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A Company of Citizens: What the World's First Democracy Teaches Leaders About Creating Great Organizations

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Ancient Greeks bear gifts to management.
By RICHARD DONKIN.
1,073 words
27 February 2003
Financial Times
16
English
(c) 2003 Financial Times Limited. All Rights Reserved

The authors of a new book argue that the ordered society of Pericles' Athens offers transferable models of organisation for the modern company.

There is a memorable scene in the Monty Python film The Life of Brian, where a group of Jewish resistance fighters asks: "What did the Romans do for us?" before producing an ever-growing list of achievements. It is just as well that the Python team did not include the Greeks or the scene would have run and run.

Ancient Greece has so much to offer that it is perhaps surprising that the management book-publishing industry has taken its time to evaluate the Greek city state for ideas that may be applied in the modern company. It is not as if business publishers have been coy about historical studies. We need only look at the exhaustive examinations of the methods of Sun Tzu, the fourth-century BC Chinese general, and Niccolo` Machiavelli, the Florentine Renaissance politician.

The interest in both is understandable, since they had much to say about the dark arts of manipulation and strategy, perceived for so long to be instructive for bosses who wanted to be sure of their power base.

But what could the city state of ancient Athens with its democratic traditions have to offer the autocratically run company?

The authors of a new book* believe the time has come for greater democracy and citizenship in the workplace. They argue that the ordered society of ancient Athens - what they describe as the world's first "company of citizens" - offers transferable models of organisation for the modern company.

It is tempting to dismiss this collaboration between Josiah Ober, a classics professor at Princeton University, and Brook Manville, a chief learning officer in Saba Software, a human resources and management consultancy, as a flight into faddism. But their comparisons provide an intriguing reflection on the modern company.

They do not, for example, explicitly compare today's companies with another Greek model, Spartan society - but there do seem to be similarities. The Spartans were reared as warriors and trained in military systems from childhood. Society was controlled from the centre. What the authors describe as a "grim and joyless military camp" sounds like the pared-down efficiency expected of lean manufacturing or the no-frills office.

There is a big difference, however, between tightly controlled Spartan society and the various degrees of semi-autonomous decision-making work teams in more progressive manufacturing businesses today. Some companies, flush with the ideas of empowerment, do appear to be heading towards more consensual models of organisation. But they have yet to achieve the devolution enjoyed some 2,400 years ago by the citizens of Athens.

As the authors point out, the decision to build the Parthenon, still one of the world's most potent symbols of democracy, emanated from accountable leaders who proposed it in an open forum and had the work plan approved by a citizens' assembly. "It did not spring from the head of an egotistical tyrant," they write. How many corporate decisions today can boast such participative involvement of employees?

The Parthenon remains, say the authors, "a product of tens of thousands of people working together to create something of lasting value and excellence, a reminder to us that similar excellence can be achieved today."

The achievement of such excellence was founded on a strong emphasis on the involvement of citizens in decision-making, the system of poletia that embodied a sense of civic duty, common purpose, learning, governance and community values. If the same spirit could be replicated in a company's workforce, say the authors, it could produce the same kind of sustained dynamic performance that characterised the success of Athenian society.

But, as they point out, the Athenian poletia was not socially engineered from above. "(It) did not start with a strategy, then devise a structure then finally plug the people into the framework. It began with the people themselves, and let values and structure and design emerge through the aligning practices of citizenship." But it relied on the direct involvement of citizens in the direction of society. "We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all," said Pericles, the Athenian statesman.

There is a big difference between this view and that of the typical board-run company. It is one thing to communicate decisions to staff. It is quite another to involve those staff in the decision-making process. As the authors acknowledge, most experiments in workplace democracy to date have taken place in village-sized enterprises, such as the St Luke's advertising agency, the Oticon strategic management group and a jet engine plant run by General Electric in Durham, North Carolina.

They argue, however, that the Athenian model of organisation, consisting of "networks of networks" of citizens based primarily on neighbourhood groups called demes, could be scaled up to cover communities of tens of thousands of people.

The authors are not completely starry-eyed about the Athenian model. Ultimately, after 200 years, it was replaced by hierarchical rule after the city's conquest by Macedon. Athenian citizenship was never inclusive. It did not grant citizenship to women and it exploited the practice of slavery, although a small minority of slaves did manage to prosper and some even won their freedom.

