It was the most amathiac thing I have read in
a long time.
In a war, there are times when
circumstances compel people to make do with less than they need – as examples,
consider the Battle
of the Bulge, or the Siege
of Jadotville, or the guns at Brécourt
Manor.
There may even be what some would consider
a “noble” purpose in that – e.g., destroying an active force of evil that had
been allowed to develop material power in the first and third example, and
attempting to fulfil a peacekeeping mandate in the second.
NONE of that justifies deliberately planning to be
under-resourced in a peacetime situation, and that is how the so-called “Lean”
philosophy is interpreted – see how much further workers can be driven, if they’re
duped into drinking the Business World Kool
Aid of Konformity, a bit like using mindfulness to blame workers for being
unhappy when they’re overworked.
I’ve been through this sort of rubbish
before –notably, in the 80s and 90s, business people used war and violence in
their exhortations to workers – e.g., “we’ve got to smash our rivals to bits” (I’ve watered down the language actually used).
Then, and now, the aim was to distract and
drive (perhaps re-socialise
is a more appropriate and accurate term) workers into sacrificing
themselves, their health, their families’ well-being, their lives to the goal
of profit for the business holders.
Not only is that morally indefensible, it is morally offensive.
People have inalienable rights, and several
of those boil down to quality of life: low emotional intelligence managers and
supervisors (let alone the psychopaths
who are, at least, now acknowledged – see here,
here,
and here)
have NO
right to reduce that.
Furthermore, the overloading of people is counter-productive.
In the business world, that leads to reduced output as a result of poorer
health/exhaustion from lack of sleep/etc, people leaving, people not being able
to think clearly and be creative (on
that, look at this
TED talk, on the benefits of a certain amount of procrastination to
creativity – or, as business people term it these days, creativity), and
ill-will – no matter what carefully limited surveys and the like may suggest.
In war, under-resourcing as part of
planning can also be disastrous: compare the ultimately successful, within two
years, liberation
of western Europe by the allies in World
War Part 2 with the “cut
off the head” approach to the US-led
invasion of Iraq which had so limited success that, combined with other
mistakes, western powers are still there - 14 years later.
It is necessary to always look at the bigger
picture.
As an example, in the 80s, although there
was a need for some changes in my home state, the approach adopted, with the
then-fashionable privatisation (now being rolled back in many places in
the world because of social costs and abuses – e.g., see here,
and here) and
the ever-fashionable amongst business elites union bashing, effectively threw
out the baby with the bathwater – the industry I work in lost countless, irreplaceable
years of experience through people leaving or committing suicide. It was also
clear to me – and others - then that the world was heading for trouble, with
so-called “economic
rationalism” evolving into “neoliberalism”
and, today, we have the situation where workers are suffering staggering abuses
and problems.
In that decade, I saw many people getting
browbeaten into the new BusinessThink:
had more of those people resisted, perhaps the world would not be in such
trouble now. (incidentally, many business
computer departments are also plagued by their version of GroupThink, and
ineptness when it comes to enabling people to work as those people best do, rather
than as the computer department thinks they should.)
Had business people been more emotionally
intelligent, and worked with their employees rather than
trying to be autocratic, or dictatorial, or a semi-military style leader (let alone those who were psychopaths),
they could quite possibly have achieved the change they wanted – and with far
less disruption to the market they were trying to sell to, which comprised the
workers who are no longer buying because of income insecurity/reductions …
That style of leadership problem is also an
inherent problem I’ve seen with some – not
all – ex-military people trying to move into the civilian world. There was an
article on LinkedIn warning of such problems in the security industry: it was,
unfortunately, too long ago for me to track down now, for which I apologise.
To sum up:
people are all individual human beings, not cattle or economic units; treat us with decency, respect and patience, and things will go better for all.
Business leaders need to start thinking of themselves as stewards of the human and other resources of their company …
And finally, “naïve" – aka stupid! – expectations of consumers for ever cheaper goods/more convenient services need to be challenged –the growing destruction of the world may be the way that is done.
We need to slow down, and think.
people are all individual human beings, not cattle or economic units; treat us with decency, respect and patience, and things will go better for all.
Business leaders need to start thinking of themselves as stewards of the human and other resources of their company …
And finally, “naïve" – aka stupid! – expectations of consumers for ever cheaper goods/more convenient services need to be challenged –the growing destruction of the world may be the way that is done.
We need to slow down, and think.
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