TRANSITIONS IN THE WORKPLACE (worth repeating) 1700’s-1800’s, imitation of the m

TRANSITIONS IN THE WORKPLACE

(worth repeating)

1700’s-1800’s, imitation of the military order in business (command and control) driven by british men doing service, getting some money, and going into business in the colonies.

1920-1980 the bureaucratic order of management via socialism, as the family is replaced by professional management.

1980+ the entrepreneurial movement and JIT. (the great purge) the middle managers are fired en mass, and the governments abandon socialism per se.

1990+ the team model brought to america from japan where it was brought in from japan.

2000+ the agile movement into technology brings JIT to Agile(iterations) and Kanban(streams) so that higher operational tempo prevents large errors by using many small changes, requiring lower held inventory. side effect is greater social and interpersonal commitment.

2010+ the social movement into business:

2016+ the agile and social movement spread to the entire business.

WHY: the transition from pure slave labor under the military order, to bureaucracy under the socialist order, to entrepreneurialism and teams, to the purely professional order.

Same happens to organization sizes and durations. Companies rely less on fixed capital and more on tech and talent. Companies get smaller and more specialized.

Careers move from lifetimes to decades.

Now arguable we are in seven year cycles of both.

So when you say ‘social’ all it means is that people practice more ‘discretion’ in the workplace because they do increasingly dynamic or custom or small-run work, and less repetition of the same process (and if they do, they get paid peanuts).

Theoretical limit is we’re all unmarried, all unemployed, and all part time contractors, and companies all make small bits for each other.