Work Here Now

8Defeating Greedy Work and Animal Farm Syndrome: Two Critical Levers for an Awesome Working Culture

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”

—George Orwell, Animal Farm

This chapter is, in many ways, the mirror image of the prior chapter. While in the last chapter we explored forces that shape workforces from the outside (immigration, migration, and incarceration), this chapter is all about a couple of forces that impact organizations from within.

The first force, greedy work, could be described colloquially as “the kind of jobs that take over your life.” (I'll provide a real definition from a sociologist shortly, don't worry!)

The second force, Animal Farm syndrome, describes well‐intentioned folks turning into the same bad leaders they once swore they'd never emulate.

Both phenomena can feel insidious and impossible to defeat, sweeping darkness across the land like the Nothing in the 1980s classic film, The Neverending Story. (Just Googled that movie to check the release date and wow, the wolf‐like villain still gives me shivers!) But both can be controlled and even stopped…leveraging a healthy dose of organizational self‐awareness and thoughtful, targeted work on working culture and, particularly, career paths. By giving some profound thought to how people should move through organizations, and what good really looks like in a given job, we can make work less greedy and stop ourselves from turning ...