. Changes in form only and not in content easily allow us to slip back
into old organisational inertias and habits. Changes in the organisational culture prove
to be more effective when they become embedded into an organisations daily routine.


1.4.1 Definition of organisational culture

We need to understand culture as a system that dialectically connects a life
experience and a compiled wisdom.
24


Organisational culture designates a system of meanings shared among the members
of an organisation about the behaviour deemed correct and significant in it. This allows
us to distinguish between organisations.
25


An organisational culture includes the set of forms in which power is expressed, in
which interaction and decision-making take place and values develop, turn into habits
and become part of an organisations core or way of being. The notion of

24
Morin, E. (1995). Sociologa, p.146.
25
Hola, E. and Todaro, R. Los mecanismos de poder: Hombres y mujeres en la empresa moderna,
p. 19.
30




organisational culture encompasses patterns of interaction among individuals at both
formal and informal levels, which markedly influence the overall organisational climate.
The organisational culture reflects the model under which a given organisation
operates.
26



1.4.2 Assumptions inherent to the notion of culture proposed
27


The organisational culture as a system of meanings shared by a collectivity has the
characteristics of any system. We have already mentioned some features related to
organisational systems here. These stress the dynamic nature of an organisational
system and its transformation potential. Organisational culture may also be defined as
a subsystem within the larger system that an organisation is in itself.

These are the premises of the notion of culture we are proposing here:
Cultures are open systems
Cultures are not hegemonic and coherent wholes
Cultures are not objective realities but systems of meanings built and shared by
their members
Cultures are dynamic: they undergo moments receptive to change and
moments of blockage or resistance to change
Cultures cannot be changed by manipulating their external appearance alone.

26
Proyecto Proequidad (1997). Gnero y desarrollo organizacional para entidades pblicas.
27
Adapted from: Newman, J. (1995), Morin, E. (1995b), Wilber, K. (1996).
31





1. Cultures are open systems

Organisational cultures are systems within systems, contexts within contexts. This
implies that cultural systems are capable of self-preservation but also capable of self-
adaptation to the modifications and demands manifested in the broader contexts into
which they are also embedded.

Each organisational system shows a certain capacity to preserve its integrity. A system
exists in relation to its environment, but it does not dissolve into it. Instead it retains its
own individual shape, pattern or structure.

Organisational systems tend to retain their identity, holding on to their tried and tested
ways. At the same time, they are influenced by and receive feedback from the broader
contexts into which they are embedded. Gender relations in the broader socio-cultural
environment, for example, are reproduced at the level of an organisation itself.

Likewise, organisations, as part of the greater context that they are immersed in, need
to be flexible and have adaptation capacity in order to respond to the innovations and
new demands emerging from their surroundings. That is, organisations must
satisfactorily deal with the tension between two apparently conflicting tendencies:
individuality and consensus. Any notable bias in favour of one such force can endanger
an organisations very survival: too much individuality can make an organisation
oblivious of the environment it services and earns its profits from; too much flexibility
can lead it to lose its identity, its own particular kind of contribution.

An organisations adaptation capacity is linked to its learning capacity. Organisations
are capable of learning or self-transforming, transcending the status quo, introducing
innovations and going beyond what they already are. They can also transcend
themselves. There is both continuity and discontinuity in learning. Just as they can
evolve, organisations can also disappear they can self-dissolve. It is even fitting that
they do so, once they have fulfilled their mission, or when they have become so rigid
and obsolete that they no longer display the capacity to change.

These four forces, self-preservation, self-adaptation, self-transcendence and self-
dissolution, are simultaneously present in the organisational culture.

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2. Cultures are not hegemonic and coherent wholes

Different types of logic coexist within the same culture, different ways of conceiving
things and getting them done. Relatively strong tendencies, which are common to the
majority, are detectable in an organisational culture. These tendencies can coexist with
marginal tendencies, which are of secondary importance in comparison with issues
that are more critical for the organisation, such as who wields power and decision-
making. It is quite unrealistic to expect total consensus to be reached inside an
organisation.

Organisations do not inscribe themselves, in a clearly cut fashion, into any particular
model or organisational culture. Models only serve as guidelines, allowing us to
perceive the tendencies at the core of the complex interactions that people engage in.
Different departments or divisions usually generate their own dynamics, values and
practices, messages and effects on gender relations. Change processes themselves
generate new boundaries that produce new forms, imperatives and demands.

