Joy at Work. Dennis W. Bakke
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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.
♦ Workers need care and protection just as children need the care of their parents.
♦ Workers should be compensated by the hour or by the number of “pieces” produced. Bosses should be paid a salary and possibly receive bonuses and stock.
♦ Workers are like interchangeable parts of machines. One “good” worker is pretty much the same as any other “good” worker.
♦ Workers need to be told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Bosses need to hold them accountable.
These assumptions have had a profound effect on personnel arrangements and decision-making structures in large businesses, governments, schools, and other large organizations. Specialization became the rule. Lines of authority were clear. Workers were told exactly what was expected of them. A curious arrangement of staff and line positions emerged (experts suggest that the Prussian Army was the first to use this approach, late in the 19th century). The paternalistic impulse led to the creation of “benefits” that were provided in lieu of cash (free or cut-rate housing, schooling, and medical care). Most of the systems, controls, compensation criteria, and decision-making and leadership styles that we find in organizations today can be traced to these beliefs about workers.
When I ask people whether they believe the assumptions listed above still apply to modern-day working people, especially in the Western world, almost everyone says no. Most would agree with Max De Pree, a manufacturing executive who was a pioneer in participatory management, that advanced countries are entering a period in which 80 percent of workers will make their living by brainpower.
However, based on my own observations, I suspect that many corporate leaders still hold some Industrial Revolution views. What’s more, many of the approaches and practices in modern workplaces are nearly as demeaning as those used during the Industrial Revolution. Executives are either oblivious to the similarities—or won’t admit them. These are the only plausible explanations for the relative lack of change in the structure of work in modern corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations.
A newborn shark, 6 or 7 inches long, can survive in the sort of fish tank seen in homes, but its growth is seriously stunted and its body deformed. It becomes extremely aggressive and can be kept from escaping only if the tank has a heavy cover.
Have new assumptions about working people eliminated work environments that resemble this cramped aquarium—and that prevent them from reaching their potential? Obviously, much has changed. The hours are shorter. The workplace is physically more pleasant. Compensation is usually higher. Workers have more legal rights and protections.
Fundamentally, however, working conditions in large organizations today are no more exciting, rewarding, or fun than they were 250 years ago. Most working people are boxed in by job descriptions and corporate hierarchies and have little opportunity to make decisions on their own. I was struck by this lack of freedom during visits to Japan in the 1980s. Several bestselling books had been written in the previous decade analyzing and to some extent glorifying Japanese business prowess. I got a very different impression. What struck me was that work in Japan lacked passion and joy. Fun was something that happened away from the workplace. Work was work and play was play, and the two never overlapped. Japanese “salarymen” didn’t leave work as much as escape it, often during hard-drinking nights with the “boys.”
In the modern workplace, an employee’s full talents are rarely used and often go unnoticed. Damian Obiglio, who led an AES distribution company that won the award for the finest utility in Brazil several years running, tells the story of a young man who worked in a city library in Argentina for a decade. His job was to put the books that had been returned to the library back on the shelves where they belonged. Each day he faithfully put in his eight hours and left the library immediately. He showed no interest in taking on greater responsibilities at the library, and none of his colleagues ever engaged him in conversation about his interests or hopes for the future. He caused no problems.