Bringing the Humanity Back into Human Resources

An interactive presentation by Marlowe C. Embree, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer in Psychology, UWMC

President, Business Development Group

April 10, 2003

The remarks below are not a verbatim transcript of my talk at the CWSHRM 2003 Human Resource Conference.  They are a general summary of issues and ideas covered there, along with a more extensive elaboration of some of them, and a list of print resources that are useful sources of additional information.  If you have additional questions, I would be happy to respond to them -- sometimes out of the goodness of my heart, sometimes for a fee, depending on the question.  Email me, or call me at 581-5888, and let me know!

Ringing the magic bell

In the 1994 movie The Last Butterfly, set in the Europe of the 1940's, a Jewish actor is forced by the Nazis to perform in Theresienstadt, a model city set up as a public relations ploy to show that imprisoned Jews were being well-treated.  He is supposed to put on a one-night program of fairy tales, using the town's children in his cast, and begins to seek a way to subvert the message of the show and tell the outside world just what the Nazis are up to -- even though it may cost him his life.

One of the fairy tales in the play involves a "magic bell" that, if rung, can change or undo any negative outcome in life and bring about a perfect result.  The most talented child actor in the troupe (played brilliantly by Linda Jablonska) becomes fascinated by this idea, and how it is used in the play as a metaphor for what is going on in the world.  "Ringing the magic bell" becomes a sort of code for the internees' hope that the Allies will liberate them before they are taken to the death camps.

Hopefully your own work situation is not quite as bleak as the circumstances portrayed in this film.  But like the protagonist of the film, you too may have been quietly minding your own business and your own career when, through events outside your control and not of your making, you were swept into a set of destructive and painful circumstances.  If you don't personally feel this way, you can bet that many of your co-workers do, for recent surveys consistently indicate that 70% to 80% of employed Americans would change jobs tomorrow if wishing could make it so.  That's bad news for companies that care about morale, retention, and productivity.

As the individual responsible for maintaining these and related desirable qualities at your company, if you could "ring the magic bell" at your organization, for what what would you wish?

Seven double-bind messages for human resources

One of the reasons it's so difficult for human resource professionals to "ring the magic bell" successfully is that they are subject to powerful double-bind messages that are an inherent part of their position in the organizations for which they work.  A "double-bind" is a situation in which a person is given two powerful but opposite or incompatible messages.  To succeed at one is to fail at the other, yet neither can be ignored:  that is the double bind.  In plain English, you're (expletive deleted) if you do, and you're (expletive deleted) if you don't.  Here, courtesy of Delorese Ambrose and Rosabeth Moss Kantor, are seven double-bind messages that plague most human resource professionals.

1.  Gain the trust of others... but help us to give them the axe when we no longer need them.

One of the prime directives of the HR manager is to foster trust within the ranks, by engaging in active, empathic listening, by serving as an employee advocate, by building and maintaining rapport, by enhancing morale, and more.  All of these activities are designed to convince the employee that he or she "has a friend" in the workforce, and hopefully, that's not a bald-faced lie.  Yet, when the time comes (as it often does) to downsize, rightsize, restructure, reorganize, or engage in a reduction in force, guess whose job it is to coordinate those efforts in as efficient a manner as possible, even if that completely means eroding all the trust that has been built up before?  Then, to ensure the productivity and loyalty of the surviving staff, HR is again asked to foster trust among those who remain. 

2.  Be an innovative risk-taker... but whatever you do, don't fail.

Innovation and risk are irretrievably linked.  The only way to succeed in coming up with something new is to boldly go where no one has gone before, and that means risk, because you're coloring outside the lines, moving into the area of the map that no one has ever charted -- the white spaces that on medieval maps were marked with the ominous label, "Here Be Dragons".  To innovate means to face the dragons head on, to take a chance of (at a minimum) looking like an idiot in front of all your peers.  Yet in many organizations, tolerance for failure is near zero.  "Fight the dragons, but whatever you do, don't end up as a dragon's lunch" is the unwritten mission statement of many a company.  Again, HR is often expected to lead the charge, but don't expect anyone to rescue you if you become a prisoner of the change wars.

