The Workplace Revolution: Restoring Trust in Business and Bringing Meaning to Our Work - Softcover

Gilbert, Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573249211 ISBN 13: 9781573249218

Verlag: Conari Press,U.S., 2005

Inhaltsangabe

From the Enron debacle to the Martha Stewart scandal, trust in business practices and in corporate leaders has been seriously jeopardized, hitting an all-time low. According to Matthew Gilbert in his latest book, The Workplace Revolution, the problem stems from a relentless work ethic, the tireless pursuit of profit, and the conflict between business values and human values. Today more than ever, people are waking up to the fact that they are not getting back what they give to their employers. While they are dedicating an inordinate amount of themselves to their work, their jobs offer little to meet their needs for community, self-expression, and service, and many have simply abandoned the possibility that self-serving, profit-driven companies can offer more than a paycheck. Gilbert assures us that the problem is not hopeless. In The Workplace Revolution, he provides both personal strategies and corporate methodologies for improving overall health in the workplace and restoring trust and goodwill between business leaders and their employees. With statistics and commentary from a wide range of sources and examples of companies such as Hewlett-Packard that are already balancing economic and human concerns, he demonstrates to worker and CEO alike that they can turn the experience of work into a spiritual, ideal-based, life-enhancing adventure for all concerned and still meet corporate goals. Revolutionary concepts for today's corporations and the health of their employees.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Charlotte y Peter Fiell son dos autoridades en historia, teoría y crítica del diseño y han escrito más de sesenta libros sobre la materia, muchos de los cuales se han convertido en éxitos de ventas. También han impartido conferencias y cursos como profesores invitados, han comisariado exposiciones y asesorado a fabricantes, museos, salas de subastas y grandes coleccionistas privados de todo el mundo. Los Fiell han escrito numerosos libros para TASCHEN, entre los que se incluyen 1000 Chairs, Diseño del siglo XX, El diseño industrial de la A a la Z, Scandinavian Design y Diseño del siglo XXI.

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The Workplace Revolution

Restoring Trust in Business and Bringing Meaning to Our Work

By MATTHEW GILBERT

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2005 Matthew Gilbert
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-921-8

Contents

Introduction
PART 1 The Hope
CHAPTER 1 A Blueprint for Corporate Change
CHAPTER 2 The Hero's Journey at Work
PART 2 The Challenge
CHAPTER 3 Time and Money: The Endless Quest
CHAPTER 4 The Soulless Company
CHAPTER 5 The Grip of Corporate Culture
CHAPTER 6 Personal Values and Corporate Mind
PART 3 The Practice: A Path for Companies
CHAPTER 7 The Emergence of Corporate Integrity
CHAPTER 8 Seven Steps to Corporate Transformation
PART 4 The Practice: A Path for Individuals
CHAPTER 9 Reclaiming Our Authentic Self
CHAPTER 10 Work from the Inside Out
PART 5 Conscious Business
CHAPTER 11 The Whole-Self Workplace
CHAPTER 12 Workplace Wisdom
Bibliography

CHAPTER 1

A Blueprint for Corporate Change

The opportunities and challenges of the last 20 years in business have beendriven by the application of information technology; the next 20 years will bedriven by the application of consciousness.

—Michael Rennie, Principal, McKinsey and Company

When we say that work is meaningless, it generally means different things todifferent people. For some, boredom has set in or they feel that what they dohas no obvious purpose other than a paycheck. For others, it happens when thebalance of money made and hours worked goes askew. In some cases defeat sets inwhen we discover that our employers see us not as human beings but as humanresources, movable and expendable pieces on an economic game board. Thesolutions, then, will vary depending on the circumstance and the person. It canmean changing positions or changing companies or striking out on one's own.Certainly much has been written about such strategies, and they often work—atleast for a while. Inevitably, though, for many of us, the discontent willreturn, perhaps for slightly different reasons but dogging us nevertheless.

