#52 People are connected by "imagination"

If someone asked you, "Are you Japanese?", how would you answer?

I suspect most people would answer "Yes".

Then, what if they followed up by asking this?

“Why can you say that?”

Is it because you live in Japan?
Is it because you were born in Japan?
Is it because you can speak Japanese?

Hmm.
I feel like none of those are wrong, but none of them quite hit the mark.

There are over 100 million people in Japan.
Yet, we have never met most of them.

Even so, we naturally think of people living in the 47 prefectures from Hokkaido to Okinawa as
"fellow Japanese."

Why on earth is that?

I’ve thrown a slightly philosophical question right at you on a Sunday morning.
I apologize if you feel like you’re being forced to drink whiskey straight right now.

From here on, I’d like to dilute it with a little soda water.

The book that explains this strange sensation is
"Imagined Communities"by Benedict Anderson.

The conclusion of this book is very simple.
A nation is an "imagined community."

In other words, while the country of Japan certainly exists, the community known as "the Japanese" is a concept established by people imagining each other to be part of the same group.

We are"imagining" the Japanese.
It’s a slightly strange expression, but this is the core of the book.

So, why have people become able to imagine such a large community?

The author cites"print capitalism"as one of the backgrounds for this.
It’s a bit of a difficult term, but simply put, it meansthe widespread diffusion of newspapers and books.

As newspapers spread, people began to read the same news in the same language.
For example, when you read the morning paper and learn that "Ohtani hit another one," you know that many people across the country are reading the same news.

There are people all over Japan reading the same news.
There are people somewhere in society who know about the same events.

By thinking this way, people began to have a sense of being connected to strangers.
As these shared experiences accumulated,
a consciousness that "we are members of the same society" was born.

Reading this far, you might think, "I see, so this is about nations."

However, while reading this book, I realized something.

This is not just about nations; it also applies to
companies and organizations as well.

Companies are the same. Not every employee knows everyone else.
The larger a company becomes, the more people there are whom you have never met in person.

Even so, we think of ourselves as "colleagues in the same company."

In other words, I believe a company is also a kind of "imagined community."

The reason an organization functions well cannot be explained by salary and systems alone.
People do not work based solely on rational conditions.

"What kind of company is this?"
"What values does it cherish?"
"Why do I work here?"

When people can share such common goals and narratives,
they begin to act as members of the organization.

In other words, an organization may not be something established solely by contracts, but a community established by a shared narrative.

I work in the recruitment, support, and education of foreign talent.
In doing so, I feel something strongly.

That is, people do not last long if "work = conditions" is all there is.

Of course, salary and benefits are important.
However, that alone does not lead to working there for a long time.

What is important is,

"I am a member of this workplace,"
"I want to work with these people,"
"I have a place where I belong here."

It is being able to feel that way.

In short, I believe whether or not someone can continue working is greatly influenced not just by labor conditions,
but by a sense of participation in the community.

"Imagined Communities" is a book written about nations, but
at its foundation, there is the question:
"How do people come to believe in the same group as strangers?"

Nations, companies, and communities
are actually established by people's imagination.

That is precisely why what is important in building an organization is not just systems and structures, but
creating a narrative that people can share.

#Organizational Theory
#Leadership Theory
#Imagined Communities