3.  Promote work/life balance... even if you have to work 80-hour weeks to do it.

One of the deepest paradoxes of the HR profession is that what you do for others -- what, often, you are mandated or commissioned to accomplish on their behalf -- you are often not allowed to do for yourself.  That's one of the main reasons why mid-career burnout among HR professionals is so high relative to many other professionals who experience equal amounts of general stress.  That's a problem for all "generative" professions (teaching, counseling, social work) but perhaps is worse for HR folks because the unwritten ethic of the business world is that one can't openly acknowledge having limits.

4.  Become a profit center... with half the resources you used to have.

All organizations, and all departments within organizations, now have to do more with less -- to come as close as possible to the logical endpoint of being able to do everything with nothing.  But while many other functional areas may be able to compensate by harnessing the power of technology, HR is necessary dealing with issues that can't easily be automated.  At least as of this writing, Microsoft has made no headway in rolling out a piece of software that can do employee recruiting, mediate a disciplinary action, engage in coaching and mentoring, generate a strategic vision for the future, or lend a listening ear.  Efficiencies can't be built into these processes without eroding their value, so the more-with-less paradox hits HR especially hard.

5.  Think long-term... but be sure to maximize this quarter's earnings.

This one probably needs little elaboration;  it speaks for itself.  But it's a particular problem for value-added functions like HR whose impact on the bottom line are necessarily indirect, deferred, and often impossible to quantify.  If a shipbuilder is running into cost overruns, the easiest place to cut is to cancel the order for lifeboats -- a decision that makes perfect sense until you hit your first iceberg and you realize that the name of your boat is the Titanic.

6.  Be a visionary leader of change... but don't rock the boat.

When is change visionary?  When everyone else is in agreement that it was the right course of action.  But, of course, if you wait until you have that level of agreement, what you have is not change at all, but the status quo.  To introduce any change for the better, you have to begin by making things worse in the short run, but for some strange reason, this often makes you more enemies than friends.  Hence, if everyone loves you, you probably aren't doing your job very well.  "Woe to you if all people speak well of you."

7.  Empower others to make their own decisions... and do it precisely in the manner we tell you to.

Or, as Rosabeth Moss Kantor likes to put it, "Empowerment is something the top of the organization orders the middle to do for the bottom."  Then the CEO wonders why middle management is less than enthusiastic about the process.  Not everyone sees the paradox in this, unfortunately, including some politicians:  "I order you to be free.  Now!"

Why is the human resource function so particularly subject to the double bind?

Because of the need to be simultaneously high-tech and high-touch.  What this means is that businesses (and nonprofits) face a paradox today:  they are expected to simultaneously excel at two goals which are essentially incompatible.  On the one hand, they need to be (because their customers demand it) as efficient as possible, which means harnessing the power of technology and the virtues of "economies of scale", mechanizing and computerizing and outsourcing and utilizing just-in-time production and inventory methods:  high-tech.  But at the same time, they need to be (because their customers demand it) as approachable as possible:  which means building face-to-face, stable, lasting relationships with customers, knowing their names and their preferences and their foibles and their biases, treating each customer as a unique entity, and caring (or, at a bare minimum, seem to care) about human beings more than profits:  high-touch.  The problem, of course, is that anything a company (or individual employee) does to increase efficiency erodes approachability, and vice versa, so this ends up like the classic attempt to square the circle.  It can be done only if you are content with a roundish square or a pointy circle.    The burden for optimizing this impossible goal often falls squarely on the shoulders of the HR department.  After all, dealing with "soft" issues (high-touch) is your prime directive and your core mandate;  yet you cannot be insulated from the raw economic realities and the ever-increasing reach of technological impacts on the global economy (high-tech).  The result:  a sort of multiple personality disorder, in which you can succeed only by being both Fred Rogers and Chainsaw Al Dunlop at the same time.

Challenge #1:  Managing time

Close your eyes and think about the word "time".  What feelings are evoked?  If you feel tight, edgy, stressed, pressured, you are not alone.  Most Americans report feeling intensely pressed for time, and would kill to get more hours in the day.  Why is that?

