Achievement and contentment in this society will have many different facets. It could be called a tolerant society, but it could also be a very fragmented society as an individualism rooted in personal achievement and material success replaces the mixture of institutional paternalism and dependency which we grew up in – good news for the strong but not for the weak. Choice, in the end, is only good news for all if everyone has enough to choose from, enough information and enough inner resources. To put it more paradoxically, a society dedicated to the enrichment and enhancement of the self will only survive and certainly will only prosper if its dominant ethic is the support and encouragement of others. Proper selfishness is rooted in unselfishness.
There is a real possibility that the generation now in their thirties, the first generation to experience the full range of choice, may use it to opt out of leadership roles in business and society. For the talented ones a portfolio life on the edges of organizations can be personally fulfilling, free and life-enhancing, but this might condemn organizations to be comprised of the second best and who then will run society? On the other hand, if the leadership roles are going to the talented ones, but also ones who want those roles for their own satisfaction rather than for the good of others, life will become a collection of private courts and courtiers – great if you are in, dismal and bleak if you are outside.
Choice in relationships now means that the extended family is not a collection of aunts, uncles and cousins, but of step-parents and half brothers and sisters, or of step-brothers and sisters with no blood connection at all. The courts may take care of the custody of the very young but who will be responsible for an ageing step-grandmother, or for the lonely sibling fallen on hard times? There are some who hope that new communities, sharing their homes or their workplaces rather than their parentage, will replace the old networks of the family which were so often riven with secret jealousies and ancient feuds. My own fear is that in the end shared bricks are not so reliable as shared blood, that these communities of common interest thrive as long as the interests are common, but fall apart when the interests diverge. Choice can seem a hollow mockery when someone is old and cold and poor; individual freedom can easily mean freedom not to care.
Organizations, for their part, need to think about their responsibilities in the midst of the pressures to maintain their flexibility and their freedom of choice. Who, for instance, will train and re-train the contract workers if the organization chooses not to? Education and training definitely increase choice for those educated and thereby give them passports to move to greener pastures but is this really a valid reason for not training one’s executives? In the past it has been, and in many industries today it is still the plaint of the bigger institutions that they lose their best people as soon as they have trained them and are therefore tempted to turn poachers like the rest. Who then will train the game they want to poach? If organizations continue to think that way then choice will become the enemy of progress. Too much emphasis on organizational choice, on flexibility, can look like a lack of commitment to one’s people, inviting a lack of commitment in return. Selfishness breeds selfishness.
Governments, in the meantime, having discovered that the market, the mechanism of choice, liberates initiative and penalizes inefficiency, are tempted to leave all to self-regulating choice. That would be dangerous. Markets do not look much beyond tomorrow, or at least next year. Markets are inherently selfish, disinclined to make investments whose outcomes cannot be precisely predicted or whose benefits cannot be claimed in advance. Basic research, for instance, in new sciences and new technologies has to be an article of faith. Who could predict in advance that the Science Research Council’s investment in tracking down the structure of DNA at Cambridge would result in the whole new industry of biotechnology? The education of the next generation, too, has to be an act of faith. Left to individual parents and competing schools it would soon become a vocational rat-race for the few rather than a platform for growth for the many. Japan’s government sees it as its responsibility, on behalf of the nation, to put national resources behind an infrastructure of creativity, building a new technopolis in nineteen locations and giving priority, in funding basic research and development, to seven emerging industry sectors. These long-term investments cannot be left to the chance and the choice of individual firms.
When Kingman Brewster asked who were to be the trustees of our future, his point was that governments tend naturally to think short-term and that a national consciousness is needed which makes it permissible to spend our money today for the benefit of grandchildren yet unborn. It would be a reversal of the tradition that it makes good economic sense to borrow from those grandchildren to boost our standard of living today. Market forces will not produce the wherewithals or the political will to tackle the problems of the ozone layer and our possibly melting climate, yet if the Netherlands and East Anglia are not to be submerged in 50 years’ time someone must start spending now. That decision requires choice to be exercised by a few on behalf of the many, with the consent of the many – leadership on a big scale.
The New Ethic
In a world of individualism the dominant ethic can so easily become ‘What harms no one is OK’, or ‘What the others do and get away with has to be all right’, or even ‘If no one knows then you’re fine.’ At the height of the insider trading scandals of 1987 a leading London banker called insider trading ‘a victimless crime’, implying that it was more a legal nicety than a sin, rather like taking an extra bottle of whisky through the customs. What is wrong, some athletes say, with the odd drug to boost your stamina – it harms no one save yourself. What is wrong with drawing welfare and doing work on the side, the state can afford it. If that ethic were to prevail then any attempt by governments or organizations to spend money today for benefit in 30 years’ time, or to spend more of our money on other people would be futile; voters and shareholders and employees would shout them down.
