SHOOT THE ORGANISATION

EIASM - 2nd WORKSHOP ON IMAGINING BUSINESS VISUALS & PERFORMATIVITY: RESEARCHING BEYOND TEXT SEGOVIA, SPAIN - MAY 19-20, 2011 Dario Villa

SHOOT THE ORGANISATION! Representing corporate cultures through photography Overview of the contents The purpose of this paper is to focus on the role of photography as a tool for representing corporate cultures, in order to demonstrate its effectiveness and its current state of underuse. The narrative path of the paper starts from the consideration of a few visual aspects of the working life, with specific regard to the spacial awareness of the office and the idea of “framing”. Analysing a photograph of an office life scene then offers a chance to understand how a picture can perform in telling corporate cultures stories. A specific focus on the medium of photography will stress its present characteristics of ubiquity and immediacy. A specific genre of it, the “environmental portraiture”, will be carefully examined. The closing part is dedicated to a case study, the project “Face to face” in which the consulting firm Trivioquadrivio has used photography in a way which is coherent with the ideas exposed in the paper itself.

About the author Dario Villa has been working since 2001 in Trivioquadrivio, where heʼs in charge of HR organizational learning and training programs, focusing on the recognition and communication of corporate cultures. Heʼs certificate facilitator for Lego Serious Play™ and Mapps® (Trivioquadrivio proprietary facilitating methodology) and currently working on Jazz For Business, an organizational learning approach which uses jazz music as metaphorical tool.

After his degree in philosophy, heʼs been Professor of Theory of image at Naba, Milan (2004), Assistant Professor for the courses of Economical history of culture and Human resources management at Università Cattolica, Milan (2005). Heʼs now Professor of Economy of the cultural heritage at Università Cattolica, Milan (2006 to the present day) and he published a book about cultural heritage (Che cosa sono i beni culturali? - Educatt, 2011).

As a photographer, heʼs currently working on the documentation of the jazz scene of the city of Milan. In 2009 he launched “Jazz a Milano” project, aimed at using environmental portraits to hold a socio-anthropological survey on the jazz scene of the city.

E-mail: villa@triq.it Company website: triq.it Personal website: dariovilla.net Twitter: dario__villa

1. OFFICE SPACE

Still from the movie Office Space (Mike Judge, 1999)

" In the first sequences of the American comedy film Office space (Mike Judge, 1999) an employee is seen approaching his cubicle. As the camera follows him from above, he moves in a slow, mechanical way towards his desk. Both the point of view and the framing emphasise the parallel and intersecting lines which define the boundaries into which the employee is allowed to spend his working time. " Is there any serious insight we can get from such a simplified and ironic depiction of the office space? Letʼs start from a bold statement: the everyday life of millions of people working in enterprise organisations is strongly influenced by a series of managerial acts whose nature can be described as representational. Every behaviour aimed at organising work is, no less literally than metaphorically, linked to the practice of drawing lines and frames. Furthermore, the orthogonal nature of the modern and contemporary organisation, from the Adam Smith era to the present days, is the result of an obsessive attention to visual order. " Talking about lines and visual structures, the etymology of the verb “to frame” is an interesting one to inquire. The old English verb “framian” meant “to profit, make progress, going forward”. During the XV Century its meaning moved towards the idea of “compose, plan, establish” and even “prepare timber for building” (which eventually leaded to the concept of “frame” as a border or case for a picture). This meaning shift from a dynamic concept (make progress, move forward) to a static one (establish, build) takes us back to the moving picture sequence we started from. Why do we find in a contemporary movie an ironic depiction of the office space as a series of frames imprisoning the employees? The answer is deceptively simple: when we think about the evolution of workplaces in Western cultures we usually follow a logical path which, similarly to what happened to the idea of framing, moves from dynamism to stasis. Furthermore, the usual discussions on work environments oppose the concept of an ideal open space of freedom to the actual “open space” found in contemporary offices. Everybody knows what an open space is: far from being an environment designed for free action, it represents the effort par excellence of framing the working life of every employee in a rigid and no negotiable way.

