I don't deny the psychological proposition that people need some
stable base, but the stability can come from the network and reputational
background that they develop. And frankly I think that the talented young
person is in a lot better shape looking to the future than the person
sitting on IBM's payroll waiting for the next 20,000-person reduction to
be announced. I am completely willing to acknowledge that saying your
network, not your logo, is your stability is scarier than shit to a large
number of human beings.
PT: Still, we all have these working archetypes--the boss, the
corporate ladder--that you're tossing out of the picture.
TP: Yes. I agree that we have to worry about new images, new
models. On the other hand I think one can also paint a picture that is
too extreme in an environment where there aren't many people left in
steel mills anymore. I have total empathy for the 54-year-old steel
worker, but you don't build the whole nation's policy around saving the
last six steel workers. A lot of the change is dramatic. The imagery has
shifted. And a surprisingly high share of people are learning to deal
with this--to pursue, as the psychologists might say, new bases for
stability. Because if you're re going to be crazy you've got to have a
little bit of life rope to hang on to. That's not so strange to an
increasing number of people.
PT: But you'd agree it's not easy.
TP: It's not easy if you're one of the middle managers or senior
professionals laid off at 47 years old. Absolutely not. Some do well,
some don't. I'm a champion of radical metaphors and I agree that it's not
easy at all, but on the other hand we're not on Day One of this
transition, either.
PT. But in your talk of redefining roles in the
workplace--rewriting the rules and making my boss both my subordinate and
my boss--where does ego fit into the picture? Is it somewhat unreasonable
to expect that people are going to say, "Fine, I have no problem with
that?" Don't you find that people love levels?
TP: Speaking as a card-carrying member of the American
Psychological Association, I acknowledge that people love security. And
levels are security in a way because you know where you are. But again,
the new security resides in that network that you're part of. If I do
good work on Project A, then my reputation grows. I have worked for a
project manager who, if I do well, will think highly of me and I can take
a great deal of comfort in that. That comfort doesn't come from fitting
into a hierarchy, but in knowing that the project managers are reasonably
fair in their assessments.
I completely acknowledge that people want a deck of a ship that's
not always pitching to and fro. But it doesn't have to be a traditional,
standard hierarchy where we climb up the rungs of the ladder. I try to
make the distinction between pecking order and hierarchy--pecking order
is defining who's the great one, who's the middle-great one, and who's
the least-great one. One constantly makes those kinds of judgments.
Hierarchy means people with different kinds of offices who have the
ability to slow down decision-making because they are here on a chart
instead of there. That doesn't need to exist.
One of the most powerful phenomena in social psychology is "social
comparison theory." And yes, egos are bruised and yes there are pecking
orders, but that doesn't mean we have to have 11 levels and associated
with each one are 34 perks and a staff to go along with those perks and
which keeps you from getting anything done.
PT: Isn't this an ideal situation you are talking about?
TP: No! I'm telling you this isn't far-out stuff nor is it
idealistic. I'm talking about professional service firms, which I define
broadly as people who create things on the basis of pure knowledge. I'm
saying there are millions of workers who live in this environment and
have learned to live with security but based on something different from
what's in the traditional hierarchy. leis weird if you are at Bethlehem
Steel. Damn straight. It's worse than weird; it's Tim Learyism. And I
would be terrified--because I am actually quite conservative--if I
couldn't find some bases to tie this thing to.
I don't think of myself as a change agent, but I'm simply saying
that, like it or not, professional service firms--which used to be
thought of as people who sucked the blood of real people--are king today.
They are the model you ought to be looking at if you are running Dupont
or Dow Chemical.
PT: Aside from smaller and simpler, one of your biggest messages is
speed. People are pulled in many different directions, and we have all
these tools that help us to keep up-faxes, cellular phones - and we're
constantly plugged in, constantly going. And yet you're sort of
advocating getting a little faster, or at least keeping up the
pace.
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