The Meaning of Work
- George Starcher, author of the article
It seems increasingly clear that we need to develop new insights into the meaning of work. The fundamental changes in society, in the economy, and in the workplace are drastically changing the nature of work. Just as the transition from an agrarian society to an industrial one brought about a fundamental change in work, so the present transition to an information and knowledge based economy is again revolutionizing work. There is a need to rethink the meaning of work and to develop a new work ethic adapted to a global, modern post-industrial society.
The birth of a new post-industrial economy is very painful and creates a severe strain in the lives of nearly all the affected employees and managers as well as their families. Major disruptions occur when traditional factories close and new jobs are created thousands of kilometers away or in different countries. These new jobs also are often very different, requiring new skills and capabilities. This new and intensely competitive economy also leads to greater work insecurity. The promise of lifetime employment no longer exists.
These fundamental changes in the workplace are brought together brilliantly by the authors of a recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly. This article highlights the crucial importance and challenge of managing “tacit and complex interactions” more effectively in a service and knowledge-based economy. Traditionally, transactional and routine interactions were dominant. Today the skills required in four out of five non-agricultural jobs - - such as managers, salespeople, software engineers, fund managers, doctors and nurses, and insurance agents -- involve searching, coordinating and monitoring. Managing the people in these jobs to gain competitive advantage is the new paradigm of management. It involves fundamental changes in structures, cultures, systems, shared values, and the way people are recruited, developed, and rewarded. “Management’s job is to foster connectivity, remove barriers, facilitate learning, and provide new tools to help workers collaborate and learn in an environment that demands more and more complex and often decentralized decision making.”[1]
WORK RELATED DISEASES
- George is the President and one of the co-founders of EBBF
Today’s economic trends have created three work-related “diseases”: unemployment, meaningless work, and workaholism. More than 750 million people – between 35 and 40 percent of the global workforce – are estimated to be without work. Unemployment and partial employment are generally considered to be Europe’s biggest social problem. Recent studies confirm its dramatic psychosocial impact. The suicide rate, for example, is 20 times greater among people unemployed for more than one year.
Frequently, self-image erodes along with one’s own identity, since society tends to ask “What do we do?” and “How much do we earn?”, not “Who are we?”
Unemployment also is a huge drain on the budgets of most governments. Another work-related disease is meaningless work. The industrial economy was characterized by work that required performing well-defined tasks as efficiently as possible.
Employees for the most part were not asked or expected to think nor had they been educated and trained to do so. Production lines and office work as well were designed using scientific management for unskilled workers, in many cases, for those leaving the farms in search of employment in the cities. But what these workers found was often boring, mindless and soulless work, leaving little or no opportunity for self-expression or self-fulfilment.
Workers, it was often said, were expected to leave their brains at the door when entering the factory. A third work-related disease is workaholism, the tendency to let work consume our lives. This disease is perhaps a characteristic of the period we are living in, of the tremendous stress and demands placed on employees and, more importantly, on managers and entrepreneurs facing intense competition in a turbulent, global economy. At the same time, the younger generation is seeking a better work-life balance and more reasonable limits to growth and the continuous drive for greater productivity.
Solutions must be found to overcome these work-related diseases which are among contemporary society’s major problems.
TOWARDS A NEW WORK ETHIC
According to Webster’s Dictionary, a work ethic is “a system of ethics in which central importance is ascribed to work, or purposeful activity, and to qualities of character believed to be promoted by work.”
The following paragraphs, based on the writings and principles already discussed, outline ways to define a new work ethic.
1. The starting point for redefining work is an understanding of human nature and the purpose of life. At the heart of much misunderstanding is the traditional view that work is simply a means of production and delivery of goods and services.
Labour has too often been viewed as only one of the many elements of the final cost. But because humans have both a material and a spiritual nature, many thoughtful people are coming to believe that mankind is not made for work, but that work is made for man.
Survival is no longer the essential purpose of work. In post-industrial economies, work must foster personal growth and the spiritual development of employees and managers alike. Enterprises must provide them with a setting in which they continually develop their knowledge, skills and experience and thereby realize their potential.
To be meaningful, work must be focused on service to others, both outside and within the firm.
2. To provide such an enabling environment, spirituality [2] must permeate the workplace of the future. A “spiritual workplace” is happy and collaborative; it provides meaningful work and opportunities for personal growth for all of its employees. It is also an organization and a workplace characterized by such qualities as trustworthiness, honesty, justice, respect and caring.
Worker satisfaction derives from striving for excellence, from work well done, and from doing something worthwhile. In the end, our attitude toward the value of our work and its purpose determines its meaning. Take the story of the two stonecutters who were interviewed about their work. One complained bitterly about the boring, repetitive work he had been doing for 39 years. The other, with a smile on his face, expressed satisfaction from the same kind of work. When asked why, he replied that he was proud to participate in building a beautiful cathedral.
So, work does not have to be exciting. With proper vision and purpose, even routine work can be satisfying...
This article is composed of excerpts from EBBF’s latest publication “In Search a New Work Ethics”, written by EBBF’s co-founder and President George Starcher.You can view this and other EBBF publications here.
[1] Scott C. Beardsley, Bradford C. Johnson, and James M. Manyika, “Competitive advantage from better interactions”, The McKinsey Quarterly, 2006 Number 2.
[2] Definitions of spirituality differ greatly. One study based upon in-depth interviews with over 100 executives (“A Study of Spirituality in the Workplace” by Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton in the Sloan Management Review, Summer 1999) concluded, “If a single word best captures the meaning of spirituality and the vital role that it plays in people’s lives, that word would be “interconnectedness.” For readers seeking deeper understanding of the term, Chapter 3 of “The Spirit at Work Phenomenon” By Sue Howard and Daniel Welbourn addresses the question “What is Spirituality.”