Nevertheless, referring to an alleged openness of the office space prior to the closeness of it might lead to a misinterpretation of the range of freedom accorded to employees during different eras. " A little “history of the office space” will be helpful. Starting from the seminal Principles of scientific management (1911) by Frederick W. Taylor, the history of modern and contemporary studies on work organisation shows a constant focus on efficiency and division of labor translated into powerful visual tools. Not surprisingly Henry Gantt, the man who designed the eponymous and world-famous chart, was a II

Taylorʼs disciple. Even the classic organisational chart which uses boxes for representing the structure of a company comes from the very same mindset. The theories of the scientific management leaded to the introduction of a new kind of desk (the “Modern efficiency desk”, designed for managers to easily view their employees) and even to the adoption of an office organisation that we might describe as “open space” (which - this can sound pretty surprising - actually originates from the pre-industrial revolution era). These examples can easily demonstrate that thereʼs never been a Western working space prior to/different from the one that we all know, conceptually and visually shaped from management concepts born (at least) one century ago. This also means that the existence of an older and freer office space is a fairly speculative construction. " Following the reflection path weʼve built so far it seems now reasonable to consider every different/alternative way of organising the office space as an effort to move towards something new, rather than a reversion to an ancient ideal standard.

The contemporary most advanced - and acclaimed - office organisations (the first example that comes into mind is the “Googleplex”, corporate headquarter of Google Inc. located in California) need to be considered as experiments aimed at finding a new way to frame our working life. Nobody can foresee if and to what extent these experiments will be successful but they surely represent relevant shifts in corporate cultures. If somethingʼs will eventually change in contemporary organisations, for better or worse, office spaces will be the exterior aspects of their cultures where we are going to see it.

2.TAKING A SNAPSHOT

Unknown, Factory Workers (1944 Greta Kenney Collection - Tucker, Georgia)

" " The picture above is a beautiful evidence of the way American women used to “stay” (weʼre obviously not only talking about dress code) at the workplace during the 40ʼs. It would be possible to provide thousands of similar examples belonging to different business and cultural contexts, but this single image is probably enough to start talking about the power of the photographic medium to document a companyʼs culture. Writing in abstract terms about office spaces, just like we previously did, can sometimes be effective but it will rarely provide any reader with a realistic “feeling” of

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the actual environment. Thatʼs exactly what a photograph can properly do and and itʼs worthy to spend a few lines understanding how and why. " Letʼs have a deeper look at this photograph: what does it frame? We actually see an open space. We see desks, folders, lamps, seats. We see people, many women and a few men. And what do we see of these people? We see faces, gestures, pieces of clothing. All these details tell us a lot about office life in America during those years. We can even imagine the way those people worked, talked, acted. But letʼs stick to what the photo shows. The formal, not spontaneous setting of this photograph can suggest this had to be a special occasion for the office: the meeting of a scheduled goal, the beginning of an activity or simply a day of celebration, for instance the birthday of one of the girls we see in this picture. We can also imagine these people were not used to be photographed in such a setting.

In the 40ʼs, just like today, taking pictures at work was not so common. " The last sentence leads us to a question: if photography can depict a corporate culture in such an effective way, why donʼt companies use it more often? It is not that they donʼt use it at all; they actually use it, but without taking advantage of its full potential. They mainly use photography is an over-specialised and professional way, which is well represented by outputs like product portfolios, catalogues and brochures. This is obviously a very specific and well-targeted use of the medium. Another way they use it is quite generic and often casual, primarily related to tools such as corporate website and intranets. Does the second use actually produce something useful in terms of representing and communicating a corporate culture? Quite infrequently. In fact, it is not uncommon that a single individual or group photo inserted in a personal page (for instance in a social network) can carry more value to the corporate culture than a polished set of institutional pictures without “soul”. This problem is expressed by a paradox: on one side, when producing institutional pictures companies usually donʼt have the real intention of letting people express themselves (and therefore express that relevant part of corporate culture they represent). On the other side, nowadays in our personal life we have an unprecedented familiarity with the photographic medium that - unfortunately - we are usually not willing or enabled to transfer in our working life.

