The 1950s heralded a new golden age : that of consumerism.
It was being claimed that the war of classes was over since the traditional classes were giving way to the new, more modern concept of the consumer. So workers and owners were finally working hand in hand to keep the consumer happy since both could identify with that class.
‘The american worker has been domesticated’ proclaimed the sociologist and journalist Daniel Bell.
Those were the times when, presumably, even if the worker was unhappy, he was more likely to turn to fantasising about building his own little business than going into the streets to protest.
But then the peace was interrupted and the whole thing exploded.
The ‘60s came with mass protests, to the disbelief and confusion of executives and managers.
They started putting the workforce on blast, blaming their ingratitude and propensity to ‘always demand more’.
The generational divide was also blamed. The new generation didn’t understand the value of work, lamented executives in an attempt to scapegoat the young generation, using arguments very similar to those that target gen Zs today, labelling them as being lazy, entitled and devoid of work ethic.
A study came out in the mid ‘60s in which people had been asked the following question : if you had to start your professional life over again, would you take up the same job?
The ones who ranked highest on the poll, meaning those that said they would go back to the same job, were professors and journalists.
The ones who ranked the lowest were the factory workers.
The study concluded that what separated those that were dissatisfied with their jobs versus those that weren’t was the lack of autonomy in the workplace. The more autonomous the job, the more the satisfaction levels tended to go up, and vice versa.
Reformists and management thinkers got to work designing a new way of organising work : one that broke away from the overly hierarchical and controlling ways that had set in to bring in more freedom and responsibility to the worker.
They wanted to see the effect of self-management on levels of engagement, productivity and worker satisfaction.
Self-managed teams and companies sprang up, from the Lip Factory in France in 1973 to the dog-making factory of General Foods in Kansas in 1971.
The results were unequivocal : worker productivity rose. Turns out when workers and teams are made responsible for their own work and decisions, they’re happier, more engaged, and better performing. What a revelation.
This sounded like a win-win scenario for everyone, or did it?
There was one class that was left insecure and not happy about how this whole self-management experiment was unfolding.
And those were the managers.
They felt dispossessed of their role. If the workers were even more capable of running their own affairs than when managers were around, then what became of them?
Managers started to sabotage the self-management effort.
One factory worker, Bill Watson, from one of the self-managed teams recounts how management had planned an inventory management exercise set to last 6 weeks. The task had been handed to 50 or so employees, who promptly began organising themselves. The outcome was that the inventory ended up being so efficiently organised by the workers that the work was done way ahead of time.
Management immediately brought into question this operation, stating that the authority and official communication channels had been flouted.
They were willing to undermine the whole operation for the sake of keeping their control despite the fact that it was more efficient and less costly for the company since the workers, having done their work ahead of time, stayed home and weren’t paid for the remainder of the 6 weeks.
More autonomy for workers was perhaps more efficient, but management wasn’t going to put up with it.
Self-management efforts were thwarted in many organisations that were willing to give it a try.
And so, self-management, once the buzzword of the ‘70s, was relegated to history as a fad, a utopian construction of hippie-like thinkers disconnected from the practicalities of the business world.
But the reason why self-management had to be stopped at all costs actually runs deeper than insecure managers fighting against their work being taken from them.
Self-management opens a can of worms for capital owners.
Managers and shareholders were confronted with the glaring question : if workers were given more decision-making power, where was the limit?
Could the capital class keep capturing the benefits of this increase in productivity without giving up too much control ?
The issue was not an economic one, it was a political one. It became clear that efficiency and productivity weren’t the central concerns here because self-management had outperformed expectations on both counts.
This was a political issue, and always had been.
And so, self-management experiments kept ‘failing’ until the concept itself faded into the background.
But the truth is it never really went away.
As with many progressive movements who haven’t found their proper timing yet, it went underground.
The most forward-looking companies kept questioning themselves, kept experimenting and exploring new ways to do business, and self-management principles resurfaced in these companies and is effective to this day.
Given the state of work today, self-management is ready to make a serious comeback.
The timing is right.
And this time, founders and businesses will be ready for it.
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*Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash
