A DIFFERENT STORY
To Jonas Wergeland
Finn Janning
A DIFFERENT STORY - Seduct i on, C onquest an d D i sc o v e ry
A Different Story - Seduction, Conquest and Discovery By Finn Janning © Multivers, 2007
Publisher: Multivers ApS, Copenhagen (www.multivers.com) Cover: : Danesadwork. The front page: Simplified Mirror Labyrinth (2005) by Jeppe Hein Tryk: Frederiksberg Bogtrykkeri This publication is sponsored by Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S
No mechanical, photographic or any other reproduction of this book or any part thereof is permitted without the written consent of Multivers ApS Publishers, Copenhagen, Denmark (rights@multivers.dk).
Mekanisk, fotografisk eller anden gengivelse af denne bog eller dele heraf er kun tilladt i overensstemmelse med overenskomst mellem Undervisningsministeriet og Copy-Dan. Enhver anden udnyttelse uden Multivers Aps’ skriftlige samtykke er forbudt ifølge gældende dansk lov om ophavsret. Undtaget herfra er korte uddrag til brug for anmeldelser.
ISBN 978-87-7917-193-0
Printed in Denmark, 2007
Contents 1. Curtains Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. NNE and its History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Novo Group 9 History of Novo Nordisk 10 NNE and the History to come 12 The Passage 14 Human Resources 19 The Challenge for the Workforce 28 Quality 30 3.Immanence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Difference as such 35 Immaterial Labor 40 Affective Labor 43 4. A Rhapsody of Seduction, Conquest and Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Part One: Seduction 55 Introduction 55 A Different Story 56 Portraits 59 Seduction as a Weapon 62 The Game of Appearance 67 The Language of Seduction 70 The Pillow Book 72 Trust Loyalty 75 The Ancient Greek 81 Desire 89 Care of the Self 96 Seduction as Sadism and Masochism 102 Seduction as Framing 111 The job interview as a Dance 126 Style 131 Conclusion 138
Part Two: Conquest 141 Introduction 141 The Language of the Conquer 142 Exploring the Conqueror 145 Resurrection 149 Geography 151 The Pyramids of NNE 155 Simplicity 160 Managing the Leadership 164 Asymmetrical 166 The End of Mythos 169 Vision 173 Utopia 177 The Syntax of Utopia 180 Get High 183 A Utopian Power of a Vision 186 Conclusion 191 Part Three: Discovery 193 How, What, Who 200 Apprenticeship 203 Affirmation 205 Loyalty 208 HR as Generators 210 Affirmative Coaching 212 Doing HR 217 The Morphology of Labor 221 5. Curtains Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 6. En anderledes historie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Appendix: Kære Finn Janning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 Filmography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
1. Curtains Up There is a story about two companies, and how the one was supported and dominated by the other. Even today, more than 13 years after their separation, the support and domination of one company over the other seems to continue. In 2001 NNE (Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S) celebrated its 10th anniversary as an independent affiliate within the Novo Group. The anniversary was celebrated with a huge party at the Øksnehallen Exhibition Centre located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Here NNE launched its new Corporate Visual Identity (CVI). The CVI was created in order for NNE to show the world that it strived to become the market leader in the growing fields of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Equally important, NNE wanted to detach itself from its supporter and dominator, Novo Nordisk A/S. To begin with, NNE changed its name from Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S to NNE; secondly it created a new logo; and last, as a brand promise, it stated: Unique Know How. In fact, NNE changed all of its visual identity (i.e. CVI) in a manner like that of pirates who want to change identity by raising another flag on the mast before anchoring at a harbor. At that time, when launching the CVI, the transformation of NNE into an independent company seemed as easy as raising a new and better flag. This event would have been greeted with unmitigated joy had it not been for the fact that NNE already had been independent for the last 10 years. NNE, since its separation from Novo Nordisk A/S in 1991, had become an independent affiliate and that; the situation of independency had been turned into a political question. Wherever the relevance of speech and especially ownership is at stake matters become political by definition. Speech and possession are what make both man and companies political. **** In this book I will focus on organizing, the living alternative that grows within NNE. As a first approach I will describe the history of NNE, although an organization always is many. Then I will describe the field of labor in order to illustrate that labor is an open and, to some extent, inclusive concept. From here on I will follow three traits, that is, seduction, conquest and discovery, and the different beats articulated from within and relate it to NNE. 7
