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 A
whole generation of the best and brightest from top universities
have dedicated their professional lives to mammoth corporations
by joining the burgeoning ranks of organisation men. In return,
they are assured of a steady paycheck, raises, promotions and a
golden watch at retirement, with a guaranteed pension to boot. Mohan
Babu writes why we cannot hope to be, or remain, organisation men
There is little debate over the fact that
we are experiencing a major shift in the job market worldwide. Changes
in the marketplace are leading to a fundamental shift in careers
and professions across the board. Perhaps the most important shift
in the paradigm is the move from Organisation Man to Free Agents
or Gold Collar Workers. Individuals will not remain loyal to one
single organisation, just as most organisations have given up on
guaranteeing lifetime employment. New entrants to the job-market,
and even those who have been working in the corporate world for
a while are starting to realise that we cannot hope to become, or
remain, Organisation Men. This is a topic I have been researching
for a while and will spending the next three columns talking about.
First, let us look at the Organisation Man (apologies to the ladies
reading this but "Organisation Man" is a term coined much
before it became a post script to refer to "people", not
just "men").
The Organisation Man era
Modern day professions as we
know them had their origin in the post-industrial age after World
War II when most Western nations saw a long spell of growth. This
era also saw the emergence of modern day consumerism. To cater to
the emerging needs of the market, huge corporations built gigantic
factories to manufacture products and serve the needs of consumers.
They also started employing thousands of people to manufacture,
service and market the products. Sometime during this period (in
1956), William H Whyte wrote his much acclaimed book titled the
Organisation Man—a term which caught the fancy of an entire generation
of working professionals.
In his book, Whyte defines
Organisation Men as "People only work for the Organisation.
They are the ones of our middleclass who have left home, spiritually
as well as physically, to take the vows of organisation life, and
it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating
institutions. Only a few are top managers or ever will be. In a
system that makes such hazy terminology as "junior executive"
psychologically necessary, they are of the staff as much as the
line, and most are destined to live poised in a middle area that
still awaits a satisfactory euphemism. But they are the dominant
members of our society nonetheless…." It is to be noted that
Whyte wrote his book during an age when men constituted the bulk
of white collared workforce, and I will not attempt to be politically
correct by using the term "Organisation People" (sic).
For nearly half century after
the book appeared, Organisation Man typified the working class.
In most parts of the world, huge corporations—private, public and
government-owned—employed hundreds of thousands of Organisation
Men. In the US, Fortune 500 companies created millions of jobs.
Similarly, UK, Europe, the Eastern bloc, and India saw the emergence
of huge government owned corporations and Public Sector Undertakings
(PSUs) that employed millions. In many parts of the world, government
service was the career choice for a generation of the best and the
brightest. In India, joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS)
or Police Service (IPS) was the dream. In the US, President Kennedy’s
"send a man to the moon" project captured the imagination
of a whole generation of youngsters who either wanted to become
rocket scientists or astronauts for NASA.
A whole generation of the best
and brightest from top universities competed to give their life
and souls, and dedicate their professional lives to mammoth corporations
by joining the burgeoning ranks of organisation men. In return,
they were assured of a steady paycheck, raises, promotions and a
golden watch at retirement, with a guaranteed pension to boot.
Educated professionals were
not the only ones welcomed by these organisations. There was a need
for everyone—from the mailroom clerk and janitor to shop floor workers,
supervisors and managers; and everyone else in between. One common
aspect binding all employees was their unrelenting loyalty to the
organisation. There was very little individualism and entrepreneurship
shown (or expected) by employees, and most of the decision-making
took place in ivory towers at head offices. The organisations asked
for, and got the unwavering following of its organisation men; in
return, it guaranteed employment, almost taking on a patriarchal
role for families of organisation men.
Mohan Babu is a US based software
consultant trying to find the ‘sweet spot’ where ITmeets business.
E-mail: mohan@garamchai.com
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