The potential to change and to evolve arises from the tension between the tendencies
just mentioned. A particular kind of wealth emerges from diversity. Diversity also gives
rise to conflicts and resistance to change. Resistance, however, may be understood as
an aspect inherent in processes of change. At the same time, resistances offer an
opportunity to go deeper into understanding the dynamics of organisations.

3. Cultures are not objective realities but systems of meanings built and
shared by their members

Cultures are not something organisations have in the same way they have traits or
attributes. It is not external to human identities and management. People are not
passive recipients but active co-creators of culture.

Systems of meanings, expressed in the way organisations interpret reality and in their
beliefs and thinking patterns, are created, maintained and transformed by their co-
creators during processes of creative exchange.

Working around the subject of culture allows us to perceive the common and the
conflicting trends in interpretations and beliefs that people from given organisations
hold, and to go more deeply into the common premises and assumptions that support
diverse, and sometimes conflicting, interpretations.

33




4. Cultures are dynamic they undergo moments receptive to change and
moments of blockage or resistance to change

Cultures are not fallow fields waiting to be modified by external agents (experts or
managers). The forms that the different change processes display, including
resistances and barriers, have a fluid and plastic character. The process is shaped and
reshaped in various ways as the changes in question take place (see metaphor of the
organisation as a living being and as a machine). This is why it is difficult to explore the
dynamic characteristics of cultural change and the tensions this type of change
creates.

The many resistances observed in the way organisations react to the insertion of a
gender perspective (see section on gender in organisations) are examples of how truly
dynamic a cultural system is. In this case, we see both receptivity to change since
incorporating a gender dimension is accepted and resistance to it since gender is
incorporated up to a certain point, often by striking compromises that do not even
manage to graze the cultural background fostering gender inequity in an organisation.

Resistances to change are active processes expressed in multiple open or
camouflaged ways. These resistances can create vicious circles (Change 1 type)
hindering any real change. Vicious circles need to be tackled by actions undertaken on
multiple fronts simultaneously. Isolated interventions cannot break them down. In fact,
they may even worsen a situation, because they allow us to say that we have already
tried to do something about the existing obstacles and simply failed.

5. Cultures cannot be changed by manipulating their external
appearances alone

Organisational culture is not generated by or centred on leaders or those who wield the
power of decision. The system of meanings expressed in the values proclaimed, for
example, cannot issue from an organisations formal structures alone or be injected
by means of a change in its appearance or corporate image.

Declaring the adoption of new values, drafting new visions and missions, changing the
appearance of buildings, redesigning the corporate image of an organisation, its
reception areas, uniforms, etc., cannot achieve much in the way of changing
organisational culture. These attempts may even be counterproductive, by giving rise
to a deep-rooted cynicism among the staff.

34




Organisations emit messages, often without noticing it, which express what they regard
as important or insignificant. The environment in which men and women work, how
they are physically located inside a building, the types of roles and professions they
carry out, all such elements contain messages that markedly reinforce an
organisations adopted values. Nevertheless, changes cannot take place by
manipulating external appearances alone.

Profound changes must affect both the visible and the invisible aspects: external
appearance, observable behaviours, and ALSO meanings, values and belief systems.
Substantial changes affect how individuals interact, both personally and collectively.

Change involves internal aspects at the personal and collective level (individual
meanings or subjectivities; shared meanings or inter-subjectivities) and external
aspects at the individual and collective level (individual and social behaviour). The
internal and the external, the individual and the social, are two sides of the same
medal.
35





1.4.3 Paradigms, mental models and change in the organisational
culture

A good part of what constitutes an organisational culture is entrenched in our
paradigms and mental models. Mental models may be understood as the expression of
the paradigms through which the world is perceived, which, on a deeper level, establish
the premises and principles of logic governing all such expressions.

Mental models are the images, assumptions, and stories which we carry in our minds
of ourselves, other people, institutions, and every aspect of the world. Like a pane of
glass framing and subtly distorting our vision, mental models determine what we see.
Human beings cannot navigate through the complex environments of our world without
cognitive mental maps; and all of these mental maps, by definition, are flawed in
some way.
28


Nevertheless, because mental models are usually tacit, existing below the level of
awareness, they are often untested and unexamined. They are generally invisible to us
until we look for them. The core task of this discipline is bringing mental models to the
surface, to explore them and talk about them with minimal defensiveness to help us
see the pane of glass, see its impact on our lives, and find ways to re-form the glass by
creating new mental models that serve us better in the world.
29



28
Senge, P. et al. (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a
Learning Organisation, p. 235.
29
Senge, P. et al. (1994), op. cit., p. 235.
36




A change in the organisational culture represents a deep change in awareness, paying
attention to our daily routines and realising how things work and why we do what we
do. It involves questioning our day-to-day routines. It also allows us to realise that we
are continually being influenced by our environment and exerting influence on it.
Through this awareness, we comprehend that each person forms part of a network of
relations, in continuous motion, permanently giving and receiving feedback.

