Scroll down and see this week's Balloon - from Raphael tamakloe
Each week we will feature a balloon of insight. This week? "The Conundrum of Experience," from Raphael Tamakloe
Scientific Management was a movement that flourished during the previous turn of the century. Though the idea of efficiency seems sensible enough, it spawned the contagion of people-as-things. Cogs. Replaceable parts. Clinical model profiles. Work cubicles. Windowless offices and schools. Maybe it’s time we revisited the bottom line. If that line crushes any part of our emotional and spiritual well-being, we need to generate a different work. When onboarding new employees, why not ask ‘what can we do?’ rather than instructing ‘here’s what you’ll do’. And we now have the data to support the value of engaging humanity at work.
What about work is most important?
Money? Engagement? Dysfunction? Pain? Misunderstanding? Servitude? Satisfaction? Happiness? (Self)Respect? Retirement (this got the most laughs)? It seems like the work rules include a formula that too often stifles our spirit and our sense of community.
Who says? Is there some grand commandment that sets the rules for work? Well, Yes and No. We've been operating under manacles generated by the motors of efficiency, profit, and power. Barry Schwartz, one of our contributors, opens some possibilities in his book, Why We Work:
" Forty years ago, the distinguished anthropologist Clifford Geertz said the human beings are 'unfinished animals.' What he meant is that we have a human nature that is very much the product of the society that surrounds us. That human nature is more created than discovered. We 'design' human nature by designing the institutions within which people live. So we must ask ourselves just what kind of human nature we want to help design." (p. 9)
So that leads us to - - - If we want to change the pain and gain formula about work so that we can move toward something better, we can be very, very clear about what it is now and what it could be. Let's do that.
How about if work felt more like purpose and less like a sentence?
At the very genesis of the pandemic, I lost the job that I had for nearly a year in a half. Not because of lackluster behavior, and not because I was fired. I was made redundant, by the time it really sunk in I was already knee deep in applications and was being interviewed for what I didn’t know was probably a pyramid scheme at the time (I know silly me).
In my search for a job, I began to realize a few things about the current job market, at least as it is in UK, that ‘experience’ is a buzzword thrown around. Now don’t get me wrong there are many things to do to obtain experience; placements, internships, but do these really matter at the end of the day? It seems to me that experience is literally just a way of saying, ‘we appreciate your zeal and desire to learn, but we frankly don’t have time to teach, we don’t have time to mold, so just be perfect already,’ because molding delays money making. This is nothing objective - I’m just speaking my mind.
Everyone who has progressed significantly in their career started from somewhere didn’t they? How many times within the structure of westernized employment do big CEO’s really think about investing in those less ‘experienced,’(albeit it does happen sometimes) with all the self-help rhetoric circulating, with all the coaching program’s and motivational you-tube videos that we hear that essentially say, ‘You have to work hard or you’ll die poor, ‘come to my seminar I’ll get you rich in 5 hours.’ How much of such talk really translates into helping build the quote and quote novices of the working world?
The other day I saw a Job bulletin which I felt would perfectly suit a friend of mine. I passed it over to him and he was thankful, as one should be. My question is even though this job is something that he will love, will they consider him? Even if he’s the man for the job will they look past what he maybe hasn’t done? I don’t know. It saddens me to think that the answer to this pressing question may be a NO! Life isn’t fair and this is terribly idealistic of me to write this but what would it take for the working world to be just a little bit more people oriented?
We have published Humanity@Work , bringing in perspectives from all over the world. We will be focusing on changing the way we think of, imagine, and show up for work. We are seeking exciting contributors with new ideas, ANY FORMAT. The foundation is an ongoing project, the book a milestone, not an end point. We currently have art, music, videos, research articles, blogs, podcasts, animations and cartoons.
If you have an idea, an insight, a brainstorm, a story, we'd love to hear from you. This project is ongoing - anything that can add to all of our work journey so that the formula of work = hell with pay can start to disappear.
We are totally non-political and pro bono, btw. Totally.