2. NNE and its History Philosophy must constitute itself as the theory of what we are doing, not as a theory of what there is. What we do has its principles; and being can only be grasped as the object of a synthetic relation with the very principles of what we do. – Gilles Deleuze, Empiricism and Subjectivity The following history of NNE will move from lucidity towards intense fuzziness. It actualizes a flash of a moment in between other moments; it is an unveiling and stretching moment, at a time when the history of NNE is balancing on a lever not sure on which side it will tip. To describe the history of NNE one would have to define the organization’s relation to Novo Nordisk A/S. The history, or the frame of NNE, is inseparable from two tendencies, “towards saturation or towards rarefaction.”1 Framing is a technique used in cinematography. It is an organizing principle which forms a set consisting of various elements, which form sub-sets. History as framing is always a limitation. In other words, the history of NNE depends on the angle of framing (i.e. from where…) because we can never frame the whole story of NNE per se. It is open. Some elements are neither described nor understood, but are nevertheless perfectly present. Gilles Deleuze calls this the out-of-field [hors-champ], which is not a negation. Rather, when an organization is framed, therefore seen, “there is always a larger set, or another set with which the first forms a larger one, and which can in turn be seen, on condition that it gives rise to a new out-of –field, etc.”2 The history of NNE, which I will present, is an “Open whole” which traverses various elements, given each the possibility of relating to one another. There is another reason that the history of NNE could be understood as an out-of-field: the actualisable relation with other organizations such as Novo Nordisk A/S, and the virtual relation with the whole such as companies outside the Novo Group. Deleuze says that in film the second virtual relation, which is the one that NNE wants to accomplish, is reached in two ways:3 1) through the intermediary and extension of the first, and 2) by limitation and neutralisation of the first. When NNE changes its name, its logo, its brand promise, it indicates that NNE wants to find itself elsewhere in the form of a whole (i.e. the market) into which it is already integrated. Hereby it limits its relations with Novo Nordisk. However, it might not be advisable to limit and neutralize its relations completely; instead, NNE could gradually expand its 8
2. NNE and its History
market share constructing a larger palette of services which extends it. To summarize, NNE can either expand by consulting other companies than Novo Nordisk in the design and construction of new plants, or NNE can incorporate new skills and competencies in order to attract new markets. Both strategies require a different kind of organizing of the workforce in order to actualize the potentials of NNE. When describing the history of NNE, I will use a fixed camera to frame it, but gradually I will have to become mobile, just as NNE is mobile, and therefore I will use a hand-held camera. I will leave the bank and its fixed point of view, and basically jump into the flow of the river, NNE. It is a difference between reproduction as a fixed or pre-given platform external to NNE, and an approach being carried away by the flow itself.4 The latter is one way to grasp and understand the virtual relations, or the potential of NNE as an open whole whose essence is constant creation. We could also say that the potential of NNE is elsewhere, yet to be actualized. The difference between research as reproduction or representation and following is related to philosophy. The object of philosophy is a multiplicity. Because of that, we cannot reduce empiricism to something which can be weighed and measured. Also empiricism refers to dreams and hallucinations – in short, every movement, intensity, and virtuality requires our attention. Deleuze writes that “reason is a kind of feeling,” and continues, “the essence and the destiny of empiricism are not tied to the atom but rather to the essence of association; therefore, empiricism does not raise the problem of the origin of the mind but rather the problem of the constitution of the subject.”5 Empiricism is not a problem of representation, but rather a problem of belief in the multiplicity of forces. Therefore, we can define research by the movement through which it is developed. The epigraph of this chapter articulates that doing philosophy is not about asking what principles are, but what they do. When I move along, I will describe NNE through its functions, its performances and define the challenges by their effects. The principles are constituted within the given matter as a transversal necessity from within. Let us return to the history of NNE.
The Novo Group NNE is a part of the umbrella organization called the Novo Group; a family of independent companies with a common history and shared values. All the companies within the Novo Group share the same governance principles as 9
A Different Story
stated in the Novo Group Charter, including the Novo Nordisk Way of Management (I will come back to this). The Novo Group contains of: The Novo Nordisk Foundation: a self-governing and profit-making foundation. Its objectives are to provide a stable basis for the commercial and research activities undertaken by the companies in the Novo Group and to support scientific, humanitarian and social purposes. Novo A/S: an investment and holding company owned 100 per cent by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo A/S is to manage the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s funds and to make venture investments in companies that primarily operate in the life science area. Novo A/S also drives and monitors the implementation of The Novo Nordisk Way of Management in Novo Group companies. Novozymes A/S: a biotech-based world leader in enzymes and microorganisms developed for industrial use. It also applies its core competences in selected pharmaceutical areas. Novozymes supplies enzymes within three main segments of the industrial enzymes market: the technical, the food, and the feed industries. Novo Nordisk A/S: a healthcare company with the broadest diabetes product portfolio in the industry; products included are within the area of insulin delivery systems. In addition, Novo Nordisk is positioned in areas such as haemostasis management, growth hormone therapy, and hormone replacement therapy. Novo Nordisk A/S is a world leader in diabetes care. NNE is an affiliate of Novo Nordisk A/S.
