Defending the inner flame in the face of uncertainty: Who will be the Vestals of your organization?

In a world riddled with uncertainty, organizations often falter despite possessing a strong, historical identity—an inner flame that should anchor them. However, this potent force remains underutilized because it’s felt but seldom articulated or embraced. Actively nurturing this core identity is not just beneficial; it’s a strategic imperative.

In 394, after eleven centuries of existence, the College of Vestals was abolished by Emperor Theodosius I. The College was responsible for watching over the sacred fire. An entire cult was devoted to it because it was linked to the fate of Rome: if it were extinguished, the Romans believed, disaster would befall the city. The emperor, a Christian, no longer accepted this pagan cult. Seventy years after this sinister eradication, the end of the empire was complete. Of course, the seeds of this demise had been planted long ago, and our modern minds will be loath to see any connection between the two. But there’s more to this episode than meets the eye.

The Inner Flame

Every collective is built around a set of mental models, shared stories that allow it to make sense of the world around it. While these can be quite numerous, there are usually two that become the core. They form a kind of inner spring, in tension with each other. In this service company, for example, the two core models are humanism and performance. Because they touch different areas, they seem to be in opposition, almost contradictory. It is this opposition that creates the tension. When this tension is maintained, it is a source of creative energy, each pole of the spring balancing the other. This source is the inner flame of the collective.

This idea is important because while leaders are often aware of the uniqueness of their organization, they are rarely able to put it into words. The spring enables them to do so. From then on, they can make sense of the challenges facing the organization in all areas. The examination of any issue in the light of the Source must be systematic. For example, this leader of a fast-growing company was constantly confronted by his managers with the demand for simplification: simplify our values, our way of working, our roles, our processes, etc. This seemed logical, but the company was unable to respond. This seemed logical, but the effort simplified nothing and destabilized the organization by compromising its creative core (weakening teams). A study of the organization’s inner spring showed that the entrepreneurial nature of its operations implied ambiguity and an apparent lack of clarity, which, by allowing actors a great deal of freedom, was one of the sources of its uniqueness. By assuming and reaffirming this aspect of identity, the manager put an end to futile efforts at naive simplification. Instead, he focused his efforts on creating mechanisms to regulate the conflicts inherent in a now-accepted ambiguity. In this way, the company has become fully itself again, and the energy has returned.

But the inner flame is fragile. It can be extinguished over time by compromises and concessions to external fires. The demise of Hewlett-Packard (HP) is a good example. After developing a strong singularity under the leadership of its two founders, it was one of the greatest high-tech companies of the 20th century. But it gradually succumbed to the external fires of management fads and went into significant decline when the two founders retired. They were replaced by a succession of managers who saw the company’s model as an irrelevant vestige that needed to be modified to make it “well run”. In practice, this meant bowing to all the outside fires, losing its uniqueness, and becoming just another computer manufacturer with a pretty logo before being dismantled.

The same dynamic can be observed in many organizations that are in decline due to the gradual weakening of their inner flame. What causes this weakening? On the one hand, the constant attacks from the outside wear down the leadership. This is especially true at a time when companies are being blamed for everything. Second, mistaken beliefs, such as that a growing company should abandon its entrepreneurial culture and become “better managed,” with clear processes, methods, and goals. In essence, you need to “do what the big guys do” or “do what everyone else does”.

The inner flame fades because it is no longer nurtured or defended, often because it is not made explicit, let alone assumed. You don’t know why you’ve been successful, you don’t know who you are, and you convince yourself that you need to change. The external pressure to conform meets with little internal resistance, weakening the core of identity and leaving even more room for external pressure. Little by little, this core is extinguished, less and less defended.

Keeping the flame burning

The flame must therefore be constantly reclaimed and rekindled as it is subjected to the tremendous gravitational pull of the reassuring return to normalcy. So who are the Vestals of the Organization? It seems obvious that rekindling this flame is first and foremost the role of senior management. But that’s not enough. Since we’re dealing with the identity of the organization, this is necessarily a collective issue that involves all employees. Everyone has a share of responsibility. The Vestals were a college of firekeepers, but fire was also the focus of an entire cult. Each citizen kept the fire alive. In the same way, each employee must keep the flame of the organization alive. The condition for this is that each individual must be able to express it. It’s not enough to “feel” the organization’s identity – everyone knows how to do that – but it must be explicitly expressed and nurtured on a daily basis. That’s what the spring is for: to express in two simple, powerful models who we are and what drives us, and to embrace the tension between the two as a source of energy.

To worship your organization’s inner flame would no doubt be a bit extreme, but in an uncertain and changing world, its conscious animation has never been more important to provide an anchor for the choices we make.

🇫🇷 A version in French of this article is available here.

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