Hey man. It is good to be back (although it was really good to be gone) and nice job here on the blog…you have done some serious work with this series, and YES…there is a lot to respond to.

Good stuff.

I do not completely agree.

As you probably expected.

I think that business does need to be saved. You said early in this series that “business finds a way to do business, despite the changing landscape.” Not so much. The lifespan of a business organization is not that long and it is actually getting shorter. I see growing evidence that business is clinging to irrelevance.

I think that business very much needs to be saved…from itself.

I am not trying to make any grand political argument here about capitalism in general. I just see business in general as feeding on the goose that lays the golden eggs. I have no problem with capitalism, but capitalism piloted by individuals, organizations and institutions with an extremely short term focus becomes dangerous and reckless. Over time it actually compromises its own ability to respond to the world around it…it becomes overly reliant on manipulation of perception, markets, politics, etc., rather than new ways of creating value. There is no shortage of examples of this in the form of individual organizations that have gotten very good at doing one thing and focused on exploiting that to maximize short term gains (and share all of their “best practices”)…and then all of a sudden found themselves irrelevant and gone.

I do think business needs to be saved, and I think that one of the defining issues of our time will be whether we have the courage to save it or not.

But this is maybe a minor disagreement.

More important is our disagreement in where our greatest opportunity for progress lies. A couple of statements from your original post:

“Business doesn’t need saving, people need saving.”

“What’s been broken is the employee psyche.”

Not only do I think that business does need to be saved, I think that people do not need to be saved.  People are actually very resilient and I do not think they need to be saved or that it is accurate to say that their psyches have been broken. I think that the real truth is that the employee-employer relationship is what has been broken.

AND…

…employees did not break it, business did. At least partially due to the short term ideology I mentioned above.

I am always okay with looking at what individual employees can do to use their power to influence change, but I am never okay with the idea that it is all on them.

b = f (p / e)

Kurt Lewin said that behavior is a product of both the person and the environment (system). When we just focus on the individual, we discount the environment and we ignore power dynamics. This is the approach that leads people to say the solution to poverty lies in poor people working harder. It leads people to believe that we would not have to worry about diversity in the workplace if women and people of color just worked harder and complained less. It discounts environment and power, both of which are huge variables.

This is the same reason why I get scratchy when I hear talk about “empowering employees” …I personally do not see a lot of employees in need of “being empowered.” I see a lot of employees that would benefit from having a whole heap of bullshit politics, absurd processes and bad management gotten out of their way.

When nobody is talking about power, that is where it unquestionably exists, at once secure and great in its unquestionability.

–Ulrich Beck

I am always a fan of personal growth, accountability and responsibility. I love the six things you have spoken to in your series. I also know that you can have and apply all of those things and still get bounced out on your ass.

Inside of the organization today, the employer has centralized power and the employee has diffused power…employees can (and do) drive change, but the deck is stacked against them. You can look back to our collective work experiences to see some examples of how difficult it is to drive change as an individual.

I think that movements to change systems and movements to change the individuals inside those systems are both flawed, we have to do both. They must be parallel, symbiotic efforts. They have to be, because fundamental to real sustainable change is acknowledging and changing the balance of power. We have to include and involve both parties to do that.

I think that you and I have some obligation to swing with both fists, to support and promote individual growth, commitment and courage and also to challenge the environment and speak about power.

-joe

Joe,

My reign of terror on the blog is over as I wrap up this, my eighth post in a row (good lord I do a lot of work around here).  It’s been a while so I wanted to reset why I headed off on this series.

Work is broken.

That’s the only way to explain why so many surveys of employee opinions reveals that over 50% of us are ready to leave our employer at the first sign of a job that might be better.  We are not satisfied with our work experience.  I believe that we want to give more, to do more.  But we expect so much more from our employers than what we are getting today.  This relationship is really dysfunctional.

The only way this all gets better is if we make a decision as employees that we are going to make it better.  That starts with us.  It starts with developing ourselves to make impact and to be uniquely valuable to the business community that consumes our work.  Then, we will be in a position to change the terms of our relationship.

I’ve give you a lot to react to.  What are your thoughts?

Welcome back.

