Meaningfulness and mutuality are principles for organisation and system design in a complex world. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Organisations (private, public and civic) are being called to make their contribution to the common good, include multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to boundary-busting challenges. Mutuality recognises our unavoidable inter-dependence; meaningfulness addresses our need to lead a life we have reason to value. Together, meaningfulness and mutuality provide organisations and their stakeholders with practices for thinking, feeling and acting in the midst of complexity. This creates a sound basis for directing cooperation towards the urgent demands and moral purpose of sustainability.
Meaningful work is morally valuable work which we judge to have significance and worth, and which we also experience as emotionally engaging….
Organisations can unlock meaningfulness when they use mutuality as a management philosophy inside their organisations and beyond to their external stakeholders…
Meaningfulness can be harnessed to bring human values back into city design aimed at smart and sustainable innovations. Cities provide potentially rich contexts for meaningfulness in life and work…
Dr Ruth Yeoman, BSc, MBA, MADr Ruth Yeoman is a Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford and Associate Professor of Business Ethics, Northumbria University. She is an expert in applying the ethics and practices of meaningfulness and mutuality to organisations and systems. Drawing from her academic research, she works with large and small private and public sector organisations to develop new approaches based on a synthesis of meaningfulness and mutuality. Example research consulting projects include: developing a mutual leadership programme for Rochdale Boroughwide Housing; applying mutuality to whole council public service transformation for Cheshire West and Chester LA; strategic use of mutuality in a coordinated UK financial mutuals sector for the Association of Financial Mutuals and the Building Societies Association. She was a lead consultant for the Cabinet Office 2015 ‘Mutuals in Heath’ initiative…