Cold Shower 6: Advent of the New Professional Worker

Cold Shower Advent of the Professional Worker Vol. I, Art. VI

This is a column by Dr. James R. Fisher, Jr., industrial psychologist and former corporate executive for Nalco Chemical Company and Honeywell Europe Ltd. For the past 30 years he has been working and consulting in North & South America, Europe and South Africa. Author of seven books and more than 300 articles on what he calls cultural capital – risk taking, self-reliance, social cohesion, work habits and relation to power – for a changing work force in a changing workplace, he writes about interests of the modern worker. Dr. Fisher started out as a laborer in a chemical plant, worked his way through college, and ended in the boardrooms of multinational corporations. These columns are designed to provoke discussion.

Question:

Dr. Fisher, you write about the “professional worker,” emphatically arguing that this is the new worker who is to dominate the workplace. Yet in point of fact, if I read you correctly, these are workers who have invested time and money in an extended professional education. I am one of these workers with a Ph.D. and I have been sacked. Explain this to me if you can.

Dr. Fisher replies:

Behavior in society is a function of culture. We behave the way we do because we are programmed to behave in that manner. Western society in particular and the global community in general is in the midst of a massive power shift from a paternalistic controlling authority of a privileged few to the reluctant sway of the reticent majority. I say reluctant and reticent because this work force has not been programmed to lead. Since it doesn’t know how to lead, it complains and projects its frustration creating an incredible vacuum, which I call leaderless leadership, which contaminates virtually every institution of modern society from the state to the church, from commerce to education, from industry to the military, and all the indices in between this network of confusion.

Nothing on earth can reverse the intuitive physics of professional power. Science and technology have forced knowledge into every fissure of human existence, and in doing so have shifted the fulcrum of power from the few to the many. We still have plutocrats who struggle to hold control by controlling wealth, which they see as the seat of power, but they are wrong. Power resides in knowledge and workers control this currency by a wide margin, as it flows into every nook and cranny of its collective body.

What happens in every age is that a painful lag persists between the resistance of the old guard and the reluctance to take hold of the new guard. Those in power sense the pending takeover. The old guard’s worst nightmares are about to come true. Corporate executives vote themselves exorbitant bonuses with impunity while the real wages of most workers continue to shrink, and what do these workers say? Nothing? What do they do? Nothing? What masquerades, as leadership is the faculty for cutting costs through work force reduction, relocation of operations to Third World countries, and creative financing. Stockholders are romanced while stakeholders are taken for granted.

The twentieth century has seen this new professional increasingly embittered, and estranged from his workplace and society, while attempting to be sustained on bromides to appease his frustration. Structural change in the home, church, school, government and workplace is overdue. But the professional would like this to occur by osmosis, or without any risk, pain or personal involvement. He wants to stay within the comfort of his profession and let someone else dismantle the anachronistic system and atavistic management, while he waits for it to happen. This only extends the agony. Society is no longer a comfortable Newtonian machine. It is moving finally toward a human structure with a central nervous system where power resides with this new worker as its backbone. Unfortunately, this worker seems to be the last to know.

The process of acculturation is slow but persistent:

Explorers in the 15th century led by Vasco de Gama, Hernando Cortez, Ponce de Leon, Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan pushed back the veil of ignorance and isolation to broaden horizons.
Theologians emerged from the Dark Ages of the 16th century to breathe new life into Western man: Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Thomas More, and Desiderius Erasmus. The power of the Holy See of Rome was challenged. The individual prospered as reading, once limited to royalty and the clergy, now was available to the common man. The man of property, not poverty emerged. Capitalism was secure and enlightenment was on the mind of the times.
Pilgrims led the way in the 17th century as they ventured to the new world where they could enjoy freedom and equality of religious expression. Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock in North America and the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
Lawyers were most prominent in the 18th century as commercial expansion and capitalism dealt mighty blows to King George III of England in the American Revolution and King Louis XVI in France in the French Revolution. Constitutional lawgivers translated rebellion into permanent rights.
Engineers showed the way in the 19th century fueling the Industrial Revolution, building the Suez Canal, opening the way for the Panama Canal, while changing the landscape of enterprise with telegraph, telephone, electricity, and the modern factory. Engineers spaded the first technological war, the American Civil War.
Managers dominated the 20th century. It was management that won WWII on and off the battlefield. Modern management was born in WWI and reached fruition in WWII. Personnel and logistical management spelled the difference.

Now the explorer, theologian, pilgrim, lawgiver, engineer and manager are leaving center stage for the newest occupant, the professional worker. This worker embodies the collective wisdom of all his predecessors. He, too, will eventually be replaced but he is to dominate the 21st century as they have previously dominated their respective centuries. He is here but not yet heeded. Trauma is penciled on his brow as he waits for permission to take charge. He lacks the boldness to assert himself of his predecessors. The world waits for him to wake up to his new role. This may not be the explanation you wanted but it is the explanation you need to hear. So, get off your tush and do something about it. This is not the time to seek or wait for your advantage, but to create your advantage.

Copyright (1996) See The Worker, Alone! Going Against the Grain (1995), and Corporate Sin: Leaderless Leadership & Dissonant Workers (2000). For bloggers, The Worker is discounted to $10, and Corporate Sin to $15 (shipping & handling included).