Philip Gray's comments, that people want a good work environment,
not just money (paraphrased here) are echoed by many others, like Margaret
Wheatley on leadership in a recent book. People want to contribute, she
says, to be part of something larger than themselves of which they can be
proud. How many of us get up in the morning and say, "I'm going out to
earn $X today!" as a moral statement? How many will be enthusiastically
motivated by earning X% profit for the firm? Or megabuck salaries for the
top jocks? Not very many .
But alternatively, consider that Jack Welch's GE challenge to the
troops, to be number one or two, lay out a path to accomplish that
realistically and soon, or dispose of the business (humanely). This
produced a spate of "it's not fun to work at GE any more" articles,
including a Business Week piece practically draped with mourning crepe.
And, in fact, people at "the new GE" arguably work MUCH harder and more
intensely than under the older, more paternalistic system. However, they
are also by all accounts enormously charged up at meeting the challenges
of global competition, providing their expertise, products and services in
ways that keep their company at the forefront, and knowing that every one
of them is essential.
Theory says it is always harder to "tighten up" than to loosen up.
Not knowing Philip's company, I can't say if he's being invited to run
harder for a survival challenge, or merely, as he suggests, for money, by
managers who've offered nothing to take the place of the former family
feeling. I'd suspect that many there feel they've been cheated because
their implicit bargain was, "we'll work hard, make money for the firm, and
get to have our family culture here in return." They apparently lived up
to the bargain - and management's changed the rules, unilaterally, without
getting them on board as to why the changes were necesary, or what they
can believe in on Monday morning, now that their comfortably family
culture has been upended.
Sam
MXJELI@MAIL.WM.EDU
Mariann Jelinek
Richard C. Kraemer Professor of Business
Graduate School of Business,
College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Tel. (804) 221-2882 FAX: (804) 229-6135
************************************************************************
The only enduring strategic advantage is the ability
to change the rules of the game.
--mxjeli@mail.wm.edu (Mariann Jelinek)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>