The New Old Plague
This is the era of the professional worker. And, paradoxically, it's an era in which the workforce is regimented for jobs and workplaces, more often than not, which no longer exist.
While literally everything has changed, conditions for the working professional, that vaunted knowledge worker, have not. In shameful fashion, workplace professionals are assigned, evaluated, categorized and promoted by means of criteria intended for a time long past; with protocols that have little to do with their professional potential, ethics or, incredibly, actual job requirements.
Inexplicably, "modern" workplace professionals are managed, motivated, mobilized and manipulated in conformance with a long outdated model; a model characterized by position power hierarchies, ritualistic routines and restrictive practices that contribute little to the bottom line; the contrary actually.
In part, we can blame this on the unrelenting explosion in technology, which has accelerated since “The Worker Alone!” was first published in 1995. This tsunami of technology resulted in spiraling costs to employers and constant coping by workers. Call it an enormous distraction. If the obvious purpose of a company is "what it does", and "what it does" is simply housekeeping, not aligned with corporate objectives, then it becomes a serious problem, and it has.
Meanwhile, against this backdrop of coping with new technology, the corporate “system” engages tenaciously in “business as usual” practices, with implacable authority, despite setback after setback. It operates as 'knowing' rather than 'learning' institutions, disregarding valuable lessons.
Rx: For a Healthier Workplace
How then do we reawaken and revitalize a profoundly unconscious workplace? It's easy to point fingers at management, but that does not adequately address the issue. Nor does it deal with the larger problem of a devotion to the status quo; workers are content to wait for someone to take charge and lift them out of their malaise while managers reprove workers for their reluctance to exercise initiative. Ironically, professional workers wait and hope for someone to lead, when it is they, alone, who possess the necessary tools and acumen. They wait, timidly, for the vested powers to finally come to their senses, when those interests have far too much invested in the current reality to gamble on change.
Meaningful change will come about only when workers, aided by managers, summon the courage to bring about change from within. There is neither an upside to hope, nor a downside to courage. But make no mistake; courage is both the engine of survival and the means to prevail.
Change as a natural occurrence has its own impetus, but lacks conscious direction. It is aimless and unreliable. Change is a random variable in the work environment and thus of secondary concern. Change of the deliberate sort, needed change, comes from having a center, and manifests as a behavioral construct.
There are pitfalls to avoid, however. Needed change takes more than a change in attitude, more than good intentions, more than catchy slogans, more than a positive work climate, or a generous confection of incentives. Necessary change requires a radical change of mindset, accompanied by a structural change in the way workers and managers execute their roles and conduct their relationship vis-à-vis each other. Simply, it takes hard work. Favorable impressions may result, but they are not the goal.
Essential change now calls for professional workers to go against the grain, to oppose the status quo. Plainly stated, it is time for professional workers to take charge!
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How We Got Here
The corporate luxury of passively believing that “doing everything one can for workers, and in return expecting workers to be motivated to do everything they can for the company,” is an extravagance companies can no longer afford. It's a strategy that has proven counterproductive to the extreme.
Entitlements and perks were expected to increase worker creativity and productivity. Instead, these confections have resulted in counter-dependence and learned helplessness. When the connection between contribution and compensation was lost, workers became isolated from the reality of company dynamics, from the imperatives of daily operations in meeting the relentless demands of the marketplace.
Replacing this essential linkage was worker reliance on the comforts delivered by management. It led to professional complacency and counter-dependence on the company for their total well being. Workers brought their bodies to work and left their minds at home. Captive to this chronic disorder, many companies now struggle to remain solvent and to compete in the global economy.
Contrary to what orthodoxy insists, harmony is not the glue that holds a company on task. Managed conflict is. But employees have been conditioned to shy away from confrontation, to avoid conflict, to shun risk taking of any sort, the opposite of being self-directed.
More than a half-century of this programming has resulted in the work force that we have today; one largely reactive at the expense of taking the initiative. Now, when creativity is required, workers are unable and unwilling to respond. It's simply not part of their makeup. For too long, companies promoted security, and were willing to give workers everything except control of work. Lethargy, and passivity is the bitter product of this oversight.
When workers operate as renters instead of owner-stakeholders, contribution consists of safely following protocols, not productive, purposeful collaboration between workers and managers.
