Muffed Answer Leads to Rethink

Tom Peters writes that a Muffed Answer Leads to Rethink.

So the idea, then, in an oversimplified nutshell, is to avoid organizational and professional extinction—and in fact pursue growth—by vaulting up the value added chain. In my shorthand: Become a remarkable "brand you" performing 100% value-added "wow projects" in an organizational unit transformed into an innovative "professional service firm"—e.g., devoted to applying intellectual capital to the organization's products and services. (The overall "home" organization, per my model, seeks differentiation by becoming a de facto "collection of integrated professional service firms.")

Emphasis Mine

Peters seems to saying that workers are being forced to develop themselves as active determiners of their own destiny by the forces of Capitalism. Workers have to become more than passive followers of the firm's management, if they are to survive in the emerging business environment.

Firms that cede power to the workers will have a greater rate of survival than those where the managers reatin control.

Capitalism is forcing socialist development upon the workers by having differential rates of survival. In other words, firms with greater Socialist consciousness will survive better in Capitalist business because greater profits are generated through greater worker productivity and lower cost of managerial supervision.

We may be seeing the synthesis being generated through the dialectical materialism of worker development and desire for profit growth.

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Getting It Wrong

Tom Peters publishes a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson" in Getting It Wrong.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblins of little minds. Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannonballs, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today.

This idea is also expressed as Strong Opinions, Weakly Held by Bob Sutton.

This is really good advice for revolutionaries in that we have to keep testing our ideas against reality and change those ideas when needed. Those ideas must be fiercely debated and argued so that they are strongly held “as hard as cannonballs”.

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An Engaged Workforce

Ruth Smith ponders whether An Engaged Workforce is ... an unrealistic ideal in the current business climate?

... Polling 23,600 directors, managers, and employees, they found that employee engagement is seen as one of the top three factors that drive an organisation's success (it ranks higher than strategy) and 75% of board members believe that it improves bottom-line performance. In these times, when the news is full of redundancies (layoffs), re-organisations, and failing businesses, I’m not sure if employee engagement is high on the business agenda.

Emphasis Mine

Later on, she muses:

In my work I have seen pockets of excellence where employee engagement seems to be occurring, and many places where it is obviously not! I have been asking questions about what is happening where engagement is prevalent. A pattern appears to be taking shape in the responses I get; engagement is more likely to occur when mangers purposefully include, and share power with, people within the organisation, co-creating a way of working together with their teams. There is a sense that the diverse range of people within the workplace community (not just the managers and leaders) are involved in, and feel accountable for, finding the solutions that are right for them, the business, and the future

Emphasis Mine

Power-sharing does not address the fundamental tenet of Capitalism: the owners of capital make the investment decisions. Power-sharing in this context is merely consultation before a decision is made.

The only thing we can hope for from this evolution in management thinking is the workers may gain in consciousness about their true power in the productive process, especially as other avenues are closed off (strikes, etc).

A truly engaged workforce is one that runs the workplace and employs capital as it sees fit.

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23 June 1789

On 23 June 1789, King Louis XVI decided to show who was the boss. The National Assembly disagreed.

J.M.Thompson's opinion is:

It soon appeared that the king's stand had come too late, and could only be maintained by arms. A display of force was, indeed, made: when the deputies arrived at the Parliament-house on June 23rd, they found it surrounded by troops. But this threat of violence, and the absence of the popular minister, served only to strengthen the spirit of resistance. Nor did the Commons now stand alone. On the previous day they had been joined by the Archbishops of Vienne and Bordeaux, at the head of a hundred and fifty clerical deputies. After listening to 280 speeches in five days, these representatives of the First Estate had at last decided to throw in their lot with the Third. Thus strengthened, the National Assembly was in no mood either to be intimidated or to be cajoled. (p.22)

...

