need care and protection just as children need the care of their parents.
♦ Workers should be compensated by the hour or by the number of “pieces” produced. Bosses should be paid a salary and possibly receive bonuses and stock.
♦ Workers are like interchangeable parts of machines. One “good” worker is pretty much the same as any other “good” worker.
♦ Workers need to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Bosses need to hold them accountable.
These assumptions have had a profound effect on personnel arrangements and decision-making structures in large businesses, governments, schools, and other large organizations. Specialization became the rule. Lines of authority were clear. Workers were told exactly what was expected of them. A curious arrangement of staff and line positions emerged (experts suggest that the Prussian Army was the first to use this approach, late in the 19th century). The paternalistic impulse led to the creation of “benefits” that were provided in lieu of cash (free or cut-rate housing, schooling, and medical care). Most of the systems, controls, compensation criteria, and decision-making and leadership styles that we find in organizations today can be traced to these beliefs about workers.
When I ask people whether they believe the assumptions listed above still apply to modern-day working people, especially in the Western world, almost everyone says no. Most would agree with Max De Pree, a manufacturing executive who was a pioneer in participatory management, that advanced countries are entering a period in which 80 percent of workers will make their living by brainpower.
However, based on my own observations, I suspect that many corporate leaders still hold some Industrial Revolution views. What’s more, many of the approaches and practices in modern workplaces are nearly as demeaning as those used during the Industrial Revolution. Executives are either oblivious to the similarities—or won’t admit them. These are the only plausible explanations for the relative lack of change in the structure of work in modern corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.
A newborn shark, 6 or 7 inches long, can survive in the sort of fish tank seen in homes, but its growth is seriously stunted and its body deformed. It becomes extremely aggressive and can be kept from escaping only if the tank has a heavy cover.
Have new assumptions about working people eliminated work environments that resemble this cramped aquarium—and that prevent them from reaching their potential? Obviously, much has changed. The hours are shorter. The workplace is physically more pleasant. Compensation is usually higher. Workers have more legal rights and protections.
Fundamentally, however, working conditions in large organizations today are no more exciting, rewarding, or fun than they were 250 years ago. Most working people are boxed in by job descriptions and corporate hierarchies and have little opportunity to make decisions on their own. I was struck by this lack of freedom during visits to Japan in the 1980s. Several bestselling books had been written in the previous decade analyzing and to some extent glorifying Japanese business prowess. I got a very different impression. What struck me was that work in Japan lacked passion and joy. Fun was something that happened away from the workplace. Work was work and play was play, and the two never overlapped. Japanese “salarymen” didn’t leave work as much as escape it, often during hard-drinking nights with the “boys.”
In the modern workplace, an employee’s full talents are rarely used and often go unnoticed. Damian Obiglio, who led an AES distribution company that won the award for the finest utility in Brazil several years running, tells the story of a young man who worked in a city library in Argentina for a decade. His job was to put the books that had been returned to the library back on the shelves where they belonged. Each day he faithfully put in his eight hours and left the library immediately. He showed no interest in taking on greater responsibilities at the library, and none of his colleagues ever engaged him in conversation about his interests or hopes for the future. He caused no problems. He did his job as instructed, nothing more, nothing less. One day the national paper in Argentina ran a story celebrating the person who had won a contest for his design of a gas-powered model airplane. It turned out that the young man in the library was one of the most brilliant aeronautical designers in the entire country.
Why do so many people work so hard so they can escape to Disneyland? Why are video games more popular than work? Why is driving an automobile more exciting and enjoyable to many people than their work? Why do rank-and-file employees generally spend less time at work than top executives? Why do many workers spend years dreaming about and planning for retirement? The reason is simple and dispiriting. We have made the workplace a frustrating and joyless place where people do what they’re told and have few ways to participate in decisions or fully use their talents. As a result, they naturally gravitate to pursuits in which they can exercise a measure of control over their lives.
In most organizations I have been exposed to around the world, bosses and supervisors still make all important decisions. The more important the decision, the more important the boss assigned to make the call. This is especially true of decisions that have financial implications. We still have the offices “above” the working people, filled with staff (some with “green eyeshades”) and supervisors who, without consulting workers, make decisions that dramatically affect their lives. Many layers of bosses and assistant bosses control the behavior and performance of the people below them.
In the past three decades, there has been a proliferation of staff specialists who oversee almost every aspect of corporate life. Many of their names and missions have an Orwellian ring: engineering services, human resources, training, environmental control, strategic planning, legal affairs, finance, risk management, accounting, internal auditing, internal communications, public affairs, investor relations, community relations, production control, quality control.
As a line executive responsible for the Energy Conservation Program in the federal government during the early 1970s, I experienced the debilitating effects of these “serving” central staff groups. It seemed as if I had 15 bosses. Each one of the offices was responsible for something I thought was essential to operating my program. My budget was the responsibility of the budget department. When an issue regarding energy conservation legislation or inquiries concerning my program came from Capitol Hill, the staff of the assistant secretary for legislation took the lead. People like me couldn’t even testify before a congressional committee without an entourage of people concerned that I might say something related to their areas of responsibility.
Workers get paid for the hours they work and, curiously, get extra pay if it takes them longer than a colleague to complete a job.
As the executive in charge of the program, I was not really trusted to operate it or to speak freely about it. It was almost as if I didn’t have a job. At best, my “line” job was about coordinating all the “staff” people who drifted in and out of my program. It is easy to understand why a Collin Doherty could become disenchanted with his workplace.
Basic compensation schemes have not changed significantly either. Workers get paid for the hours they work and, curiously, get extra pay if it takes them longer than a colleague to complete a job. Supervisors and other leaders get paid a basic salary according to their responsibilities, regardless of the time spent performing them. They are usually eligible for bonuses and increasingly participate in ownership benefits as well. As has been the case for nearly three centuries, most organizations employ only two significant “classes” of people—management (variously called executives, leaders, supervisors, directors, and officers) and labor. Discrimination against labor by management is more subtle today than it was during the Industrial Revolution, but it remains demeaning and destructive.
Workers are still “trained” in the narrow function they are expected to perform. Most bosses, however, acquire broader expertise through schooling or doing stints in a variety of jobs. Most organizational
