On April 11, 2022, the official presentation of Erica Rizziato’s book Toward a Humanism of Organizational Life: Generating Development in Complexity with Horizontal Leadership was held in Rome at the Marconi Hall of the National Research Council.
The book describes the methodology for horizontal leadership for integrated organizations that represents a development of the IMO methodology from a scientific point of view, a result of the mandate Erica Rizziato had from the international core group. By 2022 the book will be published in the English version.
Erica has been working on this methodology since 2001 with Adrian and other colleagues, linking the impulse of Adriano Olivetti in Italy to that of Bernard Lievegoed and the work of first NPI and then IMO.
Prior to this book she wrote many scientific articles and papers, both in Italian and English, and a first book in 2010 that described an early part of the research and experimental work.
The book presented presented in April 2022 represents a concluding moment of the work and describes the theoretical foundations, methodology and many exercises developed, as well as numerous examples and cases of application.
The event was held both in person and online, more than 120 people participated until the end, showing much interest.
The presentation was divided into three parts:
The first part deepening the methodology and context of action-research, saw the intervention of Emanuela Reale, director Ircres CNR, Beatrice Lomaglio, Vice President AIF, Erica Rizziato, researcher Ircres CNR and founder IMO Italy, Chiara Scardicchio, trainer and lecturer at the University of Bari, Giuseppe Varchetta, management consultant and lecturer at Bicocca University in Milan, Adriaan Bekman, Founder IMO International and lecturer University of Offenburg in Germany. His contribution is a on line video, at the end of the first part (watch the video of the first part).
The second part presented three application cases. In the first talk, Alessandro Ficile, president of Sosvima s.p.a., a development company for the Madonie Mountains in the province of Palermo, recounted the application of the methodology in local development. The second speech, by Marilena Colli, HR business partner, witnessed the application to the multinational company Money Gram. In the third, Maurizio Moscara, general manager of the province of Brindisi, recounted the application at the municipality of Ruvo di Puglia (watch the video of the second part).
The third part dealt with the contextualization of the methodology’s proposals in the university contexts of sociology and work psychology. Contributions were offered by Piero Dominici, a philosopher and sociologist at the University of Perugia, who edited the book’s introduction, and Mara Gorli, a trainer and lecturer at the Catholic University of Milan (watch the video of the third part).
The event was echoed in many Italian newspapers, and we offer here a summary of the day in a short report.
