Whose Rules Will You Work By?
The hot book when I graduated from business school was Dress for Success, a compendium of the rules for proper appearance in the corporate world, by John T. Molloy. Millions of us devoured it. We were eager to gain every possible competitive advantage. To this day, I have never worn a brown suit in Boston.
But I fear that in the frenzy to get in the corporate game -- to win -- many never stopped to question whether the rules of this game were really ones that we wanted to live by.
I don’t know anyone under 40 who has jumped into corporate life with that same sense of blind obedience to the rules as they are currently defined. As one of you commented in response to my post "Entrepreneurs in Our Midst”: “Corporate life needs a major makeover to become more attractive to both Xers and the generation below them. Current corporate life is still very much a product of mechanistic Taylorian thinking that dates back to the early 20th century and saw employees as automata. . . . [F]or people who want to retain their individuality, who want to bring their personality, their interests, their emotional needs into the workplace, the big corporation is not likely to be a particularly appealing place. . . . To appeal to the under 40s, the corporation has got to move on from Frederick Taylor and notions of control, and take a few lessons from [the] world of the social networks.”
My favorite book today is The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life by Thomas W. Malone, an enormously insightful professor at MIT, who has long been a visionary voice on networks and collaborative technologies. Tom lays out an inspiring argument for rethinking how corporations get work done that parallels what I see when looking at the shifting values within today’s workforce. He explains how we are reaching an inflection point, as instant, ubiquitous, and essentially free communication lets us conduct the most basic processes within our corporations in fundamentally different ways--market-based, even democratic.
Another compelling compass comes in Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy and Innovation--and Others Don’t by my good friend Lynda Gratton, a professor at London Business School. Through stories and rich examples, Lynda illustrates the innovative benefits and enormous gratification that collaborative processes can provide.
There is a picture emerging of how corporations might be -- if those of you in your 20s and 30s keep reminding everyone of the need for new ways of working. Don’t let up. We’ve got a lot of work to do.
Maybe I’ll start by buying a brown suit.
How will you start?
HARVARD BUSINESS ONLINE RECOMMENDS:
Making Flexible Schedules Work--for Everyone (HMU Article)
The Kids Are Alright: How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace (Paperback)
What It Means to Work Here (HBR Article)
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Tamara J. Erickson is both a McKinsey Award-winning author and popular and engaging storyteller. Her compelling views of the future are based on extensive research on changing demographics and employee values and, most recently, on how successful organizations work. 
Comments
Tammy - I laughed when I saw your reference to Dress for Success (and remembered all my early 1980's menswear suits and floppy bow ties). Globalization and communications technology that support individuals and groups working remotely will certainly enable and spawn new workstyles.
While I think that "blind obedience" overstates how Boomers approached work (dressing for success aside), there was certainly greater belief in hierarchical structures). Even 5 years ago, when working at a good sized company ($1B) with a large marketing department, I suggested that we combine and flatten two marketing organizations (one of which I managed), and organize ourselves around different projects in which people would get involved based on skills and interests, different people would get to take the lead, etc. You'd think that I'd proposed having the cleaning crew and security guards step in and run marketing. The suggestion went nowhere. (Neither did the company.)
Exciting times!
- Posted by Maureen Rogers
May 4, 2007 9:26 AM
I had almost forgotten the mannish dress for women hoping to get included in the boardroom. I too had to laugh. The dress in my office today is very casual and I love it. Unfortunately, the work environment has not changed very much. There are still a few senior managers who believe the office is a political arena where Machiavellian tactics reign supreme and pure power is the only reason to come to work each day. And yes, the result is a disenfranchised, scared and fingers pointing work place. Creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit that made the business competitive and rock sold for many years is eroding into "blind obedience" with a "If my name isn't on it then I am not obligated" twist. For the few that seek change - they stand constantly in fear of losing their jobs and must walk a very thin line in all directions praying that there is someone in some office with an eye and brain looking to the future.
Great Insight - Thanks for the reminder to be human.
- Posted by Willie Mora
May 8, 2007 4:00 PM
Another paradigm which will change the corporate culture is the global nature of business. Corporations are head quatered in one country, gets their products/services dones in another country and then markets them across the globe. The workforce has become truely diverese geographically. In that context even understanding what the corporate culture is for an org is going to be a challenge. But what Erickson mentioned is true. Its still stiffling even though its global. And we need to do something about it.
- Posted by R Nelson
May 9, 2007 1:57 PM