important human qualities needed to run a healthy business—character, values, and concern for colleagues and the integrity of the larger enterprise. From individuals who judge their status in life by the size of their bank accounts to corporations that manipulate their financial results to make their stock price go as high as possible, the desire for wealth often creates systems and practices that are centralized and mechanistic—dictating everything from salary levels to cost controls—and that take the joy out of work.
Despite cosmetic improvements, the workplace has not become a more fulfilling place over the past 50 years. Economic efficiency remains the primary measure of success. Relatively few people are treated as full-fledged adults capable of making sound decisions. Workers are often treated like machines or beasts of burden, almost as if the company wanted to get the most out of its “assets” before it got rid of them. They rarely get the chance to make decisions or act on them. This lack of freedom may be the single most debilitating and demoralizing factor in the workplace today.
Inside typical modern companies, however, you get a very different view than I have suggested above. Workers, especially those at lower levels, don’t seem overly concerned with job satisfaction—at least at first blush. “I like very much what you are talking about, Dennis, but what I really want is security. I don’t want to risk losing my job.” Then I would ask, “What is the most secure place you could be?” After a few rounds of guessing and suggestions, we usually ended up with “prisons” as the places that offered the most security, with bed and board to boot. When confronted with the logical extension of their desire for security, most people saw the fallacy of the goal. Children require security, but when they become adults, the desire for security inhibits their uniquely human abilities to make decisions, take risks, learn new things, fail, grow, make progress, experience loss, and then make progress again. We need to design organizations that encourage people to look beyond job security and seek the psychic rewards that come with a creative, enterprising approach to work. Many of the world’s large organizations are filled with people trapped in the dead-end goal of seeking security. It is the enemy of joy at work.
In my experience, most people don’t believe that fun and work can coexist. In large organizations, so few executives have experienced a joyful workplace that they have no idea how to create one. The result: Most employees grasp for high pay and benefits, fewer hours on the job, the mindless comfort of routine, less responsibility, early retirement, and job security. All are hollow substitutes for a rewarding, stimulating workplace.
If you’re lucky, the workplace created by the Industrial Revolution may put food on the table, pay for your kids’ schooling, and even provide for a comfortable retirement. But “where’s the love, man?” as the old Bud Light commercial asked. Where is the love for work and accomplishment? Where are the other unique traits and gifts and frailties that make us human? Where is the passion to serve? Maybe these were left on Collin Doherty’s farm, or maybe they were lost in the race for productivity and profits. I believe, however, that nothing so fundamental to human nature can be lost forever. If that is true, it will transcend even a movement as powerful as industrialization. It remains alive in many of our homes. It is preached in our churches, synagogues, and mosques. It exists in our memories of teamwork and competition in gyms and on playing fields. I am confident that it cannot be long absent from the place where we spend most of our waking hours—at work.
We are uniquely created with the ability to reason, make decisions, and be held accountable for our actions. When all of these factors come into play at the same time, we feel something approaching pure joy.
CHAPTER 3
From Misery to Joy
“THERE IS NO FUN LIKE WORK.” That was the motto of Dr. Charles Mayo, founder of the famous medical clinic. The key to joy at work is the personal freedom to take actions and make decisions using individual skills and talents. This is a simple concept but almost impossible to carry out because of the roadblocks thrown up by large organizations—as AES discovered with one of our early power plants.
I had just returned to my hotel room after a long day of trying to convince high-level Florida state government officials that our plant under construction in Jacksonville was following all the permit requirements (and then some). When the phone rang at 10:30 p.m., I was stunned by what I heard from Bill Arnold, the manager of the AES plant in Shady Point, Oklahoma, our newest, largest, and most profitable power-generating facility. The news he related to me would set in motion the most intense six months of learning in my professional career. It would also eventually drain the spirit of this gifted plant leader.
One of Bill’s assistants had discovered that nine technicians had conspired to falsify the results of water testing in the plant. They had sent inaccurate water-quality data to regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency. While the falsification did not result in any harm to the river into which the water was discharged, it was a major breach of our shared commitment to integrity and social responsibility. A week or so later, Roger Sant and I wrote a very strong and candid letter to our employees and shareholders. Because it captures the spirit, values, and operating ethos of AES, I think the letter is worth quoting. We were still in the process of refining our values, and, as you can see, we had yet to come down hard on training programs. The job security mentioned in the letter was needed to get to the bottom of a troubling situation, and in that sense it was an exception to my larger opposition to guaranteeing indefinite employment. Here are excerpts from our letter:
Dear Shareholders and People of AES:
Some disappointing news has just come to our attention which, consistent with our values, we felt we should share with you at the earliest opportunity. On Thursday, June 18, we notified the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and the State of Oklahoma that we had discovered in an internal review that some water discharge reports have been falsified at the AES Shady Point Plant in Oklahoma.
It appears that no one in the management structure outside of the water treatment area was aware of these violations. The people involved say that they falsified the samples because they feared for their jobs if they reported a violation. Yet no one at AES has ever lost his or her job for telling the truth, nor will they ever, as long as we have anything to say about it.
This answer is hard to understand because these were the sort of minor excursions to be expected during the first year of operation of a new plant. Since discovering violations, we have adjusted operating procedures and are adding new equipment so that it should be highly unlikely for such exceedences to occur in the future.
What disappoints us most is that no one mentions these violations in either of the two confidential and anonymous values surveys that were conducted at Shady Point during the time this was going on.
This action raises serious questions in our minds about our performance relative to our values. One of the founding tenets of this Company is the shared values. We thought we had explained our values enough to everyone in AES that this sort of thing could never happen here. We are trying to treat people like adults, trusting in their honesty, judgment, maturity, and professionalism—rather than relying on detailed procedures, manuals, and minute supervisory oversight. We cannot comprehend why anyone would trade our integrity to make our environmental performance look better. We hope that the steps we have taken today address the problem, but are embarrassed and disappointed and angry that this could have happened in AES.
The letter was leaked to the press, and we quickly learned how candor can be misconstrued by the investing public. We were a young publicly traded company at the time, and many investors assumed that the misconduct at Shady Point was an economic disaster. In fact, it would bring nothing more than a small EPA fine because no damage had been done to the environment. Nonetheless, our stock price dropped 40