Thus, in terms as clear as French could make them, the Assembly was reminded that it was only being allowed to play at reform. Louis could refuse to sanction what the deputies proposed: he could force them to accept what they disliked. He claims to have done everything hitherto by himself: he will, if necessary, dismiss them, and proceed alone. He will do for France what Frederick has done for Prussia, Catherine for Russia, Joseph for Austria. He will be the Benevolent Despot for whom the country has been waiting so long. (p.23)

Emphasis Mine

The French Revolution
By J. M. Thompson

Louis wanted to manage incremental change. The new Capitalists wanted to get the priviliged bludgers off their backs.

Historians, such as Thompson, reviled Louis as weak and indecisive. The system failed Louis by placing him in that position. A heriditary monarchy has only one path of succession. It cannot consider better candidates.

And yet the system expected the monarch to be far better because they are the monarch.

The evolution of French Feudalism has reached a dead-end in Louis XVI from a mob of lawless ruffians posing as lords of the castle to an ossified system of privileges that depended on the character of the monarch for its survival. (An 18th century version of the CEO myth.)

Even then, the Third Estate wanted to proceed incrementally. Revolution was not thought of yet. This was to change dramatically in the space of a few weeks.

The Third Estate were not intellectually prepared for what was about to explode. The American Revolution had been about a colony seeking self-government and ending up with independence.

The English Revolution had been almost rolled back by the Restoration. The ideals of the Levellers and others were too dangerous.

And yet, without class analysis, one must resort to conspiracy theories about secret societies controlling human destiny. There were secret societies because revoultionaries in an authoritarian state must work underground.

But the French Revolution was about people taking control of their destiny for a short time before the new ruling class wanted to stay in power instead of following the monarchy.

Tom Peters says to do it All At Once! He gives a good analogy of the difference between Reform (incremental change) and Revolution (change everything).

I'm an avowed incrementalist—even if the aim is stratospherically high. That is, get going ASAP—and quickly experiment your way toward/to success.

...

Between my little project and Wendy Kopp's Richter 8.0 project, and Dubai and Korea, I am pondering the circumstances when "do it all at once and figure out what 'it' is and how to do it on the fly" is the right answer. There is no doubt that such conditions exist—though the key, beyond the compelling dream, is the raw talent and energy and enthusiasm and obsession and resilience of the participants. It is 99.99% (or more) a matter of raw emotion—not a matter of analytically identifying a big opportunity, assigning "good people," and then proceeding based on state-of-the-art project management software.

Emphasis Mine

I suppose the Party should invest in some project management software??

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Seven Billion Experts—Waiting to Be Heard!

Tom Peters rails against the Central Planners in favour of Seven Billion Experts—Waiting to Be Heard! He argues that the Development policies have failed.

Peters also has a link to a set of PowerPoint slides about this. These are worth viewing in order to see Peter's argument elaborated on.

The underlying assumption is that the development aid has failed. While this is true for the developing countries, development aid has worked wonders for the developed world by increasing the rate of exploitation.

One case in point is coffee. For years, the World Bank recommended that developing countries invest in coffee. So much development occurred that the price of coffee collapsed. And the developed countries benefited from cheap coffee.

So instead of growing food to support themselves, these developing countries now have loans to pay off with a cash crop that does not bring in enough cash.

Now these countries go off to the IMF to sort out their loans. And out comes the cookie-cutter of the Structural Adjustment Program in which the subsidies that make life somewhat bearable are removed and the economy is to be opened up for foreign investment which proceeds to gut the local firms. And now, these countries have a seething mass of angry people. So the governments then need weapons to stay in power. More debt! And more sales to developed countries. What a racket!

Anyway enough jumping on Tom Peters.

The theme of his slides is interesting for Communists especially in our United Front work. The important thing is not to control these organisations but to get people involved. For once people see that they can change little things through their own efforts, they might begin to open up to changing larger things in their life. And they can become more confident about analyzing the structure of society.

We Communists need to become accustomed to "Trying and succeeding on the 37th attempt". The churn of Party membership is mainly due to this continual failing as well as the search for the perfect Party Program.