We all have the same amount of hours in a week... or do we?  Those who too lightly say "yes" are not considering the important variable of so-called social time.  Social time doesn't mean time spent socializing.  It means the ways in which society dictates that we spend our time, the kinds of social messages we get about the appropriate ways of structuring and using time -- which depend, of course, on our stage in life and our roles in life.  Currently, the rules of social time for working adults include the following:  Be available 24/7, but don't neglect your family.  This means that instead of being able to separate work and personal life so that we can do an adequate job of each, we have to constantly and continuously blend them -- playing with our kids while having a cell phone plastered to one ear, for instance.  This practice captures the worst features of both work and play and combines them in one stress-inducing, inefficient mix.  To compensate, we are expected to spend our entire lives at it, with very occasional snatches of time for sleep, illness, and premature death, usually but not always in that order.

Challenge #2:  Managing the autonomy-structure tradeoff

Richard Florida likes to pose the following question to audiences around the country.  Imagine that, for some reason, only two career options were open to you.  One is working as an assembly worker in a machine shop, doing very routine assembly-line work.  For some reason (perhaps because you are related to the owner), you have not only high pay, but a guaranteed job for life.  But the mindless, routine nature of your work will never change -- 8-5 every day, five days a week, week in and week out, year in and year out.  The other option is working as a stylist in a hair salon -- with less pay and less job security, subject to the whims of the economy, but working as an independent contractor and able to more or less run your own show.  Which would you pick and why?

Nationwide (at least in Florida's quasi-random audience surveys, mostly of mid- to upper-level management types), 75% of respondents choose the hair salon.  Why?  For at least seven reasons:

1. The environment is more stimulating.  You won't be bored to death before you get a chance to retire.

2. The flexible schedule of the work is appealing.  You can set your own hours, work to the natural rhythms of customer demand.

3. The role is much more autonomous.  You're not just a cog in a wheel.  You make your own decisions, do things your own way.

4. There are many more opportunities for lifelong learning -- including opportunities to learn by talking with a wide range of different types of customers.

5. The work is, by definition, far more creative.  You get to design and implement your own approaches, try out new things.

6. There is immediate end-user (customer) feedback.  You know right away what's working and what isn't, what you're doing well and what poorly.

7. The work has more of an entrepreneurial flavor, and even though pay is initially lower than in the machine shop, there is no income ceiling -- you can rise as high as your skills and initiative allow.

Which is your company -- a machine shop or a hair salon?  Which do you want it to be five years from now?  Whose responsibility is it to achieve that objective?

Challenge #3:  Managing career pathing

It's a commonplace observation these days that the world of work has changed dramatically -- in all probability, more so in the past 25 years than in the 100 to 150 years before that.  Central to this change is a shift in the basic work paradigm or psychological employment contract of the workplace.  In the old world of work, employees essentially traded loyalty for security:  they would give up large chunks of their autonomy and define themselves primarily as extensions of a larger economic unit in exchange for lifelong tenure within that unit.  No more.  With job security in the intensive care unit (the average job in America now lasts only 3.6 years, and 1 of every 4 American households has been directly touched by the downsizing revolution), companies can't promise lifelong job security any more.  The new equation involves trading problem-solving ability (remember, a job is nothing but a formal invitation to solve or help solve a particular class of problems) for enhanced employability or marketability, whether inside the current economic unit (company) or outside of it.

In the New World of Work, it's no longer the case that "one size fits all" -- one single, universal approach to career self-management cannot possibly work for everyone.  Career expert Betsy Jaffe outlines four different "career shapes" that exist in today's world of work.  Which of them best fits you?  Why?  Which is emphasized (or incentivized) in your company?  Why?

Career shape #1:  The classic career

The first career shape is called "classic" because everyone who was employed 50 years ago -- in 1953 -- had a career that looked pretty much like this one, or at least aspired to it.  One might define this career as "climbing the ladder of success";  deciding early on a career, beginning with an entry-level position in that field, and rising predictably and steadily through the ranks (ideally, with a single company) until you finally reached the top of the ladder, where you remained until you were old enough to be retired with a fat pension and a gold watch.   (You would then spend your declining years winding that watch.)

Of course, contemporary market pressures have put significant stresses on the classic career, as many classic careerists found to their dismay in the late 80's and early 90's when the word "downsizing" first became part of everyday parlance.  Today, the "new classic" version of this career shape still emphasizes linearity, vertical career growth, and upward career mobility, but not necessarily within the same company or the same industry. 

