I had the pleasure of being on a blogger panel with Sean Moffitt last week, who (among other things) is the author of the always insightful Buzz Canuck blog – a must read for people interested in word of mouth marketing and developing “wiki brands”. I think wikinomics readers might find his May 16th post particularly interesting. In it, he discusses two German terms came across in his recent research, gemeinschaft and geshellschaft, which are sociological categories that were introduced by German sociologist Fredinand Tonnies in 1887.
Gemeinschaft is used to describe associations in which the “greater good” of the collective is of equal to or greater importance than individual self interest – often translated as “community”. Geshellschaft is the opposite – where individual self interest trumps the greater good, often “lacking the same level of share mores.” Interestingly, this is often translated as “society” or “civil society”, which might just go a long way in describing a lot of the societal issues that we face today. It is also notable that, in business usage, it is often the term for “company”.
In his post, Sean goes on to point out the challenge he often comes across in business today – companies trying to build gemeinschaft into their geshellschaft structures (it just sounds uncomfortable, doesn’t it? I think that’s why I like the terms so much). The traditional response from many companies is that it can’t be done. Sean thinks it can happen, and we agree with him – but figuring how to make it work is a great challenge.
After highlighting a few companies (Harley Davidson, Apple, etc.) that seem to be making it work, Sean provides a list of apparent success drivers. While these are of value and make a lot sense, in some ways I think they distract from the main message – the fundamental challenge of strategically integrating a gemeinschaft mindset in a for-profit company, which requires very new and different ways of thinking about one’s self-interest.
To put it another way, at the end of the day, companies can only go down the gemeinschaft road if it helps them from a geshellschaft perspective – it’s called capitalism (or if you prefer, Kapitalismus). There are very hard decisions companies have to make here. Without getting too far into the details, I would bet right now there are a lot of companies that, by staying away from gemeinschaft thinking all together, are protecting their short-term geshellschaft at the expense of the long-term. I also think I’ve now confused myself eins, zwei, drei times.
There is not a single answer here that applies to all companies, and it will be far easier for some to make progress on this front than others. Also, as Sean notes in his final question, it will be interesting to see whether companies that go down this road incubate their gemeinschaft internally, or bring it in from the outside – where it may be evolving more naturally. Feel free to hit his blog and let him know what you think!
