In the fall of the year my wife and I make our annual “mountains to the sea” journey. The sea calls out to many of us. It is a primal urging from somewhere just beyond the area illuminated by rational thought. Before Man, there was the Deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Or perhaps the urging is entirely rational. Our blood is remarkably similar to sea water. Whatever the reason, when we feel that urge and respond to it, we can find peace and renewal. We can rediscover things we had forgotten were lost. On a recent trip to the coast, I made just such a discovery.
The root of the word “recreation” is “create.” When we vacation, we vacate our routines and responsibilities to re-create something that was lost. Many things can be lost in the never ending search for financial security. Time is the most precious thing lost. Health, peace of mind, sense of self, sense of purpose, not to mention plain old “fun,” these can all be lost in the treadmills and sweatshops which we find crowded under the umbrella we call “work.”
Americans are funny about work, but no one is laughing. We have a strange macho attitude that work must equate to suffering in order for our “sacrifice” to be valid. Work must be hard to be of value. Work must be long for anything worthwhile to be accomplished. We are tough, and we like to talk about how tough our jobs and our lives are. We were tailor made for those managers seeking to increase productivity without increasing costs.
During tough economic times, work actually does become harder. There are fewer of us doing it, so our share of it increases. The people paid more to do less tell us that we are lucky to have a job. That reminder often comes when a benefit has been eliminated or cut or we are asked to do more for the same pay. We are “lucky” to be on our feet all day feeding the rude and the ungrateful, lucky to be on the phone all day listening to angry people complain, lucky to run a chain saw all day with snakes and yellow jackets, to hammer nails in the blistering heat, to have the job that “a hundred people would give their right arm to have.”
When you hear “lucky to have that job” at work, chances are that you have one of those jobs which extracts time, health, peace of mind, sense of self and sense of purpose in exchange for your paycheck. There is also a pretty good chance that your company’s balance sheet is not a very pretty sight. Companies which prosper over time are the ones which support a sense of purpose and self, foster peace of mind, promote good health and give employees ownership of their time. Look it up for yourself. Check out the list of best companies to work for as rated by employees and then look at the balance sheets of those companies. There is a positive correlation between happy employees and profitability.
Companies with happy employees tend to be generous with benefits and vacation time. They also tend to be structured differently than “Lucky to Have a Job Incorporated.” After World War II there were millions of Americans entering the workplace who were comfortable with the hierarchical structure of the military and this chain of command paradigm moved seamlessly into the business world. This paradigm is still well established, but almost everything about our economy is different. Companies like Google, Motorola's Space and Systems Technology Group, and Ford Motor Company’s Customer Service Division, to name but a few, have moved to a more horizontal organizational structure. They are profitable without the reliance on hierarchy and conformity which plagues many companies that are finding it harder to compete in today’s economy.
For most of my working life I have been self-employed and I benefitted from that arrangement - I liked my boss, most of the time. It was never hard to get a day off when I really needed it. I was able to work 10 hours and come home with energy left over for the rest of my life. About eight years ago I entered the corporate world, and my balance shifted. The company I worked for was a small corporation with a vertically integrated management structure. Like many small companies it resembled a feudal system with a benevolent despot and feudal lords, some intent on increasing their personal domains. I worked for one manager who was a “visionary,” given to impulsive mid-course corrections and with no idea how his random turns of the rudder affected those in the bowels of the ship. Another manager was intent on building a personal empire within the company. Given to temper tantrums, he would bully employees and co-workers to promote his agenda, when he could get away with it.
After a relatively short time with this company, stress began to collect on my belly and my fitness level suffered. A good night’s sleep became a distant memory. At the end of the work day there was just enough energy left to operate a television remote and a recliner. In the standard hierarchical company structure, there is often little recourse for an employee with a problem or a grievance. When employees feel that they are at the mercy of their bosses or that they have little influence over their working conditions, productivity will suffer. Innovation will be suppressed as well, when it is filtered through narrow channels occupied by managers who feel that their positions are threatened by other people’s good ideas. My wife and I are lucky. We had a choice, and at the end of the year I will be self-employed again. Many people can choose only endurance or unemployment.
I hope that the company can survive. Many employees and their families depend on it, and our area is not known for its job opportunities. An employee in many different professions can relate to the frustrations touched upon here. For that reason, I speak mainly to the “bosses” out there. I challenge you to consider these ideas. I assert that your old vertical paradigm should be questioned, if for no other reason than the fact that it is not the most profitable. It is certainly not the most nurturing to the human spirit. I have been a boss as well, and I know your pressures, but know this: The best way to get what you want in life is to help other people get what they want. It is that simple. If you do not understand this truth, you will not be a “boss” for long, and your ship will eventually sail without you.