In all, I think we should view the slides at least in order to refocus ourselves.

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So, Work Really Does Matter ....

Tom Peters advocates the overthrow of the oppressive Capitalist workplace as he notes that So, Work Really Does Matter ..... He advises workers to:

I am left wondering, in today's world of Brand You, whether the challenge of finding meaning in one's work should be down to the employee herself? Surely it is up to each of us to make the connections and to discover for ourselves the purpose in what we are employed to do? It would be great if leaders could do this for us, but since work means different things to each of us, surely we have at least some responsibility to do this for ourselves?

Emphasis Mine

And as Peters mulls over whether this should be a top-down revolution, or a bottom-up one, one should realise that it is the right of the owners of the enterprise to determine what work should be and in what manner.

This right does not change no matter if the economic system is Capitalist, Socialist, or Communist! It is the owners that change, not the right!

For an idea like tat of Peters to work, a degree of meaningful worker ownership is required. The greater the degree, the greater the control over work a worker has.

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The Support Economy

In The Support Economy: Why Corporations are Failing Individuals and the Next Episode of Capitalism, the authors appear to confused about the nature of Capitalism. However, the book has a good discussion about misogny in advertising.

The authors confuse Capitalism with the existence of enterprises. They appear to confuse the effect of organisation in Capitalism with organisational narcissism. They do not recognise that organisations exist to reproduce Capital.

They condemn organisations for being based around the transaction. They do not recognise that the transaction is the basis for all economic activity. You cannot wish away the transaction without wishing away the economy.

They are correct about the increasing automation of the workplace.

They want to replace the transaction with advocacy.

They advocate a customer orientated organisation similar to the ideas of Tom Peters and Seth Godin.

They explained the long recognisation of women as the consumers (over a century), and how this led to misogny in advertsing.

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What values will you pass on?

Last Sunday (12 February 2006), I saw the following outside of a church in Western Sydney. (OK! I admit it! I am Westie!)

What values will you pass on?

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Dr. Ruth Peters write Got bad kids? Time to take a look at yourself. She states correctly that values begin in the family. She lays down the following plan:

Make a list of values, attributes, qualities, and behaviors that you admire. ...

Then, make a list of values, attributes, qualities, and behaviors that you definitely do not wish to see developing in your family. ...

Together pare down both lists to those descriptors that you agree upon. ...

Set a family meeting to present and discuss your lists with the kids. ...

As a family, periodically review the appropriateness of the values listed within your family code.

This is all well and good except when the government and others in high standing behave in a barbaric manner. And other people make excuses for them. (See Jeanne d'Arc's article about Fear itself.)

How can you pass on moral values in an immoral society? With great difficulty, I would imagine.

Here the immorality is committed and excused by those who profess moral values.

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Adrian Wooldridge on Al-Qaeda as a Virtual Corporation

Adrian Wooldridge at The Fifth Annual Spring Symposium at the McIntire School of Commerce said:

... I remember in the 1990s reading endlessly books by people like Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos, about the virtual corporation and the -- corporation, and delayering, and hierarchy, and the importance of networks, and people like Jack Wells, who pay lots of lip service to it. But where that organization has actually materialized is not in, you know, Harvard-educated people running businesses. It's al Qaeda that is the perfect virtual organization. It's an institutional innovation of incredible power. And I think that's one reason why we're not underestimating the importance of terrorism. We're not underestimating the importance of terrorism because the capacity of these people to inflict massive harm is greater than it's ever been, through not just nuclear weapons, but biological weapons, chemical weapons. They just have a capacity to inflict damage on people and on economic systems by the panic it creates. Because the conditions for the spread of this ideology have never been greater, with this massive process of urbanization, with the fact that there are so many young people, young males, as Robert was saying earlier, in poorer parts of the world. And because of the power of global capitalism summons up resentment from people. And that resentment sort of organizes very disparate groups into what looks like a common organization.

Dr. Adrian Wooldridge's biography indicates that he is the Washington correspondent for The Economist.

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