An organisational change with the emphasis made on culture can be grounded on
forms of thinking that facilitate noticing the meanings and contents present in the
organisational culture. Some thinking abilities that we are seeking to promote through
this approach are:
A way of thinking that recognises that cultural meanings are not objective or
given but relative, being collectively constructed and reproduced through the
constant repetition and affirmation of what is deemed normal or natural.
A way of thinking that understands the nature and trappings of paradigms and
mental models, developing a thinking process trained to know how we acquire
our knowledge.
A way of thinking that allows a change of approach, regarding the totality and
not the parts; regarding interrelations as well as a linear chain of cause and
effect; regarding change processes instead of instant takes; regarding not only
details but a dynamic complexity.
A way of thinking that systematically perceives structures, patterns, guidelines,
recurrences, cycles, larger frameworks, chains of events, simultaneity and
paradoxes, recognising that there are underlying patterns behind every-day
details and occurrences.
A way of thinking that recognises that events and actions can reinforce or
undermine each other (balance out). Feedback refers to every reciprocal flow of
influences. Every influence consists of cause and effect: influences never flow
in just one direction.
A way of thinking that understands that dichotomies are possible. Order and
disorder are two co-operating forces. Contradiction is unavoidable; a way of
thinking through which we accept that we are incapable of certainties; falling
into contradictions does not mean making mistakes but reaching a deeper level
of reality that cannot be translated into our logic.

37




THREE PRINCIPLES TO USE WHEN CONSIDERING COMPLEXITY

DIALOGIC PRINCIPLE: Duality can be maintained at the core of a unit. It links
two terms that are complementary and antagonistic at the same time.
PRINCIPLE OF ORGANISATIONAL RESOURCEFULNESS: Products and
effects are simultaneously causes and producers of what they produce. For
example, individuals produce the society that produces individuals. We are at
the same time producers and products.
HOLOGRAMATIC PRINCIPLE: Not only is the part in the whole, but the whole
is in the part. This holds true for the biological world and for the sociological
world.
30


These thinking capacities illustrate mental models different from linear and
stereotypical thought, which is not receptive to equity, learning or open attitudes. When
we develop new thinking capacities, the world literally changes. Changing a paradigm
amounts to changing our perception of reality. In becoming aware of our mental models
and how they function, we become more aware of the ways in which we continuously
build our own representation of the world.


1.4.4 The visible and the invisible in organisations

In order to tackle organisational complexity, it may be useful to desegregate its different
components into visible (observable, quantifiable, explicit) and invisible (not
observable except by their effects; not quantifiable their nature being basically
qualitative implicit) aspects.

Visible and invisible aspects coexist and mutually feed one another. Organisations
cannot exist without an organisational culture, just as they cannot exist without
management processes, structures or ways of functioning. These are not optional or
redundant aspects. They are simply present in every human organisation.

Visible aspects often have priority in the organisational world, while invisible aspects
tend to be ignored or considered of lesser importance. Many such aspects exist in
every organisation, implicit aspects never made explicit and simply viewed as
predetermined. Many such lived by values are not reviewed, analysed or expressed
explicitly, even when they constantly contradict an organisations declared values.


30
Morin, E. (1995a), op. cit., pp. 87.
38




Visible aspects contain clues about invisible ones. The visible is not everything; it may
even be the smallest part of an organisation, much like the top of an iceberg. The
visible is a reflection of what lies under the surface. This reflection can either give a fair
account of an organisations inner truths or camouflage them (through boasting or
concealment).

Organisations are more than their managerial structure, procedures and processes put
together, more than the services and products representing what they offer their
customers. These are the external, visible, observable, objective aspects, explaining
what it does. But organisations are also grounded upon ideas, values, notions of
power, concepts about work, relations between people, the notions already held by its
members or present in the social environment. The invisible, intangible, inter-subjective
aspects represent what it is. The latter aspects constitute the organisational culture.
39




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