Personal EU - Cell-planet

Come out of the box!

You need

more humane circles.

We have trapped ourselves in a box.

Over the years, after inventing the wheel, man, made of living cells, has also invented a whole world made of boxes: as a limiter for his habitat and his activities.

In most of these boxes, we obey and do what is ordered from the outside. It's like we only would breathe inward.

Thanks to the ever-increasing technical development of the information society, today, messages can go in any direction, and there are vastly more of them than before.

However, we humans live stuck in boxes and breathe messages mostly inwards. We still don't know how to breathe out our thoughts.

And after all, breathing life in a natural way would be the key to lifelong sustainability.

You have only one life.
Let it out of the box!

Your brain is the control center of your life.
Big streams and small rivers connect all of your time there with a unique personal power: work time, leisure time, hobbies, development, day, night... everything.
Nature's organizations are based on cells and their division.
The planets travel in their orbits regulated by gravitational and radiation forces.
The rapidly integrating information society is a great opportunity to use your brain without restrictions - to your and our mutual satisfaction.
But what happens in practice? Almost all organizational charts in business and administration are still based on the age-old military box formula. In today's information society, the model is like a petrified relic from a historical excavation - and it doesn't work.
You belong to some hierarchical organization that "cuts out part (and only part) of your brain and puts it in a fixed box" to act as a unit of output towards something you may not understand or accept.
People in different parts of stacks of boxes connected by thin lines have a hard time understanding their own and each other's challenges.
People spend their entire working lives in boxes that define what they want to be. No part outside of these abilities is needed.
This severed head cannot function completely naturally even at home because someone has also cut off a part of the loved one in the same way.

Needed:
Human-centered
Organi(c)zation.

Put people first!

The idea is to turn the box organization into a natural cellular planet built around people and challenges!
Think of the organization as a cell or a planet.
Its location, shine, and charm are important to the customer.
And since there is no business without customers, define the planet's conditions so that it is good for the customer to be there.

Try it:
Draw your new circles

✏️ Now try, for example, drawing your own organization as a cell planet.

The big circle is your organization. It radiates external attraction, a corporate image, and an internal corporate climate prevails between people. The managing director is responsible for both of these.
Draw the members of your management team so that their circles together cover the CEO's area of responsibility.
Draw circles inside their immediate subordinate - and their subordinates - until every person in the organization has a little personal cell planet.

From organization to Organi(c)zation

The organization of the cell planets is like a set of nested flexible living planets, human abilities.
Every person in the organization is one of them: clearly described according to size, location and challenges.
You can see mutual relationships in a new human-like way. E.g. the fact that the supervisor is always a substitute for the missing subordinate.
Everyone sees the challenges of their own, even small, position and growth.
In the digital age, the changes in the cellular planet can be illustrated clearly and easily understood.
Cell planet thinking develops the information society towards a more humane and life-centered era. This means good news for you AND our old-fashioned organizations.
You have the opportunity, the right and the obligation to manage the personal part of your challenges, and grow them with your reliable team across borders – a team with common challenges, values and expertise.
The cell planet model can also illustrate the splendor and attractiveness of the organization.
Organizations have the opportunity to become more human-centered "organiczations" - and find even more responsible self-organizing problem solvers for their jobs.

Life is Worth Trying

The cell-planet thinking was successfully used already in the 1980s to demonstrate a new kind of human value in the public renewal of the internal and external corporate image of Valmet Paper Finishing Systems' industrial organization.

😁 Growing an individual into a whole planet of cells with the idea of cooperation became a huge challenge in my work, when I realized that every citizen of an EU country is also a citizen of the European Union with the associated rights and challenges. And that this Union-wide realization can be the beginning of a new bright era for 450 million people and a happier cooperation between all levels of the Union. Already at the beginning of 2006, I was invited to the Commission's workshop in Brussels to talk about the core and roadmap of the "Personal EU" initiative. Shortly after that, I was happy with the decision to use the theme as the information society theme of Finland's EU presidency. Of course, I was also happy to quickly earn the nickname "Mr. Personal EU".

😁 15 years later, on 15 December 2022, key EU leaders signed a very citizen-oriented declaration "Digital rights and principles" in Brussels. I am happy that this kind of opening finally fits the EU frameworks.

Along with such positive progress, I would like to mention a couple of instructive moments for the coming days, so that the last step of the "certain victory" of the idea would also be secured in time.

😣 As part of the aforementioned Valmet corporate image process with cell planet thinking, a "Personal guide" was published for the personnel, 1300 people. However, the HR manager demanded that the name of the newly printed brochure be changed to "Personnel Guide". So, before help arrived, I had to order 1300 stickers at my own expense and stick them on the "wrong translation" myself.

😣 It is also necessary to remember once again the moment in 2005 when cellular planets and hierarchical boxes bitterly exchanged places with each other: my already approved program as the information society theme of Finland's EU presidency underwent a "small" change: The theme "Personal EU" was accepted during the delegation's trip to Brussels in the form of "Leadership" .

It's good that you now know this, and after scrolling through these pages the human-centric nature of the Personal EU era as a whole. Let's grow to be Union-wide.
EU is YOU!