Is Frithjof Bergmann’s Concept of New Work Another Empty Promise?
According to a media report, the number of off-days taken due to mental illness doubled in about 10 years. A record of 48 million days in 2007 had summed up to about 107 million in 2017. This is culled from a report by the Federal Government on the state of “safety and health at work”. The resulting economic downtime costs have therefore almost tripled in the same period from 12.4 billion euros to 33.9 billion euros. At the same time Gallup reports that still only 13% of the workforce in corporates are engaged. Some believe the only pragmatic answer to this is to embrace the concept of New Work and the Covid-19 pandemic has forced many organizations to shift to new models of collaboration – but does New Work really provide better working conditions? What are the drivers, what are the outcomes?
The concept of New Work was originally developed by social philosopher Frithjof Bergmann. This concept was supposedly his answer to mass-unemployment. He believed in creativity, self-reliance and self-fulfillment as an antidote to the crisis of unemployment. About three decades later, it is only necessary to test and ruminate once more on the validity of New Work.
As far back as 2010, an IBM study with 1,500 CEOs from 60 countries and across over 30 industries made it clear that the world will become complex as time goes by and creativity will be a major key needed to navigate this complex world in the 21st century. Just as the CEOs predicted in 2010, this is exactly what we’re currently experiencing in our world today. Many companies are dealing with high levels of burnout and this has since been a catalyst for theories like “Mindfulness” and creativity techniques such as Design Thinking.
Organizations are burdened with the struggle to get under control the complexities of an array of systems and information. In addition, they face important strategic issues such as insufficient skilled labor, fluctuation, non-commitment, uncertainty and, of course, completely new technical requirements such as machine learning or predictive analytics. In fact, all topics in which there is still no “silver bullet” as an answer. However, mathematics asserts that companies need to grow and develop, but there are far too few professionals up to the task. This applies not only in technical fields but also in healthcare and education.
There have been arguments that insufficient skilled labor could be an implication of demographics, but objectively speaking, it is more of a generational change. In this new and coming generation, job positions and salaries aren’t such important factors to consider in landing a job anymore. According to many studies on young people of generation X and Y, many are looking past earnings and titles and focussing more on job satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. The usual items are gradually slipping down farther on the top ten questions of which employer or boss to choose. Even down to the question of whether to be a regular employee or to be an entrepreneur and freelancer within the market sphere.
By 2025, more than 50 percent of the workforce will be “millennials”. They bring a very different “mindset” and set of expectations to the table. A simple example of that is the POPC culture (permanently online permanently connected mindset). We still see the digital and analog as two separate entities, they don’t. We still have a different understanding of work and leisure, for them, work can be fun. This is a generation of 40-year-old challenges that the younger ones no longer have to deal with.
The days of 9 to 5 are gradually getting over as many young people are rarely turning to such anymore. Even with very classic job appointments, there is hardly a job interview in which topics such as 80 percent working hours, home office, division of labor and side jobs do not come up. The bigger question nonetheless is, “would the job still be fulfilling if the salary is no longer the deciding factor?” Therefore, topics such as New Work, Mindfulness, Purpose come on board. Behind it are central questions of life. Questions such as, “what makes me happy?” And it is only through techniques such as in “Mindfulness” that concerns like more rest, more time, more attention to one’s self, physical and psychological well-being can be addressed.
Employers are becoming more and more aware of the importance of corporate culture, which is actually a paradigm that started in the 70s and 80s, only that now, it is becoming even clearer that many current issues and strategies are failing because of “culture”. Basically, we are seeing a return to the integrative management models of back then which actually tried to systematically include normative, ethical and cultural issues. Now due to digitalization and the current cultural climate between generations, corporate culture is retrieving its importance as a significant facet in the business world. It is now more than ever important for companies to thoroughly look into their values.
To create a large successful organization, a look into individual values is key. To imbibe certain values on an individual basis is to collectively assimilate into corporate culture. That’s already a big challenge in small businesses, how much more for bigger organizations? It certainly becomes more difficult to classify and sort out communication and attitudes for larger organizations. This is where the “corporate mindset model” is necessary to introduce.