It doesn't help that our trust in the intentions of private enterprise remainsdepressingly low. The stock market's meteoric rise and fall, the spectacularmeltdowns of giant companies whose executives made out like bandits, and neweconomic realities that have more and more people chasing fewer and fewer jobsas work goes overseas or simply disappears, have helped sustain a history ofsuspicion that business selfinterest is dangerously narrow. A 2001 YankelovichMonitor survey found that more than two-thirds of sampled Americans believedthat companies had little interest in whether their actions were serving thepublic good. According to a Business Week study the previous year, 72 percent ofAmericans believed "business has too much power over too many aspects ofAmerican life," while two-thirds felt that "large profits are more important tobig companies than developing safe, reliable, quality products for consumers."An October 2002 Harris Poll found that more than half of all adults surveyedfelt that Wall Street was so focused on making money that it would break laws todo so if it thought it could get away with it.

Some companies don't even try to disguise their motives. In the beleagueredairlines industry, for example, Delta renegotiated a new contract with its rank-and-fileemployees that included pay cuts and pension limits while guaranteeingexecutive pensions in the event of a bankruptcy. Employees at American Airlinesalso agreed to pay cuts, then threatened to rescind their decision when theylearned that the company was about to grant big bonuses to its executivemanagement team while creating a bankruptcy-triggered trust fund for them. Thecompany ultimately backed down on the bonuses, kept the fund, and lost whatevergoodwill it could have gained from more principled business dealings. It hassince made efforts to repair some of the damage, but as these and numerous otherexamples indicate, the average employee is getting the short end of severalsticks.

Against this background of distrust and disingenuousness, I found a ratherstartling statistic: In a September 2002 "job satisfaction poll" jointlysponsored by SHRM (the Society of Human Resource Management) and USA Today, only29 percent of a self-selected sample of visitors to USA Today's Web siteconsidered "Meaningfulness of job" as very important to workplace happiness.Only 23 percent said the same of their relationships with coworkers. Both ofthese percentages were at the bottom of a long list topped by job security,benefits, and "flexibility to balance life and work issues," all legitimateconcerns. Human resource professionals polled in the same study had roughly thesame response when asked what they thought was most important to an employee'son-the-job experience; only 18 percent chose meaningful work. How sadly rightthey were.

What are we to make of this? Have necessity and reality turned us into a nationof workplace mercenaries—it doesn't matter the job, so long as we're paid? Do weend up "going for the money" because we don't think we can get any other kind ofsatisfaction? Have honor and dignity disappeared completely from the work thatwe do? Would it be a big surprise if they had?

In the 1972 classic The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, PeterBerger tackled the impact of bureaucracy, technology, and economics onindividual consciousness, addressing the issues of honor and dignity in achapter entitled "The Obsolescence of the Concept of Honor." In it he wrote:

The concept of honor implies that identity is essentially, or at leastimportantly, linked to institutional roles. The modern concept of dignity, bycontrast, implies that identity is essentially independent of institutionalroles.

In a world of honor, the individual discovers his true identity in his roles,and to turn away from the roles is to turn away from himself.... In a worldof dignity, the individual can only discover his true identity by emancipatinghimself from his socially imposed roles—the latter are only masks.

Reading these words deepened my understanding of why we have such conflictedfeelings about work. If the companies we work for show little evidence of trulyhumane management or social/environmental/ cultural/global conscience, then whatincentive do we have to identify positively with them? What would it say aboutus to buy into their narrow worldview? Perhaps this is why there is suchcynicism in the workplace. The implied—and partially articulated—consensus isthat we all have to play this dysfunctional game to survive, and byacknowledging the ironies and shared miseries, we stay sane while pretendingthat we don't really care. In fact it may be the "emancipating" force of our owndignity that brings us to such a cynical brink. It's where we save face.

