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A Manifesto For A New Way Of Work
We need a revolution in our thinking about business, and how we organize ourselves to accomplish work, as individuals, networks, and businesses.
We need a revolution in our thinking about business, and how we organize ourselves to accomplish work, as individuals, networks, and businesses. I intend to explore this revolution through writing A New Way of Work during the course of 2015.
This new form factor of work cannot be a soft layering of a handful of new ideas on top of the enduring premises of today’s way of work. We’ve tried that before. It’s what we have today, really. A few innovations have been adopted over the past few decades, like the first wave of information technology, employee empowerment, matrixed organizations, and social media. These have led to some modest successes in some areas, but the underlying premises of business have remained the same since the start of the industrial era. The management and organizational model that arose in the early 20th century has only been moderated by these innovations of the later 20th century.
While the coercive controls of early industrialism have gradually transitioned toward a more consensus-based managerial regime, and hierarchies have flattened, businesses remain profoundly undemocratic on the whole.
To read the full essay, visit Work Futures on Substack.