To create a corporate mindset, one must, first of all, create an awareness of the organization. Basically, this is a system-theoretical approach which is practically applied. Sending singular messages into the operational process and hoping that everyone will conform with the management wishes is no longer a method that yields any progress, but rather an openness to trying something different; accepting fresh perspectives. Current topics such as digitalization and other challenges show that certain management mechanisms and causal thinking are antiquated and are rarely of any benefit. At this point, many realize that communication is quite important. Something we used to fight for a lot more in the past. Today, every manager realizes that strategy means communication and that certain things like visions or missions have to be properly articulated.
The phenomena of social media, as well as internal communication, show that unidirectional messages are redundant and retrogressive. What we need at this phase of human evolution is a discourse, where dialogues and mutual respect can be fostered. This is nothing new though, we have seen this manifested since the days of Jürgen Habermas and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Niklas Luhmann also said at the time that “… successful communication is improbable”. This is what the management of large organizations feel today. Managers are beginning to look for new models, new approaches, new methods, and communication channels to get their employees more involved. This is unfortunately poorly executed, especially due to the usual A>B mentality. Many still talk about “empowerment” and “employee participation” as though it were a one-time singular act.
For communication to produce the success it is intended for, more circular forms and methods of communication that have a high success yielding rate have to be offered. This is only most effective when the offered communication is used as a negotiation process based on a trend-setting strategy that we also like to dub a vision or a mission.
We are in a time when it is important to observe how communication is addressed and understood. This reflects in the tonality and this is already the first part of a “Corporate Mindset”. This is not an old redundant model, but a very active, action-oriented, very communicative and orientation framework about attitudes and ways of thinking. It implicitly says a lot about the values of an organization. However, “Corporate Mindset” does not impose these values, it invites all participants to help shape them and to contribute to the intended change.
Today we are experiencing a bit of what Karl Weick and Peter Krieg developed — that communication and decision-making mean “sensemaking”. All the communicative processes that we observe in an operation are self-preservative. The organization is regularly being reorganized. If you want to learn more about this, you might want to look up Karl Weick´s “Sensemaking in Organizations”). Therefore, it is noteworthy how much time the management spends on observing and communicating these changes. The topic of “Mindfulness” plays a significant role here, again.
The current discourse of popular science, academic psychology and psychotherapy (MBSR) of the twentieth century is strongly influenced by behavioral concepts and theories. Kahneman’s “Fast Thinking Slow Thinking” is certainly the best-known example in the field of individual cognitive psychology. The same applies to the field of organizational psychology. Integrative models such as “Search Inside Yourself” provide connectivity for organizational development. In the field of “Mindfulness”, a lot of normalizations and values are involved. Listening, for example, is such a value, so is the ability to perceive situations and not immediately falling into old patterns of reaction {if you want to know about mindful & empathic listening, mindfulness and emotional intelligence at the workplace, you might look up our Instagram posts about “Search Inside Yourself”}.
Behind the term “Mindfulness” is a certain image of man which is to make others at least as significant as oneself. This is also the central core of New Work. Jon Kabat Zinn, who is known internationally for his work on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) provides a definition: “The awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, in Purser, 2015). This approach enables mindfulness practitioners to be more present towards the emotional state and the behavior of others in organizations.
But be careful, New Work has so many exploitative features used by businesses ranging from the Ikea sofa to the coffee maker. Only that behind this lies precisely the question of meaningful work and of purpose. Again, these are normative models that we have known for a long time. The integrative management models have always emphasized that profit-oriented organizations also have a responsibility to their environment. Today, this reference is being rediscovered and driven with greater energy, and we see new generations like Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future”, that is no longer willing to accept certain paradigms as set in stone. It will be exciting to see what happens when this all-questioning generation takes the helm of affairs, then it will not be enough for companies to simply present mediocrity to us as brilliance.
As previously mentioned, the right approach is to tailor these changes to organizations on a very individual level and to look closely at what measures are befitting of the culture. Is the organization overheating? Is focus lacking? Are projects thriving or are they more likely to be hijacked? What is the place of employees? How are attitudes shaped? What are the triggers? And what are the tweaks and long-term approaches? Exercising moderation on the soft issues and at the same time ensuring that the strategy is crystal clear and communicable is a good way to start and it starts with the core of the management. It is not self-realizing to reach a high degree of congruence with questions that are important, nor does it contain the central anchors and action areas of a strategy.
Written by Lumen founder Klaus Motoki Tonn for Lumen Partners