History of Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk A/S began in 1922. At that time a Danish couple, August and Marie Krogh, travelled to America. August Krogh, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, had received the Nobel Prize in physiology; his wife, Marie Krogh, was a doctor and researcher in metabolic diseases (Marie also suffered from late-onset (type 2) diabetes.). While in America, the couple heard of two Canadian researchers, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who were using insulin extract from bovine pancreases to treat people who suffered from diabetes. Because of Marie’s 10
2. NNE and its History
diabetes, the couple were very interested in this treatment. Ultimately they, were granted permission to produce insulin in Denmark. After returning to Denmark, Professor Krogh and Dr. H. C. Hagedorn, a specialist in the regulation of blood sugar, decided that some extensive research was required. They called on the Danish pharmacist August Kongsted, who offered to finance the research and help start the production. In December 1922 the two men succeeded in extracting a small quantity of insulin from a bovine pancreas and only months later, in March 1923, the first patients were treated, which resulted in the foundation of Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium (Nordisk). Later that year, the engineer Harald Pedersen joined Nordisk to build the machines used for insulin production (an area which would grow till it finally – 76 years later - turned into NNE). His brother, Thorvald Pedersen, was later recruited to analyse the chemical processes during the insulin production. Thorvald Pedersen, however, did not get on with Hagedorn, and in 1924 Hagedorn fired him. Out of loyalty to his brother, Harald resigned and the two brothers set up their own laboratory. By 1924 they too were successfully producing insulin, and in 1925 the brothers sent a letter to Danish pharmacists informing them that Insulin Novo and the newly developed Novo syringe were now on sale. The brothers named their company Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium (Novo). Over the next 65 years, both companies rapidly expanded. Both Novo and Nordisk established large research units and competed furiously to be the first on the market with new products for the treatment of diabetes. Besides that, the companies began to diversify by developing other products. Novo became the world’s largest producer of industrial enzymes, and Nordisk developed drugs for the treatment of haemophilia and growth disorders. In January 1989 Novo and Nordisk decided to join forces. Having competed with each other for more than 60 years, the two companies could now concentrate their combined forces on developing new products for treating diabetes. The new company was called Novo Nordisk A/S. **** What ties the Novo Group together as a family of companies? The answer is that all the companies share the same governance principles including the Novo Nordisk Way of Management, as stated in the Novo Group Charter. The key role of Novo A/S is to support and monitor the companies’ compliance with the Novo Nordisk Way of Management by using the Novo Group charter as its benchmark. The Novo Nordisk Way of Management consists of three elements:6 11
A Different Story
The vision that is clearly described; The charter that is developed by describing the values, the commitments, and fundamentals; and The policies that must be applied. The Novo Nordisk Way of Management applies to every employee and manager around the world, whether in headquarters, in affiliates, or in service companies. It should be seen as the framework within which all companies work. The intention of doing management this way is to facilitate the growth of the culture of empowerment and innovation - of coaching and learning - of business and people. Rather than being restrictive, the intention is that this framework expands options. It illustrates the principles of how to work and behave as an employee within the Novo Group, and it is based on sound business principles that ensure the long-term growth and welfare of the company. These are the strings attached to NNE.
