October 7th, 2003
The extraordinary power of ordinary workers
Over the past weeks we have examined workplace trends in productivity, capital, governance, social responsibility, technology, and the consumer that are reshaping the world of work. This, the seventh workplace trend, gets me excited because it paints a positive, hopeful picture of how organizations could, and should, begin to function based on a renewed faith in the capability of the ordinary employee.
As I look back over the first six trends I notice a thread running through these changes. As each trend evolves, it sparks the others to evolve. Technology energizes productivity. The democratization of capital through employee ownership fuels personal responsibility. An educated consumer demands social responsibility, effective governance, and better quality and service. Could you imagine what would happen to all these things if we really tapped into the mind power of the workforce?
Are you in awe of the potential in the people around you? I am frequently reminded of the extraordinary wisdom of ordinary people. When I facilitate leadership development workshops I find the participants to be thoughtful and observant, with much to teach me. Yet how many of us, when it comes to how we run a business, act from a position of arrogance and condescension?
From an historical perspective, the American experiment in
personal freedom and the democratization of capital is unique and
breathtaking. As a nation we have put to
the lie Karl Marx’s thesis that all history can be viewed as the conflict
between exploiters and the exploited.
Despite the ignorant blathering of the media elite,
But as a nation we have also proved Marx’s thesis that economic structures are inextricably linked to societal organization. Nothing forces political freedom more powerfully than free markets. And while capital can and does concentrate within corporate entities, in most cases that power is nothing more than the collective power of millions of stockholders.
I find it amusing to hear the chatter about “global corporations”, the latest “radical chic” target for professional protestors. Who, exactly, are these protestors demonizing? Do they begrudge the CEO, an individual employed at the mercurial whim of a board of directors? Are they demonizing the millions of investors collecting monthly pensions? Are they vilifying the Starbuck’s employee trying to pay for college while serving Latté to overworked businesspeople? No, you will never hear protesters put a name to their faceless villains, save the obligatory reference to the long-suffering Dick Cheney. The protestors are angry at the very phenomena of organized wealth.
But organized wealth is not, in itself, evil. The evil lies in a paternalistic elitism that believes ignorant masses must be shepherded by a ruling class. In the workplace, that paternalism shows up as a hierarchical “top-down” management playing God with the lives of employees and stockholder’s wealth. The Total Quality Movement was based, in large degree, on the destruction of that paternalistic structure. The Total Quality Movement argued that employees who do the work know more about how to make things better than anyone else. The Total Quality mindset transformed the role of the manager from that of benevolent dictator to that of a leader charged with releasing the potential of workers. And while we applaud the progress that Total Quality has made in the past two decades, perhaps the time has come to move far beyond trite “employee involvement” initiatives in the manufacturing environment that are often abandoned when a business hits a financial bump.
The mind power of the individual worker may indeed be the single largest untapped resource in business today. Releasing that power is THE leadership challenge for the coming decades. We are challenged to invert the pyramid and stand in awe of the extraordinary wisdom of ordinary workers.
Syndicated columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance. Visit www.makingitwork.com
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