Replying to LO29037 --
Gijs,
I have to take exception to the characterization of Pfeffer's The Human
Equation as a waste of money. While it's been some time since I read that
book, if recollection serves, Pfeffer does not claim that employment
security alone is necessary for the creation of a high performing system:
he offers that suggestion as one component of a package of initiatives
that an organization may consider adopting if it wishes to improve its
performance over the long term. I don't seem to recall that he offers
this prescription as a sure-fire "magic bullet" for all companies, but
rather as something that his observations of companies that have been
successful over a significant period of time indicate might have
contributed to that sustained success. Is he more doctrinaire than that?
The book resonated with me when I first read it, no doubt partly because I
had read so many bogus "management theory du jour" style books that in
fact did claim to be the holy grail (but were in practice at best time
wasting, and at worst manipulative, and even cruel in human terms), and in
part because I had worked in a number of organizations that, although
"successful" in bottom-line measures, were not particularly pleasant
places to work, because of the way employees were often mistreated. It
always seemed to me that, had these companies been more enlighted in their
personnel policies, their upside could have been quite a bit greater than
it actually was. Unfortunately, in a "if it ain't boke, don't fix it"
world (and one, I might add, that still favors Theory X over Theory Y),
this is always a very hard case to make. I think Pfeffer comes closer
than anyone I've read lately to making this case.
Rich Pauli
rpauli@aol.com
"If you build a better mousetrap, will you catch a better mouse?"
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