The Work-World (Context)

In this section, Diversity Praxis will address the contextual issues facing businesses and individuals today. These range from globalization, rapid change, uncertainty, anxiety, and alienation. We will discuss reorganization, immigration, and multiculturalism.

Post what? From Modernism & Industrialism to Post Modernism & Post Industrialism

Post means literally after, but after what? After the industrial age, the modern age, and the age of the grand narrative of progress comes the post-industrial/post-modern age. Post is an evolution from or rupture with what was: Assembly lines, conformity, segregation, massification, centralization, bureaucratization, standardization, predictability, jobs for life, control, nationalism, the categorical, the patriarchal. This partial list is a 'why we are an anxious people list'. This is a partial list of why people are afraid of difference, change and uncertainty. Like it or not, it is a list of what we were used to. It is a list of what is now gone. Post-modernity and the post-industrial has meant a de-bureaucratization of public services in favor of private outsourcing (e.g. the whittling away at the welfare state and federal projects by moving it to the private sector). It has meant the de-heirarchicalization of businesses through greater forms of personal accountability (empowerment schemes), and the de-traditionalization of family life and gender relations. It has led to de-conventionalized consumer patterns and greater consumer autonomy (internet based information). This restless process of fragmenting our life worlds and individualizing our life projects scares many of us into wanting something permanent and stable to hold onto. Examples abound; from the rise of far right and anti immigrant parties in Europe ("we are not going to be a multicultural nation", declared a leading German candidate for chancellor on TV, 4/2002) to fundamentalism in the Middle East and in the "West". Whether it is class polarization in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela) or increased religiosity, class bifurcation and unilateralism in the U.S., people are yearning for relief. The German newspaper Tagesspiegel recently described Europe's foreboding towards outsiders as hauntingly similar to the 1930's. Quoted in The LA Times May 22, 2002: "Whether Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Portugal, France, Belgium, or now Holland, everywhere, the right-wing populists are on the march". These fears and attitudes can walk in the front door of any business.

Lets take a step back and look at an everyday example of the change. A study of school teachers is a telling example of the whirlwind of change affecting people's lives, and therefore the way people see the world when they pass through the doors of your business . The top problems facing teachers in the U.S. in 1940 were reported as: talking out of turn, making noise, running in the halls, cutting in line, dress code violations, lingering, and chewing gum. The top problems facing teachers in 1990 were reported to be: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery, assault. We can add mass murder (Columbine, Erfurt), terrorism (9/11), mind numbing (virtualism, information overload, ADD), and inter-immigrant hostility (e.g. Armenian and Latino student fights in LA high schools) to the list. Although this study was used by Stolitz to speak to a growing challenge of human and business adaptability, it also speaks to the remarkable moving target that the past and future changes pose for successful business planning.

Economic postindustrial change has brought with it a postmodern culture. And with it has come paradigm shifts in the sciences, in philosophy, and in social theory that all speak to the impossibility of effective control. This places management at a turning point. Industrial management theory from the early 20th century was based on engineering and control. Previously, paradoxes were viewed as contradictions to control and conquer. Either / or was an effective and efficient choice to make. This is no longer true. Now the choice is both, it is and, it is balancing the contradiction. It is both focus and experimentation on the job. It is both optimization and innovation, discipline and passion, evolution and revolution. Balancing the paradox of the 'post' world means to embrace and to let go, to feel and to think. We must harness the power of paradox. We must embrace diversity while we value cohesion. Love the activist for change as well as the preservationist of tradition. We must be strong and compassionate, prudent and courageous. This is the age of paradox, the age of the 'post' (post-modern, post- industrial), the age of difference.

Diversity, differences, variety, multiplicity - these are all words that capture the essence of our 'post' age. They capture the ambiguities that lie at the heart of our age, and with it, the uncertainty. They are also the most complex and troubling for people to understand and grab onto. The ambiguity involved in having many, going for both, instead of the certainty of choosing one, the either / or, causes anxiety. That is why this Diversity Praxis seeks to speak to individual anxiety, to the notion of multiples, to eliminating the bipolar (either/or) thinking of the industrial age. If we are to embrace diversity as the cornerstone of innovation, then we must move to the post-control world. If we are to be comfortable with the ambiguities of an age of paradox, and if we are to succeed in "being large, in containing multitudes" (Walt Whitman), then we must go beyond managing diversity, beyond managing and controlling people as things, numbers, and instruments of production.

We must understand the post-control in the post-industrial. This means being relationship centered. This means we must facilitate a collaborative association of stakeholders. The post-industrial business emerges as an association of members who freely join (associate) with others to actualize (make real) the mission with his or her skills and voice. This is not a family institution. Families generally do not layoff, even when they disown, they cannot sever the blood tie. The association metaphor, unlike the community metaphor, elicits the empowered individual who voluntarily brings their unique talent to the group for a specific purpose and for a specific amount of time. Unlike professional associations, communities, like families, can be passive collectives, some with entitlement emotions. "I've moved in, now leave me alone and by the way, why are there so few green parks here?" Association members are not entitled, they are active participants. They freely associate with intent to be a part of the group or team. They become citizens. This perspective on business governance politics is crucial if global businesses are to be resilient across cultures, markets, and crises. Relationships between people and stakeholders who are different from one another is a resiliency skill, and the cornerstone of adaptability and innovation. Businesses must focus on governance just as they focus on balance sheets. They need a constitutional governance project to acculturate employees and suppliers into the business culture, values and ethics. They must have a social policy to succeed or they risk being in denial, sliding into nihilism and chaos, to become anti-values, anti-people, and fragmented businesses. Simply put, businesses are made up of people, and people are affected by rapid change. HR and diversity consultants are people consultants. People are confused and made anxious by change. For that, diversity consultants, HR and management must better understand and explain the trends within the changing context if we are to navigate these times, help people adapt and help our businesses to succeed.

In the age of the vital and adaptive organization, managing the context to allow for diversity, ideas, creativity, and innovation replaces controlling your people and managing things, without sacrificing accountability. Luckily, the unprecedented challenges facing businesses today are also, paradoxically, the very challenges that will push business evolution. Companies are experimenting with what it means to be post-industrial, global 'networked companies'. The adaptive organization is a transitional place where both the old rigid model and the chaotic models co-exist in tension with one another, in what Stacey calls the 'edge of chaos'. Just where this transition will move to after the dot com meltdown of 2000-2001 and the security age is a matter of great debate. Yet, all controversy and disagreement aside, few analysts consider a return to the command and follow (rigid) industrial model. Likewise, the dot com meltdown put the final nail in the coffin of the chaotic model. A physical analogue at work would be a return to neither cubicles nor frat-house offices, but to innovation campuses.

The main changes affecting business can be summarized this way: there is the move from a vertically aligned industrial model of production to the more flexible, modular, and horizontally aligned post industrial model of business. There is the change from mechanical mass production techniques to the use of networked information technology and its analogue in knowledge work. This means a change to greater customization, speed, quality, and to globalized and casualized (temp) work. These changes bring increasing levels of paradox, greater uncertainty, and rapid winners and losers. If 46% of the Fortune 500 disappeared in the 1980's, and as of 1990, only 16 of the original 100 largest U.S. companies still exist, then the notion of planning, control, conformity, standardization, and strategy are called into question. Lets look a little closer.

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