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There was
a time when they said that “you gotta kiss a lotta frogs to get a job”.
Regrettably, it appears that even that fairly gruesome practice won't work within
today’s and particularly tomorrow’s business context, unless a radical change
in social and economic priorities occurs.
In this
post I invite readers to reflect upon and also encourage them to comment on how
operational business leaders, those who motivate and direct the majority
of employees on a day to day basis, when dealing with the fallout of the prevailing
economic and social crisis, can and should respond to an issue which impacts
upon the very fabric of every sector of society. This major issue is the end of
the long assumed direct link between positive economic growth and growth in
overall employment prospects/numbers. Whilst this topic may initially sound a
bit dry, boring and non-controversial, the stuff of economic commentators and
analysts, in practice, due to changes in key contextual factors it will
increasingly have a dramatic effect on all of our lives, no matter our life
stages, in one form or another.
There is a common assumption, particularly as we crawl, albeit slowly
and painfully, if at all, out of recession, that, as economies start to
recover, this means growing employment opportunities and
a return to the attainment of those aspirations to which individuals have now become
accustomed during their travel through the life stages; the opportunity and ability to educate
yourself and your children, to buy a house, a car, marry, have children, save
and accumulate pension rights and security in later life and other symbols of
personal progress and “success”. However, the perceived link between economic
growth and enhanced employment opportunities is becoming increasingly tenuous
as the opportunity to produce goods and services and enhance productivity with
limited human input in the production process rapidly increases. There are
already a number of developing economies which have recently achieved economic
“take-off” within the context of the technological revolution but which have
found that in reality there is no employment market for the majority of those
completing their education. These governments must therefore create
non-productive public jobs to manage potential and actual widespread
disaffection within the early employment age group.
What is becoming increasingly evident (although not being widely
broadcast by a range of stakeholder groups with insight) is a fundamental shift
in the dynamics of the economic and social framework; continuing growth in the
working population but a paradigm shift in terms of a drastic and fundamental
diminution in employment opportunities. Added to this is the even more dramatic
and recent realisation on the part of an increasing number that the operation
of economic cycles, that after recession there will inevitably be economic
growth no longer operates in the West. This
region is now faced for decades if not centuries to come with flat line,
nil/minimum real economic growth. The levels of growth to which we have become
accustomed and which sustained improving levels of material wellbeing,
education and health services, welfare and pension payments, are now a thing of
the past. We already see governments taking action in a piecemeal manner in
order not to reveal to the population the true nature of changing/deteriorating
quality of life for the general population over the long term. Inevitably these
paradigm shifts will have a dramatic impact on the economic and social
framework of those not yet in the employment market, those presently in the
employment market, even those who have already exited out of the other end.
There is already evidence that a large number of the jobs created over
the last few years, which are touted by commentators and analysts as indicative
of the first shoots of economic recovery, are predominantly low wage and
part-time, even those in the so called knowledge economy industries such as
pharmaceuticals and technology. To this we must add the reality that middle
management/supervisor grades are and will progressively become even more severely
thinned out as a result of technological developments in respect of monitoring
and project management tasks (even though recent research indicates a much more
complex and critical contribution to organisational performance by this group).
In reality the prospects of employment, even for those graduating with recognised
professional, undergraduate/postgraduate degrees, unless you have contacts, lie
primarily in employment in low paid/part-time roles upon qualification and
significant years thereafter. In addition, the opportunities to increase income
as a result of promotion to middle management roles will be severely limited.
The result will be an inability to increase income potential to move through
the life stages. The implications of this development are unnerving,
potentially taking society back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century when there was a substantial under-class, a limited middle class and a
small number of individuals who controlled 70-80% of the assets and wealth of
the economy. Such a scenario is increasingly supported by an increasing share
of economic wealth by this latter group to levels not seen since the beginning
of the twentieth century in the UK and USA. The implications for social
cohesion are certainly not positive and one must reflect upon the dramatic
social, economic and political fallout of the 1929 Depression; totalitarian,
despotic communist and fascist governments, World War II, the Cold War etc, to
gain an appreciation of the implications of a Band Aid and business as usual
response to the prevailing crisis.
The manner and means by which western
economies are digging themselves out of economic and social crisis indicates
that little if anything has been learnt about the underlying social values,
principles and priorities which created the crisis in the first place. Business
leaders, at both the policy and operational levels, must recognise that in
their haste to regain the “dashboard scores” attained prior to the crisis they
are applying perspectives, priorities and practices which only hasten the
collapse of the cohesion within society which is the key factor in recovery and
for the operational leader the long term survival, growth and performance of
the business organisation. The ideology of the self, “I’m alright Jack”. Let’s
give a few bob to charity and spend a few hours on the committees of worthy
causes to salve our consciences whilst we take our seven figure bonus is an unsustainable logic in the face of
disintegrating social cohesion.