Note that inherent in the classic career is the notion that advancement and promotion means moving increasingly away from specialist roles and into more generalist (managerial) roles.  This is one of the reasons why the classic career never really worked for everyone (although, in the 1950's, everyone had to pay lip service to it, or act as though it did work):  because it is geared more to people who are "hard-wired" in the direction of generalist, versus specialist, roles (it rewards managers more than individual contributors).  As a matter of personal career self-management, it is extremely important for you to decide early on in your career (or belatedly if you have never thought about it before) whether you are more of a specialist or more of a generalist, because this may largely dictate your choice of career shapes.  Specialists focus on (and mostly enjoy) depth -- become expert in a specific content area or branch of knowledge.  Generalists focus on (and mostly enjoy) breadth -- wearing a bunch of different hats.  Which are you?  Of course, whatever the answer, you need to maintain an appropriate balance between the two extremes, lest you become lopsided.  

A problem with the classic career is that it implies (and works best within) a traditionally constituted -- that is, pyramidal -- organization.  And, of course, pyramids, by definition, narrow at the top:  at each successive level, there is room for fewer and fewer individuals.  The result?  Most people working within the classic career shape can expect, at some time in their lives (the highest time of risk being in midlife or mid-career) to be plateaued.  Knowing how to deal productively with career plateauing -- so that one can do something more useful than simply "coast until retirement" -- is a mission-critical survival skill for classic careerists in any age.

Career shape #2:  The concentric career

Specialists, from academics to engineers to neurosurgeons to attorneys -- the world's true "knowledge workers" -- never fit in well within the classic career (and, in fact, the best and brightest of them were exempted from its demands even in the 1950's, but not always without a price).  Why?  Because their hard-wired motives run in a direction opposite to that of the traditional general manager, who seeks an increasing scope (breadth) of responsibilities that necessarily involve leaving in-depth technical information behind early in his or her career.  A true specialist type likes nothing better than becoming expert about the 80% of knowledge that few others in his or her organization care about or have the time to be bothered with.  For such a person, being promoted to a managerial position may feel like a death sentence:  first, because it takes him or her away from the specialist roles and knowledge that s/he loves;  second, because it calls on a different set of skills that may be weak suits;  third, because one can never "back down" the organizational pyramid (in companies that buy heavily into the classic career model, anyway) without being seen or labeled as a "failure".  (Thus, in the 1950's, savvy specialists had to find ways to avoid undesirable promotions -- what Laurence J. Peter called, with tongue firmly in cheek, "the strategy of creative incompetence".)

Where the classic career focuses on vertical growth, the concentric career emphasizes lateral growth (becoming better and better at one's area of chosen expertise).  Hence while generalists often compare themselves to others within the same organization, specialists often compare themselves to their "knowledge peers" across organizations and tend to identify much more strongly with their profession than with their employer.  (In a day and age in which organizations can no longer make lifelong promises to employees, this may be more adaptive than maladaptive, but like most other things in life can sometimes be carried too far, in which case the specialist gets labeled as "not a team player".)

A core danger for concentric careerists is that of overspecializing or becoming too narrow -- "learning more and more about less and less until finally you know everything about nothing", at which point, if you are an academic, you are granted tenure.  A person who is overspecialized may lose his or her ability to communicate effectively across departmental lines (with those who do not share his or her domain-specific knowledge), and can easily lose marketability and employability if s/he does not maintain sufficient second-tier, fallback skills.  (The label "overqualified" is usually applied to such people when they are on the job market.  My usual response in job interviews, although not all employers respond favorably, is, "Tell me how stupid you want me to be, and I'll do that.")

Career shape #3:  The concurrent career

The first two career shapes share in common a single, focused goal, whether that goal is to increase in breadth of responsibility and authority (the classic career) or to increase in depth of knowledge and domain-specific expertise (the concentric career).  In contrast, the remaining two career shapes are more divergent (multiple goals) than convergent (a single goal).  That's why, in the 1950's, those who pursued them would have been seen as abject failures... but in the explorative, individualistic season of the 1990's, people who pursued these paths (like the dot-com millionaires) were seen as cutting-edge successes.  And so it goes... which is why you shouldn't hitch your wagon too strongly to today's star, because tomorrow it may become a supernova.  

