Scroll down and see this week's Balloon, from Colin Heyman
Welcome
We'd like to invite you to help us in creating a humane workplace.
Each week we will feature a balloon of insight. This week? "Don't Live Someone Else's Life," from Colin Heyman
About Us
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.
Here are questions we asked ourselves, as well as lots of other folks, that generated this project:
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?
This week's balloon, an excerpt from "Don't Live Someone Else's Life," by Colin Heyman
What does it mean then to be born to do something – in Steve Jobs’ words to be living your own life rather than someone else’s? I would say it has these characteristics:
· There is a part of the work that you have a particular talent for. It may be a basic talent honed by a lot of hard work, in the same way that professional sports people have some basic talent but need to perfect it by many hours of toil.
· The work is something you love to do, that you are passionate about.
· It is about making the world a better place in some way. Let me clarify that: Again, it doesn’t have to be a grandiose purpose. I remember the story of a man in the USA who gave talks about fishing. This may not at first sight seem to be about making the world a better place, but his ability to communicate his enthusiasm and love for fishing inspired others to do what they loved too, not to put it off any longer, and gave them hope – so it did!
· The work is something that is part of who you are, part of your life, not just something you do.
The route to living your own life may not always be clear, and the journey is likely to be up and down, rough as well as smooth, through bog, over mountains and over and around many hazards in the way.
This is already fun and will continue:
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.