NNE and the History to come The Novo Group is described as a family of companies. Gilles Deleuze describes families as a social unit; the characteristics being that they cannot be added to one another. Rather, they exclude one another. Families “are partial (partiales) rather than made up of parts (partielles). The parents of one family are always the strangers of other families. (...) The problem of society, in this sense, is not a problem of limitation, but rather a problem of integration.”7 According to Deleuze (and his productive intersection with David Hume’s thought), the main issue here is: How do we integrate sympathies and solidarities based on absolute singularities? The same phenomenon counts for NNE; how does it transcend the natural partiality and make positive immanent connections between itself and the other companies within the Novo Group and outside the Novo Group? NNE cannot accept an exclusion from either the Novo Group or the market outside the familiar bond. But one does not necessarily eliminate the other. If NNE could include other customers, it would enlarge its marketplace and income. To include is also to acknowledge the responsibility of creation which is linked together with the inventions of new organizational frames that will foster the potential of some sort of connection between parts which before were excluded. Or it could be parts, which were not aware of each other’s potential. NNE does not have to share the same 12
2. NNE and its History
identity with Novo Nordisk, but it should be able to discover the common that allows the two of them (and others) to communicate and work together. **** The process to include companies other than Novo Nordisk has begun slowly, like the first steps of a child. Since NNE will continue as an affiliate of Novo Nordisk A/S during the next five years, that process cannot accelerate much faster. The decision that ties the two companies together is, at the same time, the decision that might make it possible for NNE to stand independently as a self-sufficient company. The continuation of NNE as an affiliate is, in other words, at the same time a continuation of the cash flow which is streaming from the investment program initiated by Novo Nordisk. Nevertheless, the process of complete separation is underway; as the President of NNE states, “If I look 5 or 10 years ahead, I personally do not think that NNE will continue to be owned by Novo Nordisk A/S. On a long-term basis NNE will not be a core business for Novo Nordisk A/S.”8 In regard to the familiarity in the Novo Group and the commonality involved (e.g. the Novo Nordisk Way of Management), it is important to emphasize that the commonality, qua NNE’s singularity, is different. A singularity is determined only through its relation to the totality of its potentials, and that totality of potentials which constitute NNE, is the totality of an absolute singularity. Whether it is Novo Nordisk A/S who wants to exclude NNE, or NNE who wants to be excluded, the result is the same. NNE still has to include customers outside the Novo Group. In fact, having to avoid being excluded by inclusion is the main challenge for NNE during the next five years. The more experience NNE can acquire from different customers, the more likely it is that Novo Nordisk cannot neglect NNE as its preferred business partner. Therefore, being able to include customers outside the Novo Group is the core issue for NNE to come in order to retain the already existing customers within the Novo Group. To sum up: a separation is always more complex than what appears obvious to the naked eye. Novo Nordisk and NNE both want NNE to develop as an independent and competitive engineering company. However, NNE is still very much dependent on Novo Nordisk; it is still NNE’s largest customer, good for approximately 70 to 75per cent of its business. Equally important, it is a question of how independent Novo Nordisk will allow NNE to become. Obviously, the latter question has political undertones. **** 13
A Different Story
In the meantime, it would be wrong to understand the separation between Novo Nordisk and NNE as something forced upon NNE. On the contrary, the company was capable and specialized enough in 1991, which made a separation seem natural, even if NNE still needed economic support. At the present time, NNE feels the unfolding and doubling of time in two heterogeneous directions: one constantly turning NNE to the past as a part of (partials) Novo Nordisk A/S’s history; the other flying ahead into the future where NNE is moving towards its 15th anniversary as an independent company (capable of selecting customers outside). Both scenarios have made it evident that NNE needs a more radical and professional strategic vision. A NNE Vice President says, “We operate with the same policies as Novo Nordisk, which – I think – hinders NNE a little. At the same time, it is the same policies that made NNE possible. But I think we must become more professional and independent.”9 If NNE wants to become independent, meaning un-united with Novo Nordisk (except for the shared guidance for management), then NNE should be able to unite or connect with whomever. Luckily that is possible because NNE only shares the management guidance with Novo Nordisk.10 The challenge for NNE is to learn how to connect outside the Novo A/S and include strangers. The company Novo Nordisk is very well-respected among candidates, customers, shareholders etc., which puts NNE in vain. Why bother to exclude oneself from the good company? The answer is a mixture of ambition and potential. NNE wants to; but can it? Thus one question is: how does NNE attract and retain a qualified workforce as NNE, not as Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S? What does NNE do when it attracts and retains a qualified workforce? Such questions also make the challenge of NNE similar to that of most organizations, and for this reason this text will have a general interest within the area of organizational philosophy.