The concurrent careerist is a person who has taken seriously Martin Yate's advice to have three careers going at once:  a core career (that pays the lion's share of the bills today), an entrepreneurial career (which often, though not always, involves literal entrepreneurship in the form of launching a self-contained small business, though it can sometimes mean simply "moonlighting" in a field completely unrelated to the core career;  either way, this not only supplements present income, but provides a fallback position and holds potential for paying the lion's share of the bills tomorrow), and a dream career (often a hobby or avocational passion that may not pay anything at all -- yet -- but which keeps a person's dreams alive, especially if the first two careers provide more in the way of financial than of psychological rewards).  In this person's life, there is not a single center of vocational gravity;  there are three (or more) of them. 

The big danger for concurrent careerists?  Burnout!  After all, keeping three different careers going at once is exhausting, especially if one also has (or wants to have) a personal life.  I am often reminded (older readers, meaning those my age, will be able to relate to this analogy, anyway) of the man, a periodic guest on the Ed Sullivan Show, who would balance spinning dinner plates on top of bamboo poles, and would keep them spinning by running frantically from one to the next.  One pole too many, and all the plates came crashing down at once:  don't let this happen to you if you opt for the concurrent career path.  (How you avoid it is by knowing your limits and by learning how to say no.  Be honest about your limits, please:  denial is not just a river in Egypt.)

Career shape #4:  The crazy quilt career

This last career shape is one that linear, achievement-minded types (die-hard classic careerists, especially) probably look down upon -- but may, in their heart of hearts, secretly envy from time to time.  The crazy quilter is a person who (to a greater or lesser extent, through some combination of desire and necessity) has opted out of the "traditional" career pathways, and has chosen to chart his or her own course, find his or her own road (as the Saab manufacturers tell us all to do), march to the beat of a different drummer (or kazooist or flugelhornist).

What is a crazy quilt career?  It is an "anything goes with anything" work/life:  an ever-changing kaleidoscope of mix-and-match life roles, full- and part-time, conventional and entrepreneurial, "permanent" (to the extent any job can be permanent these days, which in Autumn is never) and explicitly temporary, paying and unpaying.  To this person, work is a part of life, but it can never take center stage in life.  It is a component of the good life, but never more than that;  and a job that interferes too strongly with important nonwork priorities will probably be scrapped, regardless of the effect this may have on one's resume.  (Note the connections to the "life balance" theme of Schein's model, discussed earlier.  In fact, you should be able to see parallels between his model and all of Jaffe's career shapes... can you?)

The big danger for crazy-quilters is that their chosen life may be largely uninterpretable to others.  They may see an underlying thread of logic (or, more likely, of core values) that run through all their different life choices, but others -- notably, human resource directors and others who are employment gatekeepers -- may not.  Their resumes may offer a fascinating stream of short-term jobs that seem completely unrelated to one another (food server to balloon pilot to alligator wrestler to water ski instructor to tax preparer to steeplejack).  A person who overdoes the crazy quilt approach can seem flighty -- hence, in the extreme, unemployable -- to others. 

Challenge #4:  Managing culture fit 

One of the primary workplace motivators in the contemporary workplace is the desire to "bring oneself to work" -- to be yourself, to retain your authenticity rather than checking your true self at the door.  The more a person is paid to be creative or to be a true "knowledge worker", the more central this likely is to him or her.  (It's true of us all, though, to a greater or lesser extent;  look at how universally people try to individualize their cubicles or work stations to "make them their own".)  What are you doing to foster this capacity among your employees?

The opposite of this -- the deadeningly conformist environment -- is what we call a "total institution".  A total institution -- maximum-security prisons are good examples -- values institutional efficiency above all else, and will enforce total conformity to the n-th degree in order to achieve it.  If employee orientation at your company consists of giving new workers a number and an orange jump suit, seek professional help immediately.

Some places to start

It's always good to start with yourself, for at least three reasons.  First, you have a much higher probability of changing yourself than you do of changing someone else.  (Despite this fact, many people foolishly make a career of trying to change others, a sure route to frustration and despair.)  Second, unless your own needs are adequately met, you can't effectively deal with anyone else's needs, for the same reason that you can only pour from a glass that is full, not one that is empty.  Third, one of your primary roles as an HR professional is to be a role model -- to set an example, to show the way, to lead by doing.  So what are you doing to humanize your own life and career?

