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The walls within: working with defenses against otherness

Online Conference 5-11 July 2021

MIAE: Multiple Impact Adaptive Engineering. A tecnique to treat toxicity in organizations

Toxicity in companies appears in different forms; mostly as Negative Emotions that affect job performance, health of workers and the functioning of the entire organization. Like: 'The air we breathe'. We don't see it but anyway it affects us directly. When we are inserted in a toxic environment we usually notice it once we are already intoxicated. We notice it because of their symptoms; this tells us that the toxic mechanism is working. In this paper we postulate that these toxic emotions are related with unconscious fantasies that affect group dynamics, the organization culture and its products. Socially talking there are at least 3 groups where toxicity works (epidemiologic area): a. in the main group where it emerges; b. in all groups related with the affected one (internally or externally to the company); c. in the consultancy group. And they are presented through various symptoms that emerge as deficiencies in organization, production, marketing, HHRR, finance; destroying or damaging normal functioning and development, and turning organizational climate into a toxic culture. We postulate that these emotions: exacerbation of envy, excessive rivalry, fear, hate, greed, jealousy, etc., as they become toxic they transform the culture of the company as well as the culture of the company can generate a toxic environment that encourage toxic relationships (psychic, social), and have an impact in what the company produces (i.e. scrap or the main product) and in the relationship with customers and suppliers.Working with organizations we developed a technical approach called MIAE Multiple Impact Adaptive Engineering, which utilizes a multidisciplinary technique involving psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, engineering, business strategy, marketing and financial skills to understand culture and business. Later we multi-adapt them to create healthier, more productive organizations; increasing effectiveness, integration, communication in a work environment that naturally impact in a better profitability. We aim to achieve excellence in what it means to that particular business and strategy in that company.In our experience we needed to work not only with symptoms but with the fantasies that generated them. For example changing group dynamics, generating better leadership and more versatile followers, solving toxic feelings between everyone in the affected area. At the same time we work changing the affected process of the company (sales, production, etc). We work on the unconscious and on the factual problem at the same time.We utilize MIAE technique in what underlies: characteropathy of the organization, company strategy, culture of the company, mission statements, leaders' personality, processes, technical deficiencies, etc. MIAE allows us to get in contact with the company unconscious to make it conscious. As a multidisciplinary consultancy team (MIAE), we impulse technical changes in needed processes adapting them to the company substance with a psychological buffer that acts as a container of the typical anxieties involved in any change. All of our specialists (in any area: engineering, financial, psychology, etc ) knows how to deal with the actual company's toxicity to change it. Providing technical solutions should work as an interpretation that impulses change. This paper studied our intervention in different companies with different characteristics, each one suffering toxicity. Their groups could not act as true 'work groups' (as Bion described it) and their efficiency, in terms of productivity and profitability, where damaged. We'll describe how we make change happens. Our diagnosis, examines every statement of the company to detect how it is working in that actual moment. To then co-create a plan and make the desirable changes working alongside with the people of the company.