The new freedoms and the new choices will only survive if those who exercise them take time to look over their shoulders, if they genuinely have a care for others as well as for themselves, others beyond their families and their own institutions. Just as businesses today invest in their local communities out of a sense of enlightened self-interest (good communities mean, in the end, better recruits and better customers) so, too, it is in the long-term interest of us all to make sure that choices are not rationed in our society because any rationing of choice might cause it to self-destruct. It is, however, for companies and individuals a calculation that has to be built on faith instead of genuflecting to the spirit of the times, talking the language of proper selfishness.
We need a new religion to save us, or at least a new fashion. Fraternity, the care for others as much as for oneself, must be our guiding ethic. First learn to love yourself, then your neighbour, but don’t forget the neighbour. Hubris, the Greeks called it, when overweening pride, or excessive enthusiasm for your own achievements, aroused the irritation, even envy of the gods. Nemesis, or downfall, would follow. It was a way of putting a moral embargo on improper selfishness. It can’t be done by laws, or by institutions, or by taxes, for fraternity is one thing that cannot be contracted out or outsourced. It is a core value, and it is established by the example of the people at the core, by the new élites, the fortunate ones.
The signs are not all that encouraging, but I am hopeful. Conspicious consumption, German cars, the electronic gadgetry, houses that cost more than most people’s lifetimes’ earnings, those are often the outward and visible signs of greed made respectable. When a company chairman, better nameless, boosts his salary by 37 per cent while his company’s profits declined by 7 per cent, and sees no reason for explanation or apology, it can seem that private exploitation of public responsibility has become the norm.
On the other hand there is:
— The Bob Geldof effect. More people, particularly young people, are prepared to give to good causes. More companies recognize that
good causes have a legitimate claim on their budgets and give less grudgingly.
— The willing taxpayer. Nearly 80 per cent of Britons, in many surveys, would like to pay more taxes if these resulted in better education, health care and social welfare.
— The young crusaders. Many young people want to spend at least part of their youth working overseas or helping out in places of adversity. The knowledge that they themselves will probably never be destitute seems to give them a new sense of freedom.
— The Third Age. As more and more middle-aged people discover that there is life beyond retirement, with real work to do, their values often shift. Having proved themselves in their work they now want to improve the lot of others – by helping in education, in voluntary organizations, in sports and community associations. Helping others becomes a way of giving new meaning to themselves.
— Institutional tithing. More organizations are encouraging their employees to lend their talents and/or their time to charitable causes, often in the firms’ own time, sometimes through secondment, sometimes by corporate support for individual initiatives.
More needs to happen.
True fulfilment is, I believe, vicarious. We get our deepest satisfaction from the fulfilment and growth and happiness of others. It takes time, often a lifetime, to realize this. Parents know it well, as do teachers, great managers and all who care for the downtrodden and unfortunate. We need to give more public expression of what is a deep human characteristic, so that we are not ashamed to be seen to care for others as well as for ourselves, for the future of all as much as for our own, for everyone’s environment as well as our own.
My hope is that as more people have more time outside organizations they will discover that portfolios are always enriched by work done for others. I believe that the intensification and the rationing of paid work will, ironically perhaps, encourage more gift work or unpaid work as people realize that it is the ‘contribution’ element in work which they miss most, and that contribution can be found in a wide variety of work, most of it outside organizations.
My hope is that as more people can choose where to live they will live in places more like villages than cities, places where your neighbours have a name and a face, where their concerns gradually become part of your concerns. It is always more difficult to care for strangers, or for people in the abstract. In a society of smaller communities there should be fewer strangers and more time to stand and talk as well as stare.
My hope is that life is now the right way round. Our wants are arranged in a hierarchy, as Abraham Maslow pointed out long ago, or, to put it more simply, life is largely a matter of crossing things off the list until you get to the bits that are really quintessentially ‘you’. Success, money and achievement should now, to many, come earlier, leaving them free to be different while there is still time and energy. In the past, there was neither the time nor the energy – too many died without discovering their full portfolio of possibilities.
My hope is that a society of differences will produce many models for success. Achievement will not be measured simply in terms of money and possessions, but by creativity in the arts, by social invention, by lives of dedication to the care of others, by political leadership in small places as well as great, by writing and acting and music of quality. We need to make sure that the whole variety is honoured, by press and politicians alike.
My hope is that our various religions and faiths will be more outward-looking than inward-looking, realizing that to strive towards a heaven, or something like it, in this world, is the best guarantee of one in the next world, wherever and whatever that may be. Britain’s countryside is dotted with ancient churches. They are important symbols, but they should be symbols not of spiritual escapism but of God’s and man’s involvement in the world around them.
