Set a New Direction

The cog attitude: Take the money - and run!

People can't really be blamed for this. Here's why:

For over a hundred years, coming to work for most people has meant being an appendage to the machine. Fitted into a harness, doing a mindless job in a command and control workplace where there is no clear line of sight between what a person does and the goals of the organization.

"To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible punishment so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881).

"The routinized worker is discouraged from using his own independent judgment; his decision making is in accordance with strict rules handed down by others. He becomes alienated from his intellectual capacities, work becomes an enforced activity". C Wright Mills (1916-1962)

"We have been destroying our people from toddlers, on through the university and on the job" Edwards Deming (1900-1993).

Going to work too often means a systematic self-betrayal.

cog = carbon based unit
cog = drone
cog = instrumentally connected
cog = interchangeable part to be swapped out
cog = filtering away the personality at the door
cog = warm body / commodity
cog = beleaguered misfit
cog = unhappy automaton
cog = being less than who you are
cog = robots painting robots (Deming)
cog = getting your pink slip on 'purge' day (true story)

Enough!

The whole person wants to come to work and be engaged. Organizations depend on this type of engagement.

Let's Set a New Direction in our individual lives and in the workplace.