Inform Yourself

Why are so many people around the world being inauthentic and suffering from The Problem? This lack of authenticity stems from a flawed belief system concerning the value and management of people that is outdated and simply wrong, at least in today’s business environment. The flaw Jay Niblick’s referring to is the lack of appreciation for the uniqueness and individuality of people. It is a flawed belief that finds the job as sacrosanct and the individual as sacrificial. It is a belief that the job’s duties and responsibilities should remain fixed and the individual is the one who should change to better fit the job. Such beliefs are the primary cause of an individual becoming inauthentic and they lie at the very heart of the struggles we’ve been discussing. To understand this flawed belief system we need to consider their origin.

~It is a flawed belief that finds the job as sacrosanct and the individual as sacrificial~

With advances in modern technology, production capabilities, the globalization of competition and ever-tightening labor pools, the world has shifted to from an industrial economy to an economy that relies much more heavily on a person’s mental ability than their physical ability (intellectual economy). In the intellectual economy people are the new raw material (their creativity, their knowledge, their talents). The real value of an employee in today’s organizations is based on their ability to mentally think, not physically do. They are more valued for their mind, heart and spirit than simply for their bodies.

Here are some statistics that demonstrate that this shift has indeed taken place:

1. Most staff now devote more time to solving complex problems through the
application of knowledge than in the manufacturing of products

2. Eight out of ten employees produce services rather than products

3. Most tangible products are purchases on the basis of intangible assets like brand,
reputation, employee satisfaction and service

4. 80% of the US GDP is generated by service, not manufacturing

5. Companies that do a better job of managing intellectual assets like brand, employee engagement, customer satisfaction and service:
a. Enjoy market values up to $40,000 higher per employee
b. Outperform the S&P 500 by 50% the last ten years running
c. Have significantly higher survivability rates

While the world has shifted from an industrial economy to an intellectual economy, most of the management practices applied in today’s organizations have not shifted. The majority of today’s management beliefs about how to manage people are very much the remnants of past industrial organizations, and as such they are flawed when it comes to managing people today. In many ways, we’re still practicing old management practices, which used to be appropriate and effective, but are not anymore. As Stephen Covey says in The Eighth Habit, “we live in a Knowledge Worker Age but operate our organizations in a controlling Industrial Age model that absolutely suppresses the release of human potential.”

The effect of this failure to shift management principles accordingly has resulted in people still being viewed primarily as commodities, expenses or as labor. The fault for this problem doesn’t lie just with the organizations, but with the individuals in those organizations as well. Individuals themselves continue to adhere to an old paradigm of how to be managed. They continue to believe that it is management who knows best how they should do the job. People continue to look to management to tell them the best way to work and how to be successful.

The error lies on both sides of the divide. Both management and those being managed continue to perpetuate the old beliefs of a bygone era, and both fail to fully comprehend that the playing field has changed.