Tom Townsend from the 80’s teen angst film set in Manhattan’s UES (an especially interesting film when juxtaposed against John Hughes’ typical setting in suburban Chicago), Metropolitan, prefers good literary criticism because you get both the novelists’ ideas as well as the critics’ thinking. In this post I am going to provide my thoughts on a book I have only read the review for: Freedom, Inc.
The reviewer boils it down to the following theme: corporations’ rigid, top-down management style too often makes workers miserable, stifles innovation and, not least, leads to economic distress for employees and stockholders alike.
Reading this sentence made me wonder which of those factors are causes and which are effects. Productivity is a function of motivation which is a function of incentives. When there are no incentives, or worse, negative incentives, people will not be motivated to work hard. Productivity will thus decrease and profitability will soon follow, eventually making stockholders “distressed”.
On a related point, I recently had an interesting conversation with Josh J-D about how to motivate and cultivate stars, a topic I’ve previously covered here. One take-away was that if you treat your employees like people, and not just resources, that goes a long way towards building loyalty. Bringing employees up in an organization reduces turnover and provides incentives—promotions—which leads to increased productivity and, in some cases, innovation. [Remember: not everyone can be a star, cash cows are OK too.]
According to the reviewer the book talks about two kinds of companies: ’Comment’ in French, or ‘how’ companies, and ‘pourquoi,’ or ‘why’ companies. What about ‘if’ companies? Companies that give their people a long leash and the opportunity to innovate (not only to sink or swim) will build a “can-do” culture. Those companies will see their people stick around when the economy improves. The ones that don’t will see an exodus. That time is coming soon.