One main reason many of us stay stuck (in some aspect of life or another) is because we think in black/white, all/nothing terms:  "Either I stick on a 500-calorie/day diet, or I might as well eat whatever I like."  But in fact, to work and to persist over time, effective change needs to be gradual and manageable.  So, whether you're trying to lose weight, save money, or manage your test anxiety, start small... aim for a 5% improvement in your target behavior over the next several months, not a "perfect" cure.  This works for many reasons:  one of them is that you may well do better than 5%, and then you'll feel great about yourself because you exceeded your expectations.  (In contrast, you'll almost certainly do worse than 100% improvement, which sets you up for self-blame and despair.)

In other words, the journey of a thousand miles begins with wondering whether or not you really turned off the oven before you left the house.

So, what is a small, baby step you can start taking -- this week, this month, this quarter -- to start moving your company in the direction of a more humanized workplace, even if you only achieve a 5% enhancement?

It's much more difficult to listen than most people think. That's why psychiatrists (who are mostly paid listeners) get paid so well. That's why psychiatrist and author Paul Tournier could describe 95% of human interaction as "dialogues of the deaf" -- parallel monologues in which two people talk past each other and then mistakenly call it communication.

To help people make things better, you have to begin by discovering how they see things now.  That means listening.  One good way to listen is to set up a "50/50 meeting" during which you do 50% of the talking and the other party or parties are guaranteed the other 50% of the time to say whatever they want to say without interruption.  Use active listening techniques that ensure that they've been heard to their satisfaction. 

The "yeahbuts" are that little critical voice in your head -- that, on bad days, sounds like a chorus of annoying frogs -- that second-guesses every idea you have, that pours cold water on every flaming insight.  It's the skeptic, the nay-sayer, the reactionary curmudgeon inside your own head, that keeps saying things like "yeah, but that'll never work" or "yeah, but we tried that before" or "yeah, but it'll cost too much".  Most people's good ideas die before they really get born because of the crushing power of the yeahbuts.

Actually, there are two distinct species of yeahbuts:  those inside your own head, and those inside other people's heads (you know they exist because they speak out of co-workers' mouths from time to time, or in the case of some people, nearly all the time).  Once you've learned how to silence your own yeahbuts, you'll have to learn how to manage those of others.  A hint:  never talk back to a yeahbut.  They can out-croak you.

In other words, form a support group, rather than trying to go it alone.  This can consist of fellow HR professionals across a range of industries (you have been attending monthly CWSHRM meetings regularly, haven't you?).  Or it can consist of like-minded folks from within your own company, drawn from across departmental lines.

Either way, your group should consist of people who will build you up, not tear you down.  There are basically two kinds of people in the world:  toxic people and nourishing people.  Surround yourself with the latter.  (There is no shortage of the former;  you don't have to try to find them.  They'll find you.  Always.)

It's easier to change when you're not the only one trying to change, because of the power of mutual encouragement, and also because others are smart where you're stupid (and vice versa).  Change maven Barbara Sher calls such groups "success teams".  Do you have a success team at your place of employment?

I don't have time to go into complete detail about what Lasch meant, but in brief, though, a "neighborhood culture" is a place where diverse individuals can meet and share ideas in a non-threatening way:  a "level playing field" that serves as an "intellectual marketplace".  Healthy companies, growing companies, cutting-edge companies, monopolies-in-the-making (Q:  How many Bill Gateses does it take to change a light bulb?  A:  One.   He holds the bulb steady, and the universe slowly revolves around him) all have one.  Does your company?

The opposite of the neighborhood is the suburb:  homogeneous, predictable, conformist, a place where everyone is mind-numbingly alike.  ("There's a grey one, and a green one, and a white one, and a yellow one, and they're all made out of ticky-tacky, and they all look just the same...")  Suburbs don't promote change, only stagnation.  Which is your company, a neighborhood (where people hang out and learn the value of differences) or a suburb (where everyone is isolated and no one dares stand out from the crowd)?

In his book, Richard Florida cites a fascinating one-page summary of how Microsoft manages its (highly creative) people.  I won't post it in its entirety here, because I look notoriously poor in stripes.  But one key component of Microsoft's management is the incentivization of "adaptive failure".  That is, people who work for the Gates Empire are encouraged to fail more often.  (Is this the best of all possible worlds?)  The reason:  at least up to a certain point, a high failure rate means that appropriate risks and out-of-the-box thinking are taking place.  After all, if you never try anything new, you will never fail.  You will also never succeed.