At the same time, a significant undercurrent of desire exists that work needs tobe more than it is. A 2002 study by two consulting firms, Towers Perrin and Gang&Gang called "Working Today: Exploring Employee's Emotional Connection to TheirJobs," found that while senior executives accurately predicted the negativeemotional mood of their workforce, they failed to diagnose the right reasons.They overestimated the influence of salary, benefits, job security, andmanagement relations, and underestimated the importance of workload, self-confidence,professional development, recognition, and "feeling connected" toone's work.

Perhaps the way to reconcile the seemingly contradictory findings of the studiesmentioned above—one group seeking more "connection" with their work and anotherwho couldn't care less—is that either we are finally waking up to the fact thatour jobs offer little to meet our deeper needs for community, self-expression,and service, or we have simply abandoned the idea altogether that work can bemuch more than a paycheck, thankful, in fact, that it's at least that. Have webeen conditioned by society and the dominant corporate paradigm to expect solittle from our labors? What will it take for more of us to become proud ofwhere we work and find meaning in what we do?

The Emergence of "Conscious" Business

Despite all the evidence that workplace troubles are as widespread as they'veever been, the terms "conscious business" and "conscious organization" areshowing up more often in the lexicon of business speak. They imply an awakeningof awareness, a broadening of perspective, a dynamic sense of evolving. Theyprovide a framework for companies and executives to see themselves and theirpotential from a different point of view.

For a growing number of us, it is no longer enough to exercise our naturalskills in the capacity of our jobs. We want to work for companies we believe in,that treat us like human beings, where the bottom line is more than just thenext quarter's sales target. In imagining an ideal employer, one that I wouldwant to work for, two wishes come to mind:

1. It serves a "triple" bottom line—social, environmental, and financial—andassigns equal priority to each. Such a commitment can infuse each job and eachposition in that company with meaning and purpose beyond the typical punchin/punch out routine. This can have a powerfully motivating influence on thosewho work there.

2. It serves the emotional, psychological, and even spiritual needs of itsemployees. I'm not suggesting that we should expect our employers to be ourtherapist or surrogate family, but that they actively create workplaceenvironments where we feel safe to be ourselves, inspired to bring more of whowe are to what we do. Of course, companies can't make their employees act insuch a manner, no matter how benevolent their efforts; that responsibilityultimately is ours. But it's a whole lot easier to answer that call when acompany has systems and policies in place that reflect authentic commitment toemployee dignity and well-being.

Leadership consultant Richard Barrett has been working with such ideas for yearsand came up with an evolutionary model of corporate consciousness based looselyon Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, which he describes in his bookLiberating the Corporate Soul. Following is how he described them to me:

Level One—Survival Consciousness

This level focuses on financial matters and organizational growth. It includessuch values as maximizing profit and shareholder wealth and ensuring employeehealth and safety. Potentially limiting aspects of this level are generated fromfears about survival, leading to such behaviors as excessive control, short-termfocus, and exploitation.

Level Two—Relationship Consciousness

Level Two emphasizes the quality of interpersonal relationships betweenemployees and customers/suppliers. It includes values such as opencommunication, conflict resolution, customer satisfaction, and mutual respect.At the same time, manipulation, blame, and internal competition are morecharacteristic of companies operating at this level. Entrepreneurship can below.

Level Three—Self-Esteem Consciousness

Companies at this level are focused on improving work methods and the deliveryof services and products using "best practice" systems and processes. "Corporatefitness" is an apt mantra for such businesses. Championed values includeproductivity, efficiency, excellence, professional growth, and skillsdevelopment. The potentially limiting aspects of this level result from systemsproblems and control issues, leading potentially to long hours, arrogance,excessive bureaucracy, and complacency.

Level Four—Transformation Consciousness

This is the "tipping point" for companies motivated by a renewed vision andmission, when control, fear, privilege, and fragmentation give way to trust,truth, equality, and unity. Level Four focuses on continuous renewal and thedevelopment of new products and services. It emphasizes such values asaccountability, employee participation, teamwork, personal development, andinformation sharing to overcome the potentially limiting aspects of Levels Oneto Three.