But there is no doubting the power of involved citizens in democracy or that of involved employees in a genuinely democratic enterprise. Even so, can we really expect the chief executives of traditional businesses to become more accountable to employees? Recent developments in corporate governance are forcing boards to become more accountable to shareholders. Moreover, increasing numbers of organisations appear to be acquainting themselves with the stakeholder concept of the organisation. But this has yet to extend to any sophisticated understanding or practice of corporate citizenship.

Greek civilisation emerged in a turbulent world of warring nation states. Athens discovered that the organisational power unleashed by its system of governance endowed it with a real competitive advantage. That alone is enough to justify a more active experimentation in corporate citizenship today.

A Company of Citizens is concerned with two themes. First, "workers in today's Knowledge Age," mindful of their contributions and responsibilities, increasingly expect to become full citizens of their organizations with rights to self-govern and to develop practices of cooperation. Secondly, the Greek city-state of Athens in the fourth and fifth century B.C. is presented as the most significant example of a large organization/society that operated as a thoroughgoing democracy, and, as such, is suggested by the authors as the best practical model for modern firms desirous of a transformation to democracy. But the connection between the democracy of Athens which existed primarily at the level of the state and participatory democracy in modern, private enterprises is hardly straightforward. The authors contend that reality for today's employees is one of being forced to "check their values and sense of purpose" at the door to their firms, much to the detriment of the firms.

A large portion of the book consists of a discussion and breakdown of what the authors term the core elements of the Athenian democratic system: "democratic values, governance structures, and participatory practices." The basis of the widespread participation by Athenian citizens in the affairs of state was an unprecedented freedom and equality. There was not a layer of elites that trumped the various citizen assemblies, and any leaders chosen remained accountable to those assemblies. There was frequent rotation of citizens among the various bodies performing legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The art and responsibility of governing was widely distributed among Athenian citizens.

The authors focus on the Athenian concerns for defense and the domination of neighboring city-states as evidence of the positive workings of the Athenian democracy. But the authors make little mention of the economy of Athens, which is surprising since this book attempts to address the relevance of the Athens model to modern private enterprises. They make the claim that redistribution of private assets was not part of Athenian policies. But the redistribution of power or economic goods in the name of fairness and the wellbeing of communities is invariably part of democracies. That is a fundamental principle of modern social-democratic states, and, one guesses, of the Athens city-state.

For both communities and organizations, issues of "who can be members" and "the permanency of membership" are primary. An oddity by today's standards, citizenship in the Athens city-state was limited to native-born males. Unfortunately, the authors seem to have been unduly swayed by that restriction by pondering whether levels of membership will need to be established in firms employing workers with varying degrees of importance to their firms' success. However, a caste system is a dubious proposition for a modern democratic community. As a further consideration, in most genuine communities, members are protected by the group and not cast aside in difficult times. Yet the authors see "downsizing" as a possible action by democratic communities, though perhaps distasteful. The damage to an organization's fabric is not discussed.

The oft-repeated, hollow slogan of modern companies, "the people are the company," certainly had validity in Athens. There can be no state without citizens. But modern companies have legal, independent standing and are generally owned by outside shareholders, not workers. The reality is that workers are more like "wage slaves," not citizens of their companies with long-term, essential standing, legal or otherwise. The authors briefly touch on the necessity of redefining and reprioritizing the concept of "stakeholder" in modern companies. Obviously, a company of citizens cannot be trumped by absentee owners and still be a democratic community.

Closely tied to the issue of ownership of a firm is the role of management. The difficulties in transforming a company being operated by a managerial elite backed by a board of directors to one governed by employee-citizens cannot be exaggerated. A company of citizens cannot simply be mandated with power being retained by some overriding authority, no matter how enlightened. The authors point out that a democracy evolves through experimentation and mistakes by citizens. It is difficult to envision a modern CEO permitting his authority to be eliminated, let alone diminished, or allowing himself to be rotated out of the job. In addition, a huge issue is whether modern workers can really embrace and accept the responsibilities of democracy.

The emphasis on the Athens city-state is instructive from the standpoint of describing a "strong" democracy, despite some of its shortcomings. But one could ask whether it is even necessary to turn to ancient history to shed light on employees trying to find empowerment within their workplaces. The labor movement has struggled since the beginnings of industrialization to gain a voice for workers within enterprises. The authors do not present in the main text any examples of companies where employees are full citizens. It would have been interesting for the authors to comment on the well known example of the Saturn Corporation as to its fit as a company of citizens. Or perhaps the works council systems found in Europe could have been mentioned.

