Work Futures Daily | Worshipping Work
Beacon NY — 2019–02–27 — Derek Thompson might have just shared the outline of a book with us, on The Atlantic, in an essay called Workism Is Making Americans Miserable, to which we owe the title of this issue. I offered a snippet and a one-liner below because I think you should go read it in its entirety, and I don’t want to cut ten quotes out of it.
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Workism Is Making Americans Miserable | Derek Thompson digs into the culture of overwork in the US:
“Rich, college-educated people — especially men — work more than they did many decades ago. They are reared from their teenage years to make their passion their career and, if they don’t have a calling, told not to yield until they find one.
The economists of the early 20th century did not foresee that work might evolve from a means of material production to a means of identity production. They failed to anticipate that, for the poor and middle class, work would remain a necessity; but for the college-educated elite, it would morph into a kind of religion, promising identity, transcendence, and community. Call it workism.
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What is workism? It is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production, but also the centerpiece of one’s identity and life’s purpose; and the belief that any policy to promote human welfare must always encourage more work.”
And we are working ourselves to death at the altar of overwork.
Go read the essay. You’ve heard this song from me many times before, but I like his yodeling, too. For example:
“Our jobs were never meant to shoulder the burdens of a faith, and they are buckling under the weight. A staggering 87 percent of employees are not engaged at their job, according to Gallup. That number is rising by the year.
One solution to this epidemic of disengagement would be to make work less awful. But maybe the better prescription is to make work less central.”
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Microsoft’s Hype Strategy for HoloLens Is to Avoid It | Jay Greene avoiding the backlash that Google got with Google Glass, Microsoft in playing an ‘all work, no play’ game with the new Hololens II:
“Companies are using HoloLens to overlay instructions and other visuals that can guide workers through machine repairs, among other tasks. HoloLens 2 tracks eye movements, so it can scroll through a product manual, stopping when users pause and backtracking as they move their eyes to reread a section. Bentley is developing software to help contractors visualize building plans at sites, and Microsoft has teamed with Japan Airlines Co. to help it develop cockpit simulators for pilots.
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The number of “smart glasses” used by U.S. businesses is still less than a million, according to Forrester Research Inc. That includes eyewear with tiny screens such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google Glass, which is still in use. Forrester expects the number to climb to 14.4 million by 2025.
One of Microsoft’s biggest deals came last fall when it secured a $479 million contract to supply the U.S. Army with augmented-reality system prototypes. A group of Microsoft employees Friday circulated a letter demanding the company cancel the contract, saying they didn’t intend to develop what they said were weapons. Microsoft defended its work with the U.S. military, as it has before, and said it would remain engaged on ethical and policy issues relating to artificial intelligence and the military.
Mr. Nadella introduced HoloLens 2 [in Barcelona for the World Mobile Congress], which is lighter and more comfortable to wear than the first version, and gives users more than twice the field of view on which holograms can be seen, the company said.
He didn’t, though, unveil any games or apps people can use in their homes. Those might capture people’s imagination, but Microsoft doesn’t believe they will generate significant sales.
“I’m just not hearing that people desperately need another way to be entertained right now,” said Lorraine Bardeen, general manager of engineering for Microsoft’s augmented-reality applications. “We’re not investing in hype.”
The opportunities for AR in the workplace — meaning, in this case, in frontline, field applications, like construction, manufacturing, health case, policing, and so on — are enormous. I think the ~15M guesstimate is way low, so long as Microsoft or other AR companies actually build a general-purpose platform and software development kit. That will break things open, and will radically transform the work of people using the devices.
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If Employees Quit Because Of Managers, Why Not Fire All The Managers? | The Corporate Rebels assert that bad bosses are only the third most common reason for people quitting their jobs. They cite Didier Elzinga of Culture Amp, but there are many, many other studies on the topic that suggest it may be the number one issue [see this piece I wrote in 2015, for example, where I cite five or six studies about the impacts of bad management: The Future Of Engagement).
The Rebels make a bunch of recommendations based on companies they’ve researched, but it boils down to these points, I think:
- Have as few ‘managers’ as necessary, and no more. Which maybe is zero.
- Alternatively, make everyone a manager, managing themselves and their own work. So maybe 100% managers.
- If someone wants a manager to guide, lead, or mentor them, try to help them find one.
- Make sure those who ‘manage’ are good at it, which correspondingly means that those who are bad at managing shouldn’t.
- People should have a say in anything that affects them significantly, and who is managing them falls into that category. Some approach, or a set of approaches, should be put in place for workers to vote on or give feedback on managers, or to determine how much management is reasonable for the organizational groups in which they participate.
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Stop Asking Women About Childbearing Status, China Tells Employers | Amy Qinreports that China is cracking down on questioning from management that could lead to women leaving their jobs, or the workforce altogether.
“This is a big commitment,” said Lü Pin, founding editor of Feminist Voices, an advocacy platform for women’s rights in China. “Before, the laws lacked specific measures to address the problem of gender discrimination, but now we see that the government is finally laying out measures to address this problem, and they are very detailed.”
Ms. Lü said that the notice was the culmination of years of efforts by women’s rights activists and civil society organizations to lobby government agencies and raise public awareness about gender discrimination in the workplace. Since 2013, when a woman won what is believed to be China’s first case claiming gender discrimination in employment, activists have brought a number of cases to court. The awards have often been negligible, Ms. Lü said, but the cases helped activists maintain pressure on the government to address the issue.
“At the very least, this notice lets people see that gender discrimination is something that the government can and is willing to manage,” she said. “Now you can hold the government accountable. This is leverage.”
Since the 1990s, China’s female labor-force participation rate has steadily declined, from 73 percent in 1990 to 60 percent in 2018, according to figures from the International Labor Organization.”
I recently interviewed Esko Kilpi as the first of a months long series called Socialogy Revisited, where I am talking with the folks who participated in the original 2014 Socialogy series, touching on various themes and memes of social business.
In Socialogy Revisited: Esko Kilpi, I include the full text of the original, and a recent interview reflecting back on how our thinking has shifted or matured. From the original interview:
It is not the corporation that is in the center, but the intentions and choices of individuals. | Esko Kilpi
and this:
We are free to choose, or not to choose, our own ways of doing things together. Accordingly we are ourselves responsible for formulating the principles we use to organize our life. | Eslko Kilpi
From this month’s interview:
The key management capability is participating and influencing the formation of sense making and meaning. It is about creating a context that enables connectedness, interaction and trust between people. | Esko Kilpi
and this:
An organisation is not a whole consisting of parts. An organisation, or a country, is a continuously developing (or stagnating) pattern in time. | Esko Kilpi
This series is available to paid sponsors. The original 2014 interview is available to all, here.
Quote of the Day
“The modern labor force evolved to serve the needs of consumers and capitalists, not to satisfy tens of millions of people seeking transcendence at the office.”
| Derek Thompson, Workism Is Making Americans Miserable
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Originally published at workfutures.org.
