Work Here Now

4Decisions About People, for People: How to Make the Human‐Centric Decisions That Drive the Next Generation of Greater Organizational Outcomes

My Grandpa Joe was a plant engineer, and according to family lore (unconfirmed), he invented the machine that makes Tam‐Tams, a kind of octagonal matzo snack (Figure 4.1). He was a lifetime union guy—it even says on his tombstone, “A friend of the working man.” Because he was so good at matzo machine engineering, he eventually rose from line engineer to management.

And it ruined him. He couldn't mentally shift from his deep and strong identification with the struggle of workers to trying to support the agenda of the company he worked for. He floundered and was laid off. He never consistently worked again.

As I've taken on leadership roles of increasing responsibility in my own career, I've thought about this a lot. Why was it so hard for him to cross that psychological line between worker and company? And thinking about the same problem in reverse, why do companies wrestle so mightily to put themselves empathetically into the minds of their workers? Even in organizations that fervently believe in crossing this divide, we see efforts to do so go awry. Matrix structures designed to empower greater swaths of employees tie up those same employees in loops of bureaucracy. Enhanced employee experience becomes a stalking horse for longer work hours, as that delicious cafeteria food subtly traps folks at work past dinnertime. And so on.