User:Bruce78/Human Fit

References and Links - http://www.fitproject.co.uk/37423.html

Human Fit, in the sense of the lived experience, emerges from the relational nature of human existence, at the contact boundary between the individual and anything else they encounter. To an extent, this can be said to echo the Gestalt notion of a contact boundary.

The Concept of Human Fit
Human culture appears to be fascinated, in some cases obsessed, by the concept of 'fit', whether in (inter)personal relationships, business, politics, team sport or indeed any arena where one or more human beings come together and relate. It is there in the language we use e.g. "there was a poor cultural fit", "we want to get into bed with them", "they are our kind of people, "there is chemistry between us" etc.

'Fit' is particularly prevalent as a construct within organisations and organisational discourse e.g. 'organisational fit’, ‘cultural fit’, ‘interpersonal fit’, ‘team fit’, ‘management style fit’. The ultimate objective of any professed desire or need in this territory is what might be termed 'good fit', the corollary of which would be 'bad fit'.

Yet both are subjective constructs that are configured by the individual's phenomenological map of the world. As such, this makes it a difficult territory to research, and it is instructive that whilst the literature on, say, cultural fit is broad and deep, that on interpersonal fit, or how fit emerges in the moment in human systems, is limited.

Human Fit and Organisations
Organisations mirror the wider confusion regarding 'fit', often appearing schizophrenic. In mergers & acquisitions, for example, 'fit', or rather the lack of 'good fit', is often cited as a problem area, and regularly identified as a key reason for the failure to meet shareholder/stakeholder expectations. Rarely does much time and money goes into understanding it better.

Organisational fit is frequently framed as being a question of 'culture', which in organisational terms is  "difficult to define, but you generally know when you have found an employee who appears to fit your culture. He just 'feels' right." Source: About.com

The notion of a 'fit' between person and organisation is both explicit and implicit. Organisational culture tends to be defined as being constructed from elements not dissimilar to that of an individual person(ality) i.e. "the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, interests, experiences, upbringing, and habits that create a person’s behavior." Source: About.com

These shared values, beliefs and assumptions in turn drive behaviour within the organisation, such that 'culture' can be seen to equal the behaviours of those people within the system.

How that behaviour is experienced will in turn drive the experience and perception as to the quality of the 'fit'. This relationship between behaviour and how it is constructed within the individual personalities within a system can equally be found in the constructs of 'Team Fit', 'Management Style Fit' and 'Interpersonal Fit', all of which appear within the literature and rhetoric of person-organisation relations.

Fit Discourse
In person-to-person relationships, common metaphors/synonyms include 'chemistry' and 'rapport'. Organisationally, metaphors of human relationships and desire are common, particularly in the literature regarding mergers & acquisitions    e.g.: 'marriage', 'get in to bed with' etc.

Literature on the shadow side of organisational life, emotion and more recently the role of desire in decision making offer alternative lenses through which to reflect on the nature of 'human fit' in organisations.