Does the intent - the reason - the agenda of the associates make a difference to an organization? Does it make a difference to the individuals themselves? I pondered over this question and here is my opinion. It does! I know most of you will agree too. But then there are some subtle sides to this general principle which I will like to discuss.
Lack of Agenda
If a person is spending his/her time with an organization without a clear agenda - a reason to be there, then most certainly the person is wasting time. This does not have anything got to do with how appropriate or inappropriate the organization is. It is simple. Without an agenda you can be good to the organization and the organization can be good to you only for a very short while. After that, no clear understanding ensures that you are never really in a condition to push something far enough for it to start making sense. Imagine going to a huge market with hundreds of shops. Unless you have a faint idea on what you want to buy and what you want to do, you could just go round and round without really making any progress. Like ignorance - not having an agenda sometimes is bliss for people. But a time comes when they ask themselves where they wanted to go and where have they reached. At that time the memory of having spent a lot of time agenda less and clueless, about where to go and what to do, becomes a nightmare. People without an agenda are have limited reliability and productivity.
Individual Agenda
Imagine working in a place where highly skilled people with a clearly defined personal agenda work together. Each one has a strong reason to do what they are doing - an individual reason - and each one works hard to get their agenda through. Every person who is perusing an agenda of their won is much more productive than those without. A group of agenda driven people are a powerful combination for organizations when real works needs to be done in the best possible way. One may really like to be working in a group of highly motivated people each one of whom is a happy person perusing their goals in life. This is a great situation to be in. However this type of a system is only as strong as the weakest link. Each person has a personal agenda. This in itself means that there will be lot of conflicts and friction because it is impossible for individual agendas to line up well with other people's agenda. The ownership of the agenda makes people fierce in defending it. Being part of such a group can push a person to his extremes. The good side of human character is pushed - but so is the not so good side. These systems are close to the rules coming from survival laws. People are good as long as their agenda finds space. They are no longer good once their person agenda is under threat. The push pull may keep people on tenterhooks and in immense tension.
Organizational Agenda
This is an idealistic situation. This is a situation when a person finds an organization the agenda of which is worth owning. This is the situation in which the agenda of individuals is a derivative of the overall organizational agenda. It is a difficult state to achieve. For an individual it is a difficult place to find. Finding likeminded people in the whole wide world who pursue a cause - a motive - that you would like to take ownership of. If this happens, it prepares an amazingly powerful organization and amazingly powerful people who serve the organization. Though aligning with the agenda is a difficult thing - the consequence of this alignment is amazingly powerful. The 'individual agenda based group' is like friends debating what to do on an afternoon. The 'organizational agenda based group' is like people pushing a stone off the road. The strengths of people are utilized in the best way and the weaknesses are covered up most beautifully when organizational agenda becomes more powerful that the individual agendas. The more people an organization has who think and work for the overall interest of the organization, the stronger the organization are.
The beauty of this system is the impact that it has on the individuals. People in this system never compete with each other - they compete with the problem they face. The negative side of human existence is suppressed and the collective development and learning is more than the sum of individual parts. They call this situation synergetic.
Find a place, find an organization, and find a task where you find peace with the organizational agenda. Work where you get to feel one with the overall scheme of things. This is one of the simplest rules of being happy, effective and contributing to the system you are a part of.