Jason

Joe,

The final piece of the puzzle to taking back control of our work experience and putting work back on our terms is commitment, specifically commitment to producing results.  This is a really important element in the equation because it can be easy to slide in a self-righteous state of mind as you work to create leverage and make yourself indispensable to your employer or client.  The previous 5 things I’ve written about have all been focused on us as individuals and, specifically, the ways we can increase our ability to create value for our current and future employers.  In order for all of this to pay off, we have to be committed to delivering that value to help our employers succeed.  Without this commitment to delivering for our employers in ways that are important to them, we defeat the purpose of creating leverage.

At the end of the day, if you don’t produce results, nothing else matters.  

This is the underlying truth that exists in every business.  I am a perfect example of someone who’s gotten away with being a pain in the ass as an employee at times over the years because of my ability to deliver results.  If you can produce results and you are committed to delivering results that are superior to those around you, the world of work can be yours for the taking.   There’s nothing a business leader values more in an individual than the proven ability to deliver results.

Joe,

I think one of the biggest crises we have going on in our workplaces today is the loss of individual identity.  This isn’t the result of some insidious plot by corporate America to squeeze the personality out of the workforce, but rather the result of well-intentioned efforts over the years to introduce “process” and “efficiency” into our organizations.  Variations and deviance, even in small degrees, cause systems to operate less efficiently.  So, when companies are intensely focused on efficiency, they tend to drive to consistency and sameness.  The problem is that people are complex animals who each have their own individual weirdness.  And when you try to drive a standard of consistency and sameness on a complex animal, something’s got to give.

The give has been in the employee’s spirit.  Their soul and passion for work.  It is impossible to be fully and passionately engaged in anything that doesn’t invite you to be fully who you are, weirdness and all.

The big problem is that most companies and executives aren’t aware that they are squeezing the indivdualism out of their workforce.   Most executives have long since lost their ability to remember what it feels to be a front line employee, so when they approve broad sweeping policies and process improvement initiatives that mandate a “stepford wives” system in their company, they don’t even notice.

In order to put work back on our own terms, we must break this trend.  Individuals need to realize that giving up their weirdness is a choice and it’s not a required on.  We must get in touch with and embrace our weirdness, weave it together to form our own unique and beautiful freak flag, and then to fly that flag proudly.  Now, I’m not advocating for being different for the sake of being different or for being a rabble-rouser as daily activity.  What I am advocating is being crystal clear on who your are, what’s important to you (your values and beliefs) and then acting accordingly.  This means making conscious choices about when you will “fit in” and when you will “stand out.”  Fitting in is highly over-rated.  Anything that is memorable or exceptional stands out.  Think of your favorite songs or movies or TV shows.  The reason you love them is because they are different from the pack.  What you love about them specifically is the very things that make them different.  The same is true for people.   To gain leverage in the work equation, we must be memorable and exceptional which requires us to play up and play out our differences from the pack.  We must stand out.

Being fiecely authentic in our thoughts, words and actions isn’t a tactic, it’s an imperative.  No more playing small.  No more fitting in.  One reason to fly your freak flag is to know when you are in enemy territory.  If bullets start flying at you too regularly in your work environment for being who you are, it’s probably time to move on.

To take back work, we must fly our freak flags high and march them proudly into within our work and workplaces.

Tomorrow, I will take on the last of my assertions about how to take back work, commitment.

Jason

Joe,

One of the key steps to taking back work and putting it on our terms is building a network (or as we like to call it, your posse).  In today’s world, there is no excuse for not having a big, robust, powerful network.  Social media presents us with tools that make it easier than ever before to connect to people, develop relationships, and stay in touch.

The reason to build network is to cultivate and build up social capital.  Social capital are the resources available to us through our relationships with others.  The value of social capital can show up in many different ways.

• An expert in your field who will take your calls to provide you with advice when you get stuck on a project or need another perspective
• Someone who  helps you find sales leads by recommending you or your product to others
• The IT guy or gal who will let you call them directly instead of creating a ticket to expedite getting your computer working again quickly
• A colleague with a position of influence within the organization who will back your proposal to help you gain approval or funding
• An individual who will call you if they hear any conversation that might affect your work (i.e. they help prevent you from being blind-sided)
• A mentor from outside your organization who will help you take the best steps to develop in your career
• Friends in other companies who can quickly help you get interviews and opportunities should you decide you need to move on