“Ouch! Labor Hurts!”

Yesterday was Labor Day in the US. When I was growing up, it was usually a milestone close to the end of summer and a signal that back to school was here. The contributions and needs of labor did not weigh into my view or feelings about the day back then. They are a big deal today and weigh heavy. The US Department of Labor describes it as “Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”  I have to say that yesterday did not evoke the celebratory intent described by the Labor Department.

Today is really different in lots of ways for the labor force (force is gone as an appropriate noun). There is adequate coverage of the calamities, sea changes, and outlooks to send appropriate shivers across our economic spines. But today’s outlook is very asymmetric and unstable. That means that its impacts are not so bad for some and terrible for others. It also says that the future is more dynamic and unpredictable, such that those who are inflexible will suffer much more. Today is multi-polar in a flat world. Today precipitates sufficient anger and emotions to feed the political dreams of some, elevate fear for others, and generate too much fodder for spectators in newsrooms to provide confusion disguised as news. I won’t comment on the plethora of macroeconomic efforts in play because they provide little in the way of addressing some of the fundamental issues concerning me about the future.

The issues that frighten me are about the extent of inbred rigidity we may have created thorough specialization, division of labor, business controls and the underinvestment in thinking, flexibility, and agility.  Somewhere in the evolutionary mess of the relationships and rules between enterprises and workers (of any collar color) we may have become very good at what we “don’t do this or won’t do that” because of function, classification, grade, pay scale, university degree, time in grade, rank, floor, size of office, legacy, traditions, preferences, and an endless list of restrictors disguised as value adding rules. We have compounded the rigidity with a significant yoke of added controls and compliance requirements that address fears much more than the real risks requiring attention. I suspect that the temptation to resist hubris has been too great for some and has led otherwise good leaders into instruments of harm to enterprises, investors, human resources, and society. Maybe it’s time to rebalance and redefine how to play in the sandboxes?

This coming year is chock full of opportunity. It is likely to belong to the ones that replace the better mousetraps with alternatives to mice needing to be trapped. I believe that we are in a great time to get better at replacing “me” with “we” across historical boundaries, perhaps redefine competition, controls and truly leverage the boundless power of our connected and networked world. For one, the images conjured up by using the term “labor” to describe human contributors compartmentalizes a continuum into categories. It breaks up continuous systems into attribute systems, creating unavoidable disconnects.

There is opportunity in every storm.

• How should we harvest the ones ahead?
• How do we move from rigidity to agility? What about the ones that can’t? Won’t?
• How much of the burden belongs to me and how much to we?
• Can we overcome nostalgia or the desire for justice and face the challenges of reality?