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Dumping the Trash
Envisioning a new reality, workers and managers can be equal partners, but not until we see the following changes:
(1) Performance appraisal systems phased out. Perfunctory PAS is an elitist management practice that does nothing except reinforce position power. The new relationship between workers and managers is organic, fluid and interdependent. Workers pursue goals entirely consistent with overall company direction, while management provides clarity and context.
(2) Personal reward and recognition programs for professionals (i.e., cash and prizes) eliminated. Incentives have proven to encourage bad behavior and to de-motivate knowledge workers. They have also proven to inhibit cooperation and to foster wasteful internal competition. Workers prefer ownership of what they do provided they are given the tools to do the job, and the liberty (control) to perform the task in their own inimitable style, measured against parameters understood and agreed upon. The work is the reward for professionals.
(3) Business unit competition suspended as overall organizational performance is emphasized. Creating discrete business units or departmental functions to compete against each other stymies creativity and leads to imitation at the expense of the overarching mission of the corporate entity. Although counterintuitive, it is nonetheless factual that when each function or department in a complex system is performing as well as it can, the overall system is not. Conversely, when these departments or functions focus on one shared objective, the organization succeeds beyond expectations. It is the nature of synergy.
(4) Cease and desist with micro-management. Over control creates reactionary workers. When failures occur, it is “not my problem!” They wait for management to solve the problem, when only they have the moxie and facilities to do so. Micro-management weakens workers resolve creating a vacuum in which chaos thrives. Crisis management follows, a perpetual cycle in which management solves problems it creates, while workers take pleasure in the charade, failing to see they are also victims. On the other hand, when workers are given ownership of what they do, they quickly resolve each issue as it arises, not waiting for management to intervene. In this work climate, chronic problems are addressed at the source.
(5) Cease to see management as distinct from professional workers. Managers are atavistic and management, as we know it, is anachronistic, an outmoded technology. No longer are eighty (80) percent of the workforce unskilled blue-collar workers, and twenty (20) percent management and administrative support. Now, less than twenty percent of workers are unskilled while eighty percent are professionally trained. Management today is essentially everybody. Therefore, workers need to have a sense of this new role and accountability. Stated another way, this new work climate cannot be partitioned. Quality, for example, is not only a quality department function, separate from human resources, engineering, production, administration, and sales and marketing. Quality is a matter of concern for everyone, as all functions are interdependent, part of one organic whole.
(6) Refrain from faddism. There was a time when companies were “searching” for excellence, imitating successful companies to the nth detail. Many of these companies in the end failed. Emulation was often at the expense of a regard for their immutable uniqueness. Each company is as unique from other companies as individuals are unique from other individuals. Each company has a distinctive history, value and belief system, infrastructure and relational heritage, along with proprietary highs and lows, and matchless secrets.
Corporate essence stokes (internal) aspirations, manifested in its (external) propensities. As fixated as people may be, this is more the case with companies. They run on the momentum that has brought them to this time, place and space. Mergers often end poorly because this intangible cohesiveness is not considered.
The seeds for rejuvenation are never “out there!” The better wisdom for an enterprise is to create the new out of the ashes of the old. This exploits the collective mind. The reticent majority often reveals answers concerning survival. Too frequently in panic mode, these voices are dismissed as unimportant and therefore ignored. Instead, grandiose schemes and quick fixes are entertained. They range from “hot house” training programs to cutting edge technologies to tantalizing shortcuts supposed to ensure instantaneous course corrections and cures for decades old faux pas. Stopgap measures usually carry the seductive scent of cosmetic change, while merely postponing the inevitable. Change for change’s sake is no change at all.
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Finally, Professional Workers Taking Charge
Twenty years ago it was “crunch time” for workers as professionals. This was essentially ignored, as they were too busy complaining to seize the initiative. Now they inhabit a dysfunctional system that they inherited, but did not improve.
A new crop of professionals is coming into the system with their heads down as well. They have invested heavily in education so far with a disappointing return on that investment, as good paying jobs prove difficult to find.
Once these professionals have a job, there is little sense of security as the train wrecks of conglomerates are heard in the distance. They are as angry at “the system” as were their elders, failing to realize they are the system.
"The Worker, Alone!" is a book predicated on the principal that nothing changes at work until working professionals change. Games of trendy themes like empowerment continue, because they're acceptable and safe, risking nothing to those in power. It is now urgently up to workers to put this house in order. Neither house cleaning nor finger pointing will do. Professionals must get off the dime and boldly take charge of work, their work, and the path to taking charge in life.
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© November 26, 2012
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