Renaissance of Work
The industrial revolution was the main factor shaping our 20th century work understanding. The industrial revolution brought mechanization and a production-oriented economic model and business conduct into our lives. As the companies gigantic in the industrial revolution were growing, they focused on producing control mechanisms in order to manage their growing structures rather than caring for customers and their employees. During this time, we invented some practices to solve the complicates problems of 150 years ago. These inventions have brought humanity, for better or worse, to the present, but unfortunately, they can no longer respond to today’s new complex conditions. In fact, they’ve even begun to become a bigger problem than the problem they were trying to solve.
The nature of the industrial revolution was mechanical, cold, monotonous, and harsh. This is why we’ve kind of lost our soul; we have turned into those who live in a repetition without mood. We focused on the base of the Maslow pyramid of necessities, but perhaps at the expense of the upper floors.
Now we are in a new era. Pandemic, digitalization, and scientific changes have been rapidly shaping our lives. The search for “work” to turn into a more meaningful structure did not emerge with the pandemic, but the pandemic revealed some points that we had ignored for a long time. So, as Alvin Toffler said 50 years ago, it’s time to forget what we’ve learned so far about “work” and to rebuild and relearn.
However, this is not that easy. Because our daily practices are not always coordinated with what we know and the levels we have reached as humanity. Knowing may not be enough, because it is easier to accept than to change the order and understanding in which we were born. Still, it is necessary to start somewhere to start transformation; It is necessary to kill the usual things and replace them with new ones.
As you can roughly see on list at the top, I am talking about some concepts that will be quite dead. From the definition of success to organizational structure, from financial management to talent development, we are talking about new definitions and new understandings. What other habits do you think we have to kill? What should be new in their place? Or should we really fill in their places? I look forward to hear your comments…
PS: You may use the below quick guide to diagnose your current state…