Level Five—Organization Consciousness ("Internal Cohesion")

The emphasis has now shifted to "corporate well being" and creating an internalsense of community spirit where employees can grow and creativity can flourish.Establishing trust, diversity, integrity, honesty, shared values, cooperation,commitment, fairness, and mutual accountability become the measures of success.

Level Six—Community Consciousness ("Making a Difference")

At this level the emphasis has shifted once again, this time to include a moreoutwardly oriented perspective that includes deepening and strengtheningrelationships with customers, suppliers, and a company's local community. Valuessuch as customer collaboration, partnering, strategic alliances, and communityinvolvement are supported, while commitments are made to voluntary environmentaland social audits and ensuring long-term sustainability. Internally, Level Sixcompanies focus on employee fulfillment, leadership development, mentoring, andcoaching.

Level Seven—Global/Society Consciousness ("Service")

The company has "self-actualized" by committing to help resolve social, humanrights, and environmental issues beyond its local community. The focus shiftsmore deeply to vision and ethics, forgiveness and compassion, and a search fortruth and wisdom.

In this model, the first three states reflect different levels of selfinterest;most of the energy is focused inward. The fourth is the critical point at whicha company realizes the limitations of the old operational structure and opensitself to a new one, applying fresh approaches to management and operations. Thefinal three levels represent stages of service to the common good, which stillincludes the well-being of the company but now attended to in a different waythan in earlier stages. Barrett makes it clear that no one area—neither"service" nor "survival"—should be emphasized over another for a company to betruly healthy. As a company evolves, there will still be a need for efficiencyand control, for example, only (in this model) not at the expense of other morehumane and outward-reaching goals. At what level would you place the company youwork for?

Barrett's model is similar to Spiral Dynamics, a theory of human developmentbased on the work of Dr. Clare Graves and further developed by Dr. Don Beck.Spiral Dynamics organizes humanity and individuals along an eight-stagecontinuum of psychological and spiritual evolution, from instinctual/survival towhat it calls "integrative." Each stage is based on beliefs and values that areoften unconscious. People can and do draw from different levels when dealingwith the challenges of daily life—for example, doing what we're told at workwhile also advocating more thoughtful policies—but one psycho/emotional tendencyis usually dominant. The current thinking among those who have studied thistheory is that humanity as a whole is poised on the edge of a major shift incollective consciousness.

The thing that I find most interesting about these two models is that theysuggest that companies evolve and respond to changes in their environment inways that are similar to what individual people do, each wrestling with theinfluence and momentum of aging mind-sets while inexorably drawn to more"advanced" states of being. Their destinies, in fact, are intertwined, for whenit comes to corporate transformation and meaningful work, organizational andpersonal change are inseparable.

Still, models are models and theories are theories (and, as we will see later inthe book, corporations are not really people). "Conscious business" doesn'thappen on a blackboard; it's created intentionally, over time, with high-levelcommitment and broad participation that can only happen when companies get realwith their employees about what's at stake and what they are willing to do, andwhen each of us responds with equal authenticity. It is not a modest challenge.

The poet David Whyte, who has spoken eloquently on the subject of work andpersonal transformation, writes in Crossing the Unknown Sea:

It is difficult to be creative and enthusiastic about anything for which we donot feel affection. If the aims of the company are entirely fiscal, then theywill engage those whose affections are toward the almighty dollar. If they havea range of qualities or a sense of creative engagement ... they may get inreturn something more worthwhile from their people.... [Companies] must finda real way of asking people to bring these hidden, heartfelt qualities into theworkplace. A way that doesn't make them feel manipulated or the subject of somefive-year plan. They must ask for a real conversation.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Workplace Revolution by MATTHEW GILBERT. Copyright © 2005 Matthew Gilbert. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Conari Press,U.S.
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1573249211
• ISBN 13: 9781573249218
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 176
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar