fairness, social responsibility, and a sense of fun. AES has continued in all of its public offerings to carry the original statement, with only minor changes, describing its shared principles.
We should attempt to live according to a set of unchanging shared ethical principles, because it is the right way to live. Our efforts to do so need not be sweetened with additional benefits, such as better financial results, more successful recruiting, happier employees, or even improved productivity. These goals are worth pursuing irrespective of the bottom line. It is not only whether I live a certain way that is important. It is whether the way I attempt to live is based on true and moral principles.
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.
CHAPTER 2
A Miserable Workplace
COLLIN DOHERTY ARRIVED a full hour before 6 a.m., the time he had been told to report to his new job at the textile mill. “Be here on time or I will give the job to another man,” were the parting words of the assistant mill supervisor who had offered him the job. Collin had awakened extra early that morning to walk the 3 miles from his farm to the new steam-powered textile mill in the village. He had been trying since before the plant opened to get hired. He did not want to be late.
Collin was 31 years old. He and Rowena had been married for 14 years. Ten children had been born to them, although only six were still living. The drought of the previous year and the particularly harsh winter that followed had been the last straw. The family had nearly starved that winter and did not have sufficient money to buy seed and replacement animals. Surviving another winter in Wales was not assured. Collin decided to quit farming and look for work in one of the new factories built in the region.
The family had planted crops and raised sheep and goats on the 5-hectare farm for at least the six generations recorded in the family Bible. Collin knew nothing else but dawn-to-dusk work to provide food and clothing for his family, just as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had done before him.
The mill employed upwards of 100 workers. In addition, there were supervisors for each of the functions performed at the mill. The employees were divided into groups, each with a specialty. For example, one group prepared the wood for the steam engine, another operated the weaving machines, and still another rolled the cloth before sending it to the shipping department. The workers who maintained the steam engine and the weaving machines were paid more than the others because their jobs required the most skill. Each group of workers had a supervisor who gave instructions, set work schedules, and made sure every man and woman did his or her job in a specified manner.
Collin checked in at the plant gate and was shown to a little room off to the side, where he was met by a supervisor. “You are assigned to the clean-up crew in the weaving area,” the supervisor said. “You will be paid 1 shilling per week. Hours are 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday with 30 minutes off for lunch, as long as you have completed all your morning assignments. The mill will be closed Sundays and Christmas Day.” Collin was relieved that his family would have sufficient money to feed themselves. He also noted that he was expected to put in fewer hours at the mill than the average he spent working on the farm. He also looked forward to a new kind of work, although he wondered what his deceased father would have thought about his decision to leave the farm.
His supervisor showed him the tasks for which he was responsible and made it clear that Collin should look to him for guidance or assistance. Collin noticed an office overlooking the weaving department floor. He was told later that it was where the plant superintendent and the assistant superintendent worked, as well as the bookkeepers, timekeepers, payroll staff, and salesmen. In his first two years of working at the mill, he never met the plant superintendent, nor did he ever see the “big boss,” the owner of the mill who lived in a distant city and seldom visited the site.
Collin didn’t miss a day of work in his first year at the new workplace. He moved up from the cleaning crew to a position in the weaving department and became quite skilled at the task to which he was assigned. Rowena observed a different Collin, however.
“I work hard and I get paid enough to keep food on the table and clothes on our backs. Not much else matters, does it?” he replied in response to his wife’s questioning.
“You don’t seem to care about the work the way you did when you worked here on the farm,” Rowena said. “It seems like you are going through the motions. You never tell me about the problems you are struggling with and the dreams you have for the future like you did here on the farm.”
“It’s like being one of the oxen on our farm,” Collin replied. “I get fed regularly, but at work time I’m put in a yoke that doesn’t give me much freedom. I don’t have to think much about what I’m doing, let alone dream about my future.”
“Maybe it will be different if I can become a supervisor at the mill someday. Then I will be somebody. I will have some control. I bet I could improve that place if I were in a position to have some say in things.”
Collin Doherty is a character of my creation. He was born of my reading about the Industrial Revolution and is a composite of the ordinary people who pop up in the histories of the period. So while he may be fictional, he is true.
Most historians mark the Industrial Revolution as a pivotal moment in our economic and social history. The nature of work changed in fundamental ways. Until Thomas Newcomen’s invention of the first practical steam engine in 1711, most people worked the land as farmers and before that as hunters and gatherers. Large organizations of working people were mostly limited to soldiers, servants, or slaves. During the Middle Ages craft shops sprung up in the cities, but each shop typically provided work for only a small number of people. When building the great cathedrals of Europe, men banded together to work for years on a single project, an organizational structure that had some elements of the Industrial Revolution workplace. However, it was not until industrialization began that the workplace changed rapidly for millions of people like Collin Doherty.
Many of the attitudes that took hold during the Industrial Revolution linger on today, a circumstance brought to my attention by author Bob Waterman, who in our early days at AES had walked us through his Seven-S framework. “Based on what you know about the workplace and organizational arrangements of those businesses operating several hundred years ago, what were the assumptions made by the owner/managers about the workers who labored in their factories?” he asked.
I have asked that same question hundreds of times of people in my company, students in colleges and graduate schools, government employees, and leaders in many other organizations. Here is a summary of their responses:
♦ Workers are lazy. If they are not watched, they will not work diligently.
♦ Workers work primarily for money. They will do what it takes to make as much money as possible.
♦ Workers put their own interests ahead of what is best for the organization. They are selfish.
♦ Workers perform best and are most effective if they have one simple, repeatable task to accomplish.
♦ Workers are not capable of making good decisions about important matters that affect the economic performance of the company. Bosses are good at making these decisions.
♦ Workers do not want to be responsible for their actions or for decisions that affect the performance of the organization.