3. YOU PRESS THE BUTTON, WE DO THE REST

Eastman Kodak original advertising (1888)

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" Why is photography so popular, so accessible, so part of our lives? Since its invention (reclaimed by at least three different persons at the end of the XIX century) and first steps of diffusion, photography presented itself as a mass instrument of personal expression, communication and collection of memories. The deviceʼs technical simplicity (“you press the button, we do the rest”, as one old Kodak commercial said) has always been part of its immediacy and straightforwardness.

The technical perfection of the tool allowed to have a complete concentration on the subject to be framed, making the photography a poor manʼs equivalent of the bourgeois portrait. The powerfulness of the medium has always been linked to its ability of capturing single moments and make them both symbolic and emotional.

Furthermore, photography really changed the way we look at the world. As the worldfamous American photojournalist Dorothea Lange (1895-1965, best known for her work on the Depression era) is reported to have said, «the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera». " It is not an overstatement saying that nowadays everybody can easily always carry a camera with him/herself. A recent slogan of the fashion photographer and “media guru” Chase Jarvis says «the best camera is the one thatʼs with you». Letʼs think about mobile phones: how many people are used to go around and casually shoot photographs of family and friends? Letʼs have a look at a couple of figures.

Flickr (the world leading web hosting and sharing community dedicate to amateur photographers) declares that more than 3000 new pictures are uploaded every minute on their archives. On Facebook, definitely a less specialised web container, more than 2 billions of photographs are uploaded monthly. " So the big question is: if only they knew they could have a chance to share their photographs just like they do everyday in their private lives, would these same millions of people be eager to shoot pictures of their organisations to tell their corporate stories? What about the idea of a corporate Flickr collecting photographic business stories from the inside of a company? The tangible boundaries still existing between companies and their employees are huge obstacles preventing the realisation of such a programme. Problems related to privacy and control probably come first: it is well known that, just to mention Facebook again, companies are now used to “trace” the behaviour of their employees by monitoring their personal pages on social networks. If such a moral mistrust is so diffused, how can we expect people to be open and transparent to their organisations using an immediate medium like photography? These considerations are valid for bottom-up and even for top-down initiatives: without a climate of trust and transparency it would be really difficult to sustain a project of representation of the corporate culture so deeply rooted in an emotional exposure of workers. For all the given reasons, it is really important to understand how and when use the medium of photography to work on a companyʼs culture.

4. FRAMING CULTURES " A good starting point towards a proper use of photos for corporate purposes can be provided focusing on specific approaches to photography. We need to keep photography away from the cold and impersonal results of many institutional pictures while avoiding unwanted and dangerous intrusions on the personal life of workers.

Weʼre mainly talking about portrait photography and among its various genres the one that seems especially well suited for the purpose weʼre seeking is the so called V

“environmental portraiture”. Letʼs start with the technical details. This style in portrait photography consist in depicting a subject inside his usual environment instead of separating him/her from a real context using a neuter background. As usual, framing is very important: normally this kind kind of shooting privileges the “landscape” (horizontal) over the “portrait” (vertical) orientation of the camera, in order to capture a bigger part of the surrounding environment and to work with a greater depth of field. A wide-angle lens is usually the best choice for such a purpose. When using it the photographer should take under control only a “side effect”: a possible distortion of the subject caused by such a lens.

Truman Capote portrait by Arnold Newman (1977)

" The environment must be considered as a real “emanation” of the person, no matter if related to his/her private or working life. Letʼs have a look at the Truman Capoteʻs portrait by Arnold Newman (1918-2006), American master of the environmental portraiture: here the famous writerʼs shown in a domestic and relaxed context. We donʼt see him at work, but we do know who he is. How many things does the photo tell about the life and the stories this man might have gone through?