My hope, finally, is in the nature of man himself, and particularly of woman. I believe that a lot of our striving after the symbols and levers of success is due to a basic insecurity, a need to prove ourselves. That done, grown up at last, we are free to stop pretending. I am conscious that we each have our quota of original sin but I also believe in original goodness. The people I admire most have grown up soonest and become their own people. That seems to happen more easily outside the constricting roles of institutions. The world I see emerging with its looser organizations, has many threats and many dangers but it should allow more people to stop pretending much earlier in their lives. If that is so, then the Age of Unreason may become an Age of Greatness.
For Reading and Reference
I have mentioned several authors and books in the text. These books and articles have influenced me and are all worth reading if you want to take any of the subjects a little farther. I list them here with a brief description.
Chapter One:
Olsen, M. The Rise and Decline of Nations. Yale University Press 1982.
A penetrating study of how and why societies freeze up or change.
The Cookham Group. Headlines 2000. Hay Management Consultants 1988.
A look at the world ahead by a group of young executives, sponsored by the Hay Group. Readable and thought-provoking.
Jones, B. Sleepers Wake! Wheatsheaf Books 1982.
A warning directed at Australia to re-think her ways of work and life. Very pertinent to Britain.
Chapter Three:
Kinsman, F. The Telecommuters. John Wiley and Sons 1987.
A glance at one part of the world of the future, built around case studies of organizations who have tried it. Readable and eye-opening.
Hakim, C. ‘Homeworking in Britain’, and Baran, B., ‘Office Automation and Women’s Work’, both in Pahl, R.E. (ed) On Work. Blackwell 1988.
Pahl’s book of readings is a bit academic but provides a broad canvas of thought and research on the way work has changed over the centuries. A lot of the articles are by women. An interesting backcloth to this book.
Chapter Four:
Naisbitt, J. Reinventing the Corporation. Warner Books 1985.
An anecdotal but upside-down view of corporate changes in America. A follow-up to the same author’s best-selling Megatrends of 1982.
Chapter Five:
Deming, W.E. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge University Press 1986.
The latest book by the greatest of the quality gurus. Important reading for managers.
Zuboff S. In the Age of the Smart Machine. Heinemann Professional Publishing 1988.
An interesting but rather academic examination of the way the computer changes the notions of work and power in organizations.
Bennis, W. & Nanis, B. Leaders. Harper & Row 1986.
Best read for its revealing description of interviews with a range of American leaders in all types of organizations followed up by Bennis’ On Becoming a Leader, Business Books 1989.
Mant, A. Leaders We Deserve. Martin Robertson 1983.
A wonderfully idiosyncratic book by an Australian with a psychological bent and a perceptive view of British ways.
Cooper, C. & Hingley, P. The Change Makers. Harper & Row 1985.
Some good interviews with leading British men and women on what shaped their lives and their thinking.
Peters, T. Thriving on Chaos. Harper & Row 1987.
Good for upside-down thinking. Another enjoyable and challenging book by one of the authors of In Search of Excellence.
Chapter Six:
Duffy, M. Gor-Saga. Methuen 1981.
A fictional view of the world ahead. Worrying.
Chapter Seven:
Kolb, D. Experimental Learning. Prentice Hall 1984.
The best exposition of how adults learn that I know of.
Argyris, C. & Schon, D. Organizational Learning: A Theory in Action Perspective. Addison Wesley 1978.
A bit academic in tone but an important book for anyone who wants to move beyond training to learning in an organization.
Revans, R.W. The Origins and Growth of Action Learning. Chartwell Bratt 1982.
The gre
at prophet of action learning explains its history and its rationale.
Dewey, J. Democracy & Educating. Free Press 1916.
A classic book for all liberal-minded educationalists.
Illich, I. Deschooling Society. Penguin 1971.
A radical attack on educational tradition.
Harvey-Jones, J. Making It Happen. Reflections on Leadership. Collins 1988.
A splendid and readable account of how one man, in my view anyway, changed a corporate culture, that of ICI in Britain.
Kanter, R.M. The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work. Allen & Unwin 1981.
An account of how and why companies change or do not change. Very authoritative. Also, her latest book When Giants Learn to Dance, Simon & Schuster 1989.
Mumford, A.L. et al. Developing Directors: The Learning Process. Manpower Services Commission 1987.
A short account of how Britain’s top managers learnt or did not learn as they progressed.
Gardner, H. Frames of Mind. Heinemann 1983.
One of those important books which are difficult to read at times, but can change your whole way of thinking, in this case on intelligence and on education.
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