Doc,
I very much enjoyed your comments. I think along similar lines. My point
would be this: Hired hands, as you put it, did have a contractual
relationship with their employer. At an automotive factory, the hired
hands were to assemble cars and as a result of doing that the employer
agreed to pay them a certain wage. If the worker(s) decided the working
conditions were unacceptable, they could have applied for another position
at another car manufacture (GM, Ford, Chrysler). That doesn't mean the
person couldn't be easily replaced; it does mean, however, that every
worker in the industrial era had option that gave them control over their
careers.
Sadly these options weren't always seen, and if seen people were afraid to
exercise them for fear potential employers would see them as disloyal
(this is the common answer I get when I talk to people who grew up and
worked in the industrial era -- the early part of the 20th century). The
mainstream idea was to get a job with a company and stay there until you
retired.
Knowledge workers are indeed more mobile, and they can increase their
value by gaining more knowledge, but the fundamentals of management
shouldn't really change. Unfortunately, there were many in the industrial
era who treated employees poorly. It isn't that they deserved to be
treated poorly, but rather that the employers could for reasons you
listed.
And so it seems to me, Doc, that your point (and I would agree with it)
is that knowledge work has forced companies to become more humane. They
can no longer treat workers like animals; they must recognize and appeal
to human greatness. That should have been the way things were in the
industrial era (and for some companies it was that way) but there were
others -- those that get emphasized in articles and books -- where
employees were treated poorly.
For me I value competence, which I recognize as a trait of human
greatness. I would have no problem being just as impressed with a
competent "hired hand" working in a factory somewhere as a brilliant
software engineer or chemist. On a moral level I would find them equals,
even though the hired hand may not have the genuis of a software engineer
-- or if they have it they're in an environment where it doesn't get used.
At the same time I have experienced first hand the reality that even
knowledge workers are treated poorly. My experience at Novell has left a
permanent impression. I know what it is like to be treated like a mindless
animal, capable of only following detailed work instructions. I know how
demeaning it is to work in such an environment. And I know how wonderful
it feels to work in an environment where I am free to express and
continually discover my own greatness.
I don't think knowledge workers and hired hands should be treated any
differently. They both deserve respect. It may be true that knowledge
workers have a greater chance of getting the respect because of their
mobility, but it doesn't mean they deserve it more.
-- Benjamin Compton bcompton@emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>