Today, i thought about a book: The Disposable Americanby Louis Uchitelle
Why? because our nation, our society, and many organizations do not care about people. the care way to much about money. And administrators at the top of the pyramid who make and have a ton of resources think nothing of cutting everyone else but their own. I have personal experience. I hate it. Rehetoric abounds "your first customer is your employee" Our greatest asset is our employees Our employees make the difference Our people make your experience the best... But in reality, that doesn't matter, especially when you cut people. For a very long time there was a rule, Nobless Obligee, that in practice meant that the well off needed to take care of the not so well off. In ancient Rome, the Emperor always made sure people were fed. Granted the society was abusive, but.... Thomas Hobbes famously said life is nasty, brutish, and short. John Locke called on people to do better. Now, I do not see that one bit. Companies with billions of dollars cut workers like no one's business. Huge corporations with mega cash reserves fought to take all the aid meant for small businesses. After World War II in the US and Japan, companies and their workers had an agreement: we won't lay you off for your career, and your pension is guaranteed. Then in the 80s, this all changed, and workers were viewed as disposable. Why, because commodity thinking replaced value thinking. Why pay workers, why keep workers, if you could squeeze a little more out on the profit side. And since the 80s, American society and the worker has LOST the ability to save, purchase, and have a life where they do better than their parents. The social, moral, and societal contract has broken, through one way damage. The Supreme Court has ruled over and over for business, for wealth. in the US we have an oligarchy. At least in the UK titles exist to help people know who the Great and Good are. In my life, my family has been impacted in 40 years by a number of crashes. In the late 1970s, the US was recovering from the Oil embargo- crash In the 1980s, the US was thrown into a complete structural crash, complements of poor economic policy by the "party of business" Crash In the early 1990s, another crash- In 2001 our economy crashed due to 9/11 In 2008, the Great Recession Now, the US is is the midst of Great Depression levels of destruction. My generation, Gen Xers, haven't recovered from the previous crash. I know of towns suffering from the 1980s crash. I lived in a city, Buffalo, that was hammered by the 1970s crash. Some how, we have to look at people as a core- central aspect of life. Disposing people, cutting businesses, driving towards the bottom has destroyed us. We cannot go on. We cannot allow decision makers to look at the short term bottom line, and shirk responsibilities onto others. Our economy can no longer be consumer driven, we can no longer base our wealth on other people's instability. In LEAN management, waste or MUDA, is the greatest sin. Seven mudas or wastes can drive business out of operations. The eight, the MUDA of wasted talent, has been unrecognized, and frankly the greatest waste. Its time to end the economy of fear. Its time to call a spade a spade. The US has lost its competitive edge for one reason: we do not value our people. We do not work to do what the Japanese did after World War II- they created a society that educated and valued their people/ employees as important members of the economy. It wasn't until the economic system allowed layoffs and the careless investments of the 2008 bubble did the Japanese economy suffer from retraction. I call upon all leaders, all think tanks, and all humans with a heart- end the worker disposable economy and create a structure that will promote innovation. Comments are closed.
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AuthorOver 20 years experience in consulting for improvement. Lean and Six Sigma Certified. PhD in Leadership Archives
April 2024
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