Of course, for this to work, people have to get in the habit of making different mistakes from one time to the next, rather than the same old mistake again and again.  Some people don't know this.  In fact, simply by varying your mistakes, you can outperform anyone who fails to employ that strategy, even if you are no more skilled and no more knowledgeable;  chess grandmaster I.A. Horowitz claimed that the entire key to his career success was his willingness to be randomly wrong.

I've always admired Drucker, not only for his pithy quotes ("When a subject becomes totally obsolete, we make it a required course"), but for his chutzpah (who else could have claimed to have invented management?) and his high level of intellectual contributions to the world of business over the past six decades.  (He's what I hope to be when I reach age 94, though given my current triglyceride levels, what I'm more likely to be at that age is dead.  I ride an exercise bike 35 miles a week to try to compensate, but why should I think that you care?)  He has written extensively about volunteerism (note that there has been a fivefold increase in volunteerism, especially among young people, in the past decade) and its relationship to the world of business.  Often, employees respond more effectively when you treat them as if they were volunteers, for a number of reasons.  It isn't actually necessary to stop their paychecks in order to do this.

Why does this work?  Because people respond best when they are (or think they are) intrinsically motivated.  Because people respond best when they are using their best skills, in a sequence of their own choosing, to respond optimally to tough challenges in an ever-changing environment.  Because volunteers are usually greatly appreciated, and publicly so (because something has to compensate them for their lack of monetary rewards).  For more, read any of Drucker's 91 published books;  my favorite is The Age of Discontinuity, but then, I used to wear a mood ring, too.

The key here is that it's fine to control people as long as they don't think they are being controlled, or (better still) they think they want to be controlled.  This means, among other things, asking instead of telling;  inviting rather than issuing orders;  incentivizing rather than threatening.  It means being a role model, which means knowing who your own role models are (here is a place to start if you don't know).

What is a "nerdistan"?  It's Richard Florida's term (actually he borrowed it from someone else) for enclaves of bright but bohemian, intelligent but idiosyncratic, creative but crazy types -- ideophoric alpha geeks who lie at least two standard deviations ahead of the mainstream.  The key to enhancing creative genius at your company (which is a key component of humanizing it as well) is to avoid stifling the nerdistans through excessive demands for conformity.  Of course, you may or may not want your customers to come into contact with them either;  that's the down side.  But if you can ring them about with people-wise, customer-savvy, generalist types, you may suddenly find that you are inhabiting the best of all possible worlds.  Check out Harry S. Dent, by the way, to figure out whether or not you are already a member of a nerdistan.

My final challenge:

A very wise man once told his followers, "If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them" (not just think about them).  It's been great having such an attentive audience listening to me talk.  But the key to success lies in finding one idea, out of all those I've discussed today, that you can start putting into actual practice where you live and work -- starting right now.

So my challenge to you is:  sometime over the next month, start ringing the magic bell at your company!  This assignment won't be graded, of course.  But the effectiveness of the rest of your life (and your career) will be your grade.

Bibliography of Additional Print Resources

This list provides a partial overview of print resources that have contributed directly or indirectly to my presentation or that I otherwise find of value.  They are not presented in any particular order of importance but are roughly grouped by general category.  Happy reading!  (Hyperlinked titles below are also noted on another list worth your perusal.)

The New World of Work

Ambrose, Delorese.  Healing the Downsized Organization.  New York:  Three Rivers Press, 1996.

Burton, Mary L., and Wedemeyer, Richard A.  In Transition.  New York:  Harper Collins, 1991.

Bridges, William.  Job Shift.  Reading, MA:  Addison-Wesley, 1994.

Florida, Richard.  The Rise of the Creative Class.  Reading, MA:  Perseus Books, 2002.

Potter, Beverly.  The Way of the Ronin.  New York: Amacon, 1984.

Jaffe, Betsy.  Altered Ambitions.  New York:  Donald I. Fine, 1991.

Jackson, Tom.  Not Just Another Job.  New York:  Random House, 1992.

Farren, Caela.  Who’s Running Your Career?  Austin, TX:  Bard Press, 1997.

Harkness, Helen.  The Career Chase.  Palo Alto, CA:  Davies-Black, 1997.

