This contribution presents an organizational supervision initiative for social workers in a
consortium of municipalities in Eastern Milan, funded through the Next Generation EU
programme. The project aimed to prevent burnout and was shaped by the eutopian perspective of
Martin Parker (2002), envisioning the workplace as a "good place" where people can work
meaningfully and cooperatively.
The first phase involved a network analysis that mapped institutional spaces where local actors
and social service professionals meet, along with the purposes attributed to these meetings. The
collective feedback process revealed three key critical issues: (1) the organizational structure
lacked an organic interaction with the broader local community, except for a few preselected
partners; (2) social work was characterized by an "assembly-based" mode of operation, with
frequent multi-actor meetings; (3) participants often reported unclear meeting objectives, resulting
in a sense of dispersion and time misuse.
In response, a series of consultations were introduced, inspired by critical performativity (Spicer
et al., 2009), which encouraged organizational imagination as a way to reframe consultative
meetings. These were reimagined as interdisciplinary spaces where professionals from different
backgrounds collaboratively developed tailored case-specific interventions. The cases were
reinterpreted through the lens of precarity (Butler, 2015), understood as the systemic
vulnerability to having one's rights denied due to social, cultural, or economic conditions.
Placing citizens' rights at the center of case discussions catalyzed a wide array of conversations
and proposals among practitioners. These were then submitted to the technical board of the intermunicipal
planning office, which welcomed, revised, and integrated them into its strategic vision.
This experience demonstrates how organizational imagination can act as a critical and generative
force in public service settings.