It has been years now. As a final year student, I attended a job fair. Among the many conversations with organisations and employers, there is one statement that has stuck with me. A lady spoke about her work in organisations and used the words: “the survival of the fittest.”
I no longer remember exactly what the conversation was about. But I do remember how she spoke about it. It was more than a casual remark. It almost seemed like a way of looking at organisations. At people. At work.
And to be honest, I felt mainly repulsion. Not because organisations should not be demanding. Not because performance does not matter. And also not because not everyone fits in every organisation. But because something fundamental was missing for me. Because what happens when we primarily view an organisation as an environment where the strongest must survive?
The survival of the fittest?
Then the question quickly becomes: Who stands firm? Who performs best? Who is the most resilient? Who adapts the quickest?
While I believe there are also other questions.
What are we actually here for together?
What people do we need to deliver good work?
What do people need to be able to utilise their talent?
And how do we ensure that different people make each other stronger?
Recently, I spoke a few times with someone about specifically deploying people who are more vulnerable in the labour market.
People who are vulnerable in the labour market?
I also notice there that I do not necessarily believe in a predetermined goal. I am certainly open to when someone with a certain vulnerability turns out to be the right person for a specific role and work environment. Perhaps precisely because that person has qualities that do not come into their own elsewhere.
But deploying someone just because he or she is vulnerable does not seem to me to be the right starting point either. Ultimately, it is not about the label. It is about the match.
The right people in the right place
For this, we ask the questions: What does this organisation need? What can this person contribute? What does the role require? What environment helps someone to function well? And where can the organisation and employee strengthen each other?
An organisation is not a battleground. People do not need to push each other out of the way to be valuable. Therefore, a strong organisation does not have to be the organisation where the strongest survive. It is rather the organisation where the right people in the right place come into their own.
That does not mean that everything must be possible for everyone. Sometimes someone simply does not fit a particular role, a team, or an organisation. And sometimes a position simply requires certain capabilities or a certain capacity. But that is something different from a culture in which people constantly have to prove that they are strong enough to stay.
Work in a strong organisation
Decades later, I still do not know why that lady exactly used the words "the survival of the fittest". But I do know why they have stuck with me. They touched on something I apparently already strongly believed in at the time:
Work does not have to be a matter of survival to bring out the best in people.
The question “who survives here?” says ultimately at least as much about the organisation as about the people who work in it.
A strong organisation is therefore not determined by the question of who is the strongest but by a much simpler question:
Who is the right person here? Not the strongest. Not the most resilient. Not the one who adapts the easiest.
But "the right".
How do you view this? Share it in the comments below.