What does this environment and all the objects filling the frame tell us about him?

The power of environmental portraiture consists in its ability to construct a strong narrative form by combining the “silent” stories embodied in places and objects with the more naturally resonant presence of a person. The combination of this two elements, if managed by a skilled photographer (who must be first of all moved by an “anthropological“ spirit) can lead to striking results. " Letʼs now try to apply this style of photography, able to lead to a renewed and deeper interest on peopleʼs stories without being obtrusive, to a corporate context.

We can try to imagine how a similar approach might work into an organisation: the eye of a photographer might see companyʼs features which can be invisible to people who work everyday in its offices. A whole set of values, experiences, stories can become visible in one picture. Thanks to a photograph, the deepest traits of the culture of a company can be shown and therefore seen, shared, understood.

Environmental photography can focus on the workers of a company by portraying them in their offices, at their desk, in the shared spaces of the company buildings.

Or, to emphasise a more personal dimension, at their homes. In any case, this approach to photography can stress the strong and vital link between each person and his/her way of joining the corporate culture values.

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5. FACE TO FACE

Face to Face exhibition by Trivioquadrivio (2005)

" In 2004 the Milanese consulting firm Trivioquadrivio was asked by one of its main clients, the leading Italian business school SDA Bocconi, to design an internal communication initiative dedicated the whole staff of the school. The main event was scheduled for the Christmas party of the school. " The idea was to concentrate on all the people working of the school, creating for them a chance to reflect on their corporate culture through an exploration of the individual identities composing it. The project team decided to work on the individuality of each person, linking it with the identity of the school. The choice of photography as medium seemed the most natural way to meet people and give them a chance to see other peopleʼs faces. Since using personal desks as environment for each portrait didnʼt seem a feasible solution, a traditional set with professional lighting was held. To add a personal touch and avoid the impersonal feel of a neuter background, as backdrop it was decided to use a special opalescent screen with a back projection of photographs containing details of the various buildings of the school. To complete the creation of a strong identity for the whole set of photographs, a set of cold gels (tones of blue and green) was used to shape and colour the light. The result was both familiar and eerie, with a very peculiar feel of environmental portraiture creating the impression of a traditional but open to future environment, a connotation which suits very well the vision of the business school (“knowledge and imagination”). " The last element added to the project was a survey. Because the focus was clearly on people and their faces, the link with the school was built by asking everybody a question which was both personal and institutional: «which face of the school do you prefer?». The connection between a personal and a collective face, rather than appearing just like a pun, created a strong relation between each person involved in the project and the collective spirit of the school. In one word, its culture.

474 persons of the school staff had their portrait taken and answered the mentioned question. The collected answers have been clustered under keywords such as: enthusiasm, diversity, entrepreneurship, innovation, courage, learning, etc. The last part of the project consisted in the realisation of a photo exhibition: big size prints of all the portraits were hung all around the school buildings (on walls, glass windows, VII

staircases, even floors). All the images and a set of comments on the outputs of the project were collected on a publication of the exhibition. As expected, the launch of the exhibition took place on the Christmas party night. It lasted for three months, open to all the visitors of the schoolʼs buildings.

Face to Face exhibition by Trivioquadrivio (2005)

" With the “Face to face” project Trivioquadrivio had a chance to create an event able to make a corporate culture visible through photographs. Furthermore, the event was immediately shared into a powerful internal communication initiative.

The “dissemination” of the initiative in all the school spaces let people socialise, share visions, know more about themselves. Photography revealed itself as the right tool to do so: people could move around (by the way, in the same spaces they were actually used to work in) and recognise colleagues, be fascinated by a face or by a written answer, get a glimpse of a familiar place seen in the background. Once more, this can be done in the space of a frame.

2011 - Dario Villa

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