Today’s Workplace from Opposite Ends of the Telescope
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© October 13, 2019
A Reader Writes:
Jim,
I highly recommend that you read The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite, by Yale Law Professor Daniel Markovits.
My reading of your work very often suggests you are still living in the 70s. I left corporate America in 2011 and I’m also a bit behind in the reality this book explores. Markovits makes a case worthy of much reflection and rethinking that runs counter to your recent thesis.
Charles D. Hayes
http://amazon.com/author/charlesdhayes
http://www.autodidactic.com/
http://www.septemberuniversity.org/
http://self-university.blogspot.com/
http://septemberuniversity.blogspot.com/
My Response:
Charles,
It is always a delight to hear from you although we seem to look at things from opposite ends of the telescope.
My entire career, once I left R&D as a chemist, has been in management and/or consulting both as an outside/inside consultant.
I admit to being a conservative in terms of the complex organization and a liberal in terms of environmental issues, which puts me at loggerheads with those of both persuasions on any given situation.
That said, all the way back to “Confident Selling” (1971) to “Work Without Managers” (1991), “The Worker, Alone!” (1995), and up to and beyond “The Post-Modern Worker Exposed!” (2019), I’ve advocated what professor Markovits is saying, but from the other end of the telescope. Small wonder his thesis is counter to my own.
The problem is not the lack of meritocracy; the problem is professionals are not ready to “take charge” and suffer the glory of victory and the shame of defeat that management has endured for the past 100 plus years.
Management, as is true of the church, has the will but no longer controls the way.
Your reference to my being stuck in the 1970s is interesting. I have been wailing since then about the "spoiled brat" mentality dominating the professional class. Incidentally, the original manuscript title of “Time Out for Sanity” was “Our Chronic Culture Viewed from the 1970s.”
It fascinates me that many of these opinionated academics read such people as me without acknowledgement. When “Work Without Managers” came out, it was reviewed on NPR, featured in Industry Week and The Wall Street Journal magazine, Across the Board, while Fortune magazine blared with a cover story of WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS, but not a word about my effort. I wrote to FORTUNE, but never received a reply.
One day, when I am gone, some historian like Jacques Barzun will redress the oversight, of that I am certain.
Meanwhile, and this is why I have a problem with academics, they can push for change outside the arena but you must be inside the arena to appreciate its dysfunction.
In "The Worker, Alone!" (1995), I advocated professionals "go against the grain" of corpocracy. It fell on deaf ears. Admirable as academia's intentions, professionals in 2019 remain worriedly apprehensive in the closet of their despair waiting to be rescued. It is unlikely to happen.
Charles D. Hayes
http://amazon.com/author/charlesdhayes
http://www.autodidactic.com/
http://www.septemberuniversity.org/
http://self-university.blogspot.com/
http://septemberuniversity.blogspot.com/
My Response:
Charles,
It is always a delight to hear from you although we seem to look at things from opposite ends of the telescope.
My entire career, once I left R&D as a chemist, has been in management and/or consulting both as an outside/inside consultant.
I admit to being a conservative in terms of the complex organization and a liberal in terms of environmental issues, which puts me at loggerheads with those of both persuasions on any given situation.
That said, all the way back to “Confident Selling” (1971) to “Work Without Managers” (1991), “The Worker, Alone!” (1995), and up to and beyond “The Post-Modern Worker Exposed!” (2019), I’ve advocated what professor Markovits is saying, but from the other end of the telescope. Small wonder his thesis is counter to my own.
The problem is not the lack of meritocracy; the problem is professionals are not ready to “take charge” and suffer the glory of victory and the shame of defeat that management has endured for the past 100 plus years.
Management, as is true of the church, has the will but no longer controls the way.
Your reference to my being stuck in the 1970s is interesting. I have been wailing since then about the "spoiled brat" mentality dominating the professional class. Incidentally, the original manuscript title of “Time Out for Sanity” was “Our Chronic Culture Viewed from the 1970s.”
It fascinates me that many of these opinionated academics read such people as me without acknowledgement. When “Work Without Managers” came out, it was reviewed on NPR, featured in Industry Week and The Wall Street Journal magazine, Across the Board, while Fortune magazine blared with a cover story of WORK WITHOUT MANAGERS, but not a word about my effort. I wrote to FORTUNE, but never received a reply.
One day, when I am gone, some historian like Jacques Barzun will redress the oversight, of that I am certain.
Meanwhile, and this is why I have a problem with academics, they can push for change outside the arena but you must be inside the arena to appreciate its dysfunction.
In "The Worker, Alone!" (1995), I advocated professionals "go against the grain" of corpocracy. It fell on deaf ears. Admirable as academia's intentions, professionals in 2019 remain worriedly apprehensive in the closet of their despair waiting to be rescued. It is unlikely to happen.
Management is not bad. Management has simply run out of gas!
Ever in admiration of your incredible career as a thinker and writer, I remain
Jim
No comments:
Post a Comment