The authors repeatedly make the point that a company of citizens must be concerned with a "steep performance challenge," but why the condition? One would think that those advocating for democracy would do so on the fundamental basis of citizens controlling their destiny and not on the existence of some unusual circumstance. The book is thought provoking. But far too much space is devoted to the Athens city-state and the attempt to capture its workings in a set of textbook-like generalizations. There is little in this book that leads one to believe that the U.S. will be establishing companies of citizens any time soon. Nor is the book much in the way of a blueprint of how to do so. In some respects this book can be added to a large list of management books that talk employee empowerment, but don't quite get it.

History was never my favorite subject so I was a little leery of how much I might appreciate from a book about ancient Athens. How wonderful to find refreshing insights and practical teachings page after page! The authors use Athens as more of an illuminating example or clever case-study than a mantra for what modern managers should do now. They address both historical challenges and modern day dilemmas to get at the heart of how to build community while supporting individuality at the same time. Through stories that could almost seem ripped from today's headlines, they show refreshing ways of working together, learning from one another, and networking for the good of a geographic or business community. I was especially impressed with chapter 5, Practicing Citizenship, because it offered a series of Athenian practices that (as the authors said) "embody the combination of 'doing' and 'learning'--things that modern managers still tend to keep in separate jars." In my work, helping people and organizations discovery alternative ways to learn and work together, I'm sure to surprise people with some fresh approaches that are anything but new.

This book is based on the premise that Classical Athens was the world's first democracy and it has something to teach leaders about creating great organizations. The product description paraphrases the authors' argument, "that ancient Athenian democracy was an ingenious solution to organizing human capital through the practice of citizenship." Indeed, Athenian innovations in government continue to have influence in today's civilizations.

Classical Athens, however, would hardly qualify as a "democracy" by today's standards. Slaves composed two-fifths of the Classical Athenian population [Encycl Britannica]. (In comparison, calculations from the 1860 census indicate that the Confederate South had a lower percentage of slaves.) Even in the 5th century BC where there might have been a very low number of slaves, Athens continued to be a patriarchal society where men virtually monopolized access to education and power. So, it seems to me that studying the patriarchal, slave-dependent pre-Civil War South as a model of democracy might be just as good as (if not better than) studying Classical Athens.

In order to apply principles gleaned from Classical Athens, I think one of two approaches must be taken. One approach would be to draw an analogy between the ancient civilization's dependence on slavery with our dependence on something else. Perhaps we "leaders" and "knowledge workers" can think of entry-level associates and other subordinates as substitute for chattel. (I personally find this rather difficult, because I have been inculcated somewhat with egalitarianism.) The other approach might be to assume that slavery and patriarchy are somehow negligible in the context of this discussion. I personally find this rather difficult to do as well.

The authors do not completely ignore this obstacle. They "assure" us that they do know the "historical detail and scholarly debates". However, I was not able to find on what page they impart any of this knowledge so that we too can ignore the majority of the Athenian population that was disenfranchised. I am hoping that they will address my concern with greater clarity in the preface of the next edition. If I can understand their perspective, this book might be worth reading.

This book is good for a number of audiences. It is good for readers that do not have a good understanding of Classical History, so that they can unquestioningly accept the idealistic picture of ancient Athens that the authors portray. This book is also for readers that have such a good understanding of Classical History that they can rationalize away the "trifling" details I have noted. Unfortunately, I am neither a Classical History major nor a non-Classics major that managed to evade my history general ed requirements.

I think that there's something important to be learned from ancient civilizations, and no civilization is perfect. However, glossing over inconvenient truths might ironically make the text harder to read. My hope is that the authors will revise the introductory parts of this book so that the core message can be communicated with greater clarity and credibility.

This book goes beyond a must read to a must do. It provides clear, compelling guidance for growing stronger, better performing companies from within. It challenges organizations that compete in the knowledge economy to move beyond "people are our only assets" to "We, the people". But it is not mere smarmy and naive trash that extols empowerment without responsibility. If people are to seize the moment and become companies of citizens -- become contemporary equivalents of "Athenians" -- then they must take responsibility individually and together. They must risk their futures on learning from the distant past so well described in this excellent book.

Whether you are looking for a model of a democratic yet decisive organization or for an example of the timeless lessons of ancient history, you will love A Company of Citizens. The authors, a businessman and a classics professor, deserve a victory wreath for this short, sparkling, and inspiring guide that takes us from the Acropolis to the organization of the future.