Even prior to the crisis western
societies had been experiencing for the last 2-3 decades the growth of an
underclass which had lived on welfare for one, two, sometimes three
generations, unable to be employed/re-employed, unable to provide their
children with the material and psychological support to create a sense of
confidence and self-esteem which would encourage them to remain in education
and facilitate gaining a first step on the employment ladder. This underclass is
now likely to balloon, whilst continuing to be confined to the shadows of
society as inconvenient truths, the natural result of an increasingly redundant
social and economic ideology.
As someone who has spent the thick end
of four decades in business the priorities of cost, revenue and profit are
deeply embedded as the perceived drivers of productivity and performance. In
all honesty these are merely a reflection of a social ideology which have, in
practice, delivered the “goods” during the twentieth century, extracting
hundreds of millions, if not billions from living on the bread line or
restricted to a life of manual labour. However, the low growth of the western
economies, rapid advances in technological innovation, improved education,
insight, knowledge and confidence of the general population, to name but a few
factors, have dramatically changed the social and therefore economic context,
such that those business/leadership principles, perspectives, priorities and
practices which delivered sustained productivity, performance and growth at both
the macro and micro levels during the twentieth century are likely to destroy
the social cohesion upon which it was and continues to be dependant. This is
because the general public no longer regard it as sufficient to be taken off
the bread line as recompense for their contribution to economic and social
wellbeing, expecting a re-distribution of wealth in the case of a diminishing
cake in order to maintain the ability to achieve “reasonable” aspirations.
What to do?
The time
has long time passed when we can continue with the same engine, but add a
turbocharger or catalytic converter; even a hybrid solution does not deliver.
We need the equivalent of an “electric” or hydrogen solution; a radical change
in fundamentals with respect to the organisational logic which directs the
leadership mindset with regard to decision making and issue resolution. We
cannot live in the age of the smartphone whilst maintaining a pervasive logic
which applies leadership perspectives, priorities and practices more
reminiscent of the fax. To date, solutions have been proposed and developed on
the basis of the maintenance of the prevailing social, economic and business
ideology. The result is a more effective Band Aid to seal a gaping wound. We
must therefore look to more appropriate, radical but not revolutionary
alternatives as an effective means of resolving what a fundamental flaw is in
the dominant logic which drives every sector of society.
Regrettably, in this respect, a potential
alternative model has shown itself to have also become contaminated and to all
intents and purposes destroyed by the socially pervasive ideology of
individualism, short-termism and egotism, most recently during the financial
crisis, but also over the last two decades (e.g. savings and loans and Washington
Mutual in USA, Co-operative Bank, Lloyds TSB and building societies sector in
UK and PTSB and credit unions in Ireland). The philosophy, perspectives and
priorities of the mutual, co-operative and employee ownership, which encourage
greater voluntary participation and engagement by employees and other
stakeholders, a people focus, appears in principle more appropriate and
consistent with the dynamics of the knowledge economy, a more humanistic
ideology. whose focus is not some balance between risk and profit, but rather a
sustained, if potentially lesser return, in the interests of the wellbeing of
all stakeholders. There are many success stories from this sector, not least
Rabobank in Holland, Mondragon Group in Spain and the John Lewis Partnership of
stores in the UK. None of these organisations have sought the scale and
profitability of their publicly owned peers, indeed the pressure and often the
finance is not available to achieve such objectives.
It does however require a paradigm shift in
dominant and pervasive logic, perspectives and priorities to even consider such
a model as offering a solution to the social calamity which awaits us. Such a
model is certainly unlikely from my limited knowledge and insight to provide
the levels of economic growth which sustain the aspirations to which we have
all become accustomed by the logic which has brought us to economic crisis. I
do not therefore propose the mutual or co-operative models as a panacea but
rather as a template rather than a model whose foundational priorities appear
more consistent with the twenty first century context, particularly with a
population with greater confidence, education, aspirations which will not be
constrained by a narrow in-group allocation of rewards for effort.
We seem to have reached one of those stages in the
development of human awareness, which appears to occur every few centuries,
when we must raise our head and consider what it is that we are trying to
achieve and the perspectives and priorities which are required to get us there.
This will have a dramatic effect on the perspective and process of operational
leadership as a means of fostering engagement, participation, of energising and
exciting subordinates, peers and indeed superiors towards optimal
organisational performance based upon a sense of belonging and ownership rather
than fear and short term remuneration. We, as operational leaders have a
responsibility to ourselves and those who look to us for guidance and direction
to take the opportunity offered by the prevailing crisis to question the
ideologies, priorities and practices which have brought us to this social and
economic crisis.
We must take control of our future; let us not be
treated and indeed treat our colleagues as mushrooms, leaving decisions to be
taken and issues resolved which will have a dramatic impact on our wellbeing to
those who have a blinkered vision of available, viable options, this out of a fear
of the impact on their own slice of the cake. If we do, leaving this to others
whilst we keep our eyes to the desk then we are complicit if not culpable for
the implications for the organisation, the economy and the wider society.
