Organisations failing as sense makers

The media shouts from its mastheads and morning drive radio programs about unemployment but very few discuss those middle and senior managers who 'walked', no longer believing their own priorities meshed with the goals of the organisation. For them, the organization 'lacked soul'. It militated against meaning.

Men and women in their 40's are now discovering that institutions 'ain't where it's at' as far as career progression, training, personal self worth or work/life balance. They are bailing out to start up their own businesses.

There have always been people who rejected the blandness and routine of organisational life. Literature is full of such tales: The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Revolutionary Road and John Updike's Rabbit series of novels depicted organisational man in the throes of existential change.

Today though, there is added cultural momentum as small, locally based social movements hawk the benefits of authenticity in fashion, food and life style. There is also a rejection of simulacra – of mindless advertising, virtual reality, genetically modified foods and more.

This is a chaotic and dangerous time for organisations. They are tangled in contradictory and often paradoxical thinking. They take on problems they are not built to solve. They resort to restructuring and accounting when they should employ empathy and positive regard.

Add to this psychosocial change with the broad structural changes running through Australian workplaces. 20 per cent of people are now self-employed and about 1.3 million people work from home. Mature age people will work well in to their 60s and maybe 70s. Thirty years ago the average retirement age for men was between 55-60. These are radical and ongoing changes.

The trend to outsource work, downsize shifts and the continual revolution to specialize on the one hand and multitask on the other, has a pernicious anti-logic quality about it.

But the future is not all grim. Organisations are built by human endeavor and will power. Up and coming generations, in partnership with the remaining Boomers, will restructure the legal and ethical dimensions our institutions.

Expect to hear a lot more about new forms of collective bargaining and more fruitful partnerships between employers, Government and labour.