Sheerer, Robin.  No More Blue Mondays.  Palo Alto, CA:  Davies-Black, 1999.

Johnson, Spencer.  Who Moved My Cheese?  New York:  Putnam, 1998.

Lore, Nicholas.  The Pathfinder.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1998.

Strauss, William, and Howe, Neil.  Generations:  The History of America’s Future.  New York:  William Morrow, 1991.

Strauss, William, and Howe, Neil.  The Fourth Turning:  An American Prophecy.  New York:  Broadway Books, 1997.

Kantor, Rosabeth M.  The Change Masters.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Friedman, Thomas M.  The Lexus and the Olive Tree:  Understanding Globalization.  New York:  Anchor Books, 2000.  

Yate, Martin J.  Beat the Odds.  New York:  Ballantine Books, 1995.

Drucker, Peter F.  The Age of Discontinuity.   New Brunswick : Transaction Publications, 1992.
 

Interests, Motives, and Desires

Butler, Timothy, and Waldroop, James.  Discovering Your Career in Business.  Reading, MA:  Perseus Books, 1997.

Schein, Edgar.  Career Anchors.  San Diego:  Pfeiffer and Co., 1993.

Hochheiser, Robert M.  It's a Job, Not a Jail.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1998.  

Dent, Harry S. Jr.  Job Shock.  New York:  Hyperion, 1995.

Miller, Adrienne, and Goldblatt, Andrew.  The Hamlet Syndrome.  New York:  William Morrow, 1989.

Strengths and Skills

Buckingham, Marcus, and Clifton, Donald O.  Now, Discover Your Strengths.  New York:  Free Press, 2001.

Sternberg, Robert J.  Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.  

Seligman, Martin.  Authentic Happiness.  New York:  Free Press, 2002.

Personality, Temperament, and Style

Briggs, Isabel M.  Gifts Differing.  Palo Alto, CA:  Consulting Psychologists Press, 1990.

Tieger, Paul T., and Barron-Tieger, Barbara.  Do What You Are.  Boston:  Little-Brown, 1995.

Harary, Keith, and Donohue, Eileen.  Who Do You Think You Are?  San Francisco:  Harper Collins, 1994.

Keirsey, David.  Please Understand Me II.  Del Mar, CA:  Prometheus Nemesis Press, 1998.

Oldham, John M., and Morris, Lois B.  The Personality Self-Portrait.  New York:  Bantam, 1990.

Change and Transition

Bridges, William.  Managing Transitions.  Reading, MA:  Addison-Wesley, 1991.

Gleick, James.  Chaos: Making a New Science.  New York:  Penguin, 1988.

Styles of Thinking and Learning

De Bono, Edward.  Six Thinking Hats.  Boston:  Back Bay Books, 1999.

De Bono, Edward.  Six Action Shoes.  New York:  Harper Business,  1991.

De Bono, Edward.  Lateral Thinking.  London:  Word Lock Educational, 1970.

Levine, Mel.  A Mind At A Time.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 2002.

Challenge, Crisis, and Conflict

Amen, Daniel.  Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.  New York:  Times Books, 2000.

Augsburger, David.  Caring Enough to Confront.  Glendale, CA:  G/L Regal Books, 1980.

Aronson, Elliott, and Patnoe, Shelley.  The Jigsaw Classroom.  New York:  Longman, 1997.

Dempcy, Mary H., and Tihista, Rene.  Dear Job Stressed.  Palo Alto, CA:  Davies-Black, 1996.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly.  Finding Flow.  New York:  Basic Books, 1997.

Character, Mission, and Meaning

Covey, Stephen R.  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Thorndike, ME:  G.K. Hall, 1997.

Frankl, Viktor.  Man’s Search for Meaning.  Boston:  Beacon Press, 1963.

Bolles, Richard Nelson.  The Three Boxes of Life.  Berkeley, CA:  Ten Speed Press, 1978.

Styles of Leadership

Fiedler, F. E.  “A contingency model of leadership effectiveness.”  In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 1).  New York:  Academic Press, 1964.

Bennis, Warren. Leading People is Like Herding Cats.  Provo, UT:  Executive Excellence Publishing, 1997.

Bass, B.M.  Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations.  New York:  Free Press, 1985.

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