The Passage The passage towards independence is an ongoing process offering new ways of actualizing the immanent potential of NNE. In a recent report, the President of NNE described the visions for the company, “Future NNE will strive to establish a substantial business platform outside the Novo Group, based on our extensive know-how, experience, and knowledge of the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries. We will supply turnkey factories but also sell separate services with high market value on a consulting basis, for example, validation or integrated automation. We will try to find a niche in new fields of product and process development in order to be involved at an earlier stage in client projects… Our ambition to have a more balanced client base requires 14
2. NNE and its History
NNE – alone or in cooperation with our partner – to expand international activities. We will focus our efforts. Business outside our core areas must strengthen NNE as a workplace or create relationships for our core customers.”11 The challenge for NNE is to expand their activities nationally and internationally, primarily with customers other than Novo Nordisk. NNE “must strengthen as a workplace,” indicates that it must try to create new terms and values for the existence of the workforce. It is the business outside NNE’s core areas that will strengthen the organization, although such “outside” never really is an outside, rather a melodious variation of the norms and conventions of the business. The ambitions of the President are therefore intimately linked with and achieved through the practice of the workforce. The physical appearance (e.g. CVI) is only one element in the process. To change deals with places, such as changing the scenery and going on holiday. The kind of transmutation that NNE focus on is an absolute and radical change turned into stasis. It is a metamorphism. It is spacious in the sense that it is a process; it takes place, but never is a specific place. Michel Serres tells the story about Harlequin who returns from his inspection of his lunar lands and tells a stunned audience that, “everywhere everything is just as it is here, identical in every way to what one can see ordinarily on the terraqueous globe. Except that the degrees of grandeur and beauty change.”12 Serres knits a new, colorful collage of various disciplines folded into each other. It is not the place or position of each discipline (or islands) which is of interest. Preferably, it is what takes place between them, what connects them. In alignment with Serres, we might emphasize that knowledge is never separated from life or the social in a broad sense. “Harlequin is a hermaphrodite, a mixed body, male and female … The naked androgyne mixes genders so that it is impossible to locate the vicinities, the places, or borders where the sexes stop and begin: a man lost in female, a female mixed with male. This is how he or she shows him/ herself: as a monster.”13 A monster is not only a beast or a barbarian. A monster is also a mutant, who is extraordinary, heteromorphic, and unconventional. A barbarian or a monster means that NNE allows itself to become itself; etymologically barbarian means “those who stammer.” Umberto Eco describes James Joyce as a writer who “stammers” when he departed from the “regional dialect” and invented a “noble dialect” an “illustrious vernacular.”14 Instead of interpreting or describing Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus’ day through the street of Dublin, Joyce experiments with it, making it appear rather chaotic. To be a barbarian is to bring the unconscious “to the light of day, to select the whispering voices” and thereby extract something different (not necessarily better).15 If we try to relate this to the potential market for NNE, then it is not limited to the Novo Group; instead it forms 15
A Different Story
within the group as well as it forms between other groups. If NNE wants to strengthen as a workplace, it must become a monster, i.e., heteromorphic, extraordinary, and curious. It must be able to reinvent itself. **** The organizing of NNE is an operation or a process in which the inside is merely the fold of the outside, as if NNE was a folding of the business outside the Novo Group. In this respect, it is the workforce who actualizes the vision when it converts it to action. Therefore (where ´therefore´ marks the necessity of an internal movement), what this work will be articulating, is what NNE is doing, and how it is doing it. In other words: the way NNE acts. The performance of NNE will gradually bring us to an understanding of what labor and HRM can do, and how it works. When I speak of performance, it should not be related to the way the theory of HRM understands the concept. For instance, when competence is regarded as something opposite to performance, as if the competences of NNE, in order to be regarded as competences, ought to be captured within well-known categories of knowledge. This, for instance, is done when HR consultants try to measure the performance of the workforce according to specific and well-defined goals, goals which obviously are not bad, but might hinder the acknowledgement of something else, something which could turn out to be even more productive and useful for the organizational future capacity. If we allow ourselves to understand NNE as a virtuality, the performance of NNE might transgress our known conceptual framework, it might produce something new and different. Before we continue, let us concentrate on the word virtual for a moment. It comes from Latin virtus meaning potential, force, or that which may work, but at the moment does not. The virtual is often coupled with the Latin actualitas meaning that through which the potential becomes visible or creates an effect. If we think of NNE as virtual, a force, a potentiality, it becomes obvious that we cannot reduce it to one whole. There is always more to it, something always remains. The virtual is not an abstraction. Instead it mobilizes unspecific singularities, bringing them together in an indeterminate plan. From this point of view, NNE is both a form of presentation and a form of representation. The knowledge gained through this work about how NNE organizes is placed between representation and presentation, between what there is (before), and what might be actualized through the encounters and relations within NNE. This preliminary definition of virtual and actual opens up for questions such as: how does NNE work, how does it function, and under what conditions is NNE composed? Another way to understand NNE is to look at the or16