Reflection introduction Current organizational life is very different that the incarnation that emerged shortly after the

industrialization of American organization. We are no longer subject to overt time-motion studies and the employment contract we maintain with our employers is one that encourages flexibility, freedom, and (ultimately) trust. By reviewing the flexible and fast paced organizational structure of Google, the philanthropically minded TOMS shoes, the remote team structure of a graphic design firm that employs at least one successful remote designer, and my own interactions with friends and families, I have shown that the traditions of organization are no longer viable. As the world flattens, we see organizationsboth in the world of work and in society at largenot as the entities that fill our time and offer tangible reward, but as a vehicle through which we define our ultimate reality. We use them to build context around our lives and actions and we retrospectively make sense of our actions as they relate to the groups in which we are members. Its possible to maintain a coherent identity in the world of work today, but this identity is rarely based on membership within a certain group. Instead, just as the ChickFil-A employees say thank you instead of my pleasure to one another in defiance of the dominant narrative of their structure, we build identity based on personal authenticity and self-identification. In the Western world, we are no longer company men (and women,) where the company represents any organizational involvement. We are individuals who are part of a systemic whole. The notion of cogs in a gear has passed as an organizational reality and has been replaced by people bringing sustenance to their work through identity management, critical authenticity, and earned legitimacy.