<\/p>\n
The first person who convinced others to help move a really big rock probably invented management<\/em><\/span>. Since then, we’ve only made it more complicated. Centuries later, the Harvards and McKinseys of the world decided to cash in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don’t mean to sound like Aesop’s Fables but once upon a time when we were full and truly into the cavemen era<\/em><\/span>( long long long before the Mad Men<\/em><\/span> one), we were the hunter-gatherer<\/em><\/span> tribe, work was hunting, gathering was not getting eaten. Fight or flight<\/em><\/span> was omnipresent. Work was…well not work. And mind you, the origin of work-life balance<\/em><\/span> was to avoid eaten by a sabre toothed tiger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No emails<\/em><\/span>. No Slack<\/em><\/span>(so, one had enough time to slack). It was just survival<\/em><\/span>. No meetings<\/em><\/span>. Just grunts and gestures. Performance appraisals<\/em><\/span> meant- well, you have lived to see another day<\/em><\/span>!\u00a0 In the current context of JD<\/em><\/span>( means Job Description<\/em><\/span> I recently realised), hunter<\/em><\/span>=risk-taker, teamwork, project execution and gatherer<\/em><\/span>= detail-oriented, multitasking, risk-averse.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But, surprise surprise, we have moved on from cavemen to keyboard warriors<\/em><\/span>. From hunting mammoths to arguing with chatbots.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After enough rebellion, we trespassed unknowingly into what would later be termed the Agricultural Revolution<\/em><\/span>. Where work=farming; job titles could vary from farmer to plow inventor to the person who yells at sheep( now you know where we picked up the undying, timeless concept called ‘ herd mentality<\/em><\/span>‘ ) and subliminally we saw the birth of the ‘ 9 to 5<\/em><\/span> ‘(read sunrise to sunset<\/em><\/span>). We also made progress<\/em><\/span> in the process – running from predators to grappling with back pain.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometime later clocks<\/em><\/span>(or timepieces) came hand in hand with what in retrospect can be called the Industrial Revolution<\/em><\/span>. Clock in, clock out. Rinse(if possible), repeat. The Henry Ford<\/em><\/span> <\/a>era, if you may. When the rallying cry was ” let’s make people work like machines<\/em><\/span> “. When the grind of the ‘ 9 to 5<\/em> <\/span>‘ got re-enforced. Time was the currency, punch card the companion. Unions<\/em><\/span> did everything but unite.\u00a0 Humans as cogs-in-the-machine<\/em><\/span>. Leading to efficiency: yes, happiness: debatable.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before we move on, lets circle back to understand why should we even be interested in the distant past? Well, as William Bernbach<\/em><\/span><\/a>(Member, Advertising Hall of Fame<\/em><\/span><\/a>) said ” It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. And it will take millions more for them to even to vary. It is fashionable to talk about the changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man, his\u00a0 obsessive desire to survive, to succeed, to be loved, to be admired, to look after his own “.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We can see it in Milton Glazer<\/em><\/span><\/a>‘s universally recognised ” I (heart) NY<\/em><\/span> “. The heart symbol means that we do not have to speak the English language to understand it. He got the idea from initials carved into love hearts on trees or as grafitti sprayed on New York walls, the way it has been since Roman times.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With time, we seamlessly segued into the Corporate Era<\/em><\/span> ( a jungle of another kind) where meetings<\/em><\/span> are about discussing work, not doing it. Job titles<\/em><\/span> go from Clerks to Chief Experience Officer to cater to inflated egos and same workload. I forgot to add office politics<\/em><\/span> here which is where work gets done…or undone. And the SOS(Sea of Sameness)<\/em><\/span> called the Cubicle Farm<\/em><\/span> is the equivalent of a modern day prison with fluorescent lighting.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Enter the era of Digital<\/em><\/span>: Where are we even working? Where we are typing angrily at our computers. The WFH-Work from Home<\/em><\/span> and tackle the brief in your briefs era<\/em><\/span>. Where we traded physical labour for carpal tunnel syndrome<\/em><\/span>. An always-on culture where our productivity seems to peak just when we are about to go home. Where the unabashed use of lines like ” Let me play Devil’s Advocate<\/em> <\/span>” brings out your worst homicidal intents. How “I’m having connectivity issues<\/em><\/span>” became the modern “The dog ate my homework<\/em><\/span>“.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is time to take a deeper look. As Rory Sutherland<\/em><\/span><\/a> mentioned ” We seem to be keen to understand how technology works, how product-market fit works, how targeting works, how social media works, we’ve taken our minds of a far more important question – how do people work<\/em><\/span>? “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first person who convinced others to help move a really big rock probably invented management. Since then, we’ve only made it more complicated. Centuries later, the Harvards and McKinseys of the world decided to cash in. I don’t mean to sound like Aesop’s Fables but once upon a time when we were … Continue reading “How Do People Work? Or Pretend To?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1897,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions\/1897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}