Control is the opposite. It is achieved largely by coercion… overt such as through violence and intimidation, or covert such as through peer pressure and misleading advertising. Control is seldom, if ever based on contribution to the other. It is mostly based on taking from the other; on the “what's in it for me” principle. And it is seldom sustainable.
If our true value lies in our capacity to make a contribution to others, then that is where real empowerment lies. It is in this that the recent and current labour unrest has put labour and particularly organised labour at a cross-roads.
On a macro, national and global economic level, it is now generally accepted that our wellbeing has become thoroughly dependent on our behaviour as individuals. We can no longer blame systems, policies, measurements and collectives for the state of the world around us… least of all for the level of our own wellbeing and contentment.
Organised labour's greatest opportunity lies in becoming outward-looking. If it's true that at a personal, private level our value lies in our capacity to contribute to the wellbeing of others, then it's equally true for an employee. As an employee one must find this contributory capacity in the collective's effort to be of service to the customer. A labour union leader that honestly has the interests of members at heart will rise to the challenge. Nothing could be of greater service to union members than ensuring that they are afforded the maximum opportunity of contributing, thereby unleashing their true value. If a labour union decides that it too has a fundamental interest in ensuring that companies never neglect the customer, that union won't only be revolutionary, but will also earn a kind of power surpassing that of any party that's inwardly-focused.
Having worked with thousands of employees, I can say with conviction that the failure to recognise their contributory potential is a demoralising factor. They feel shunned and powerless to shift the hierarchy above them. In some cases, organised labour has tried to remedy matters with additional training on its own account. But such action remains secondary to the primary role of unions as they themselves perceive it: ensuring enhanced material benefits. In my view of the problem, a number of legitimate grievances can actually be restated in the perspective of service and customer interests. For example, instead of deploring the unfairness of executive pay, one could argue that it's unfair for customers to have to foot the bill for such extravagance. As an aside, nothing is stopping the unions in establishing a scientifically based, negotiated Gini co-efficient for business sectors, giving it a benchmark that can question levels of executive rewards.
Organised labour has annual negotiations on pay and working conditions. It should insist on another annual or even more regular event to discuss how company service and employee contribution may be enhanced. To me it seems completely wrong that the largest contributor to wealth created has a scheduled mass representative meeting only to discuss what it can get, rather than what can be given.
The common purpose that binds people in a collective is the contribution which that collective makes to its outside environment. In the specific case of a company, contribution is about customers in the first place and the broader community, society and humanity in the second. All other benefits are consequences of this. The multiplicity of motives among individuals in the collective is not of major importance. What does matter is that they take second place to the common purpose. The extent to which individual purpose, motives and deeper intentions are aligned to the collective purpose will, however, determine the degree of ultimate success and strength of the collective.
In hundreds of workshops I have done over a number of years, employees have universally and firmly supported the concept of pay-at-risk in return for a higher degree of job security. Why have unions and management done so little to explore this mood? I suspect that unions are afraid of losing the only real justification for their massive structures: the assumption of an inherent conflict, mostly about wages. For managements, the prospect of losing outright control on hiring and firing is equally daunting; it's far more comfortable to work with labour as a cost than to recognise it as a valued contributor.
It is no longer appropriate for labour in South Africa to be stuck in the cold war rhetoric of the 80's. We have amongst the best labour legislation in the world. It is surely time that we test all of our rights, responsibilities, systems, associations, collectives, expectations and aspirations against that maxim that will unleash our real value. We can only do that at an individual level: by changing our internal dialogue from “what's-in-it-for-me” to “what's-in-it-for-the other”.
• Schuitema will give a detailed account of how to structure fortune sharing in companies and how to effect attitudinal changes in labour during an “Inspired Service” workshop to be held on the 27th and 28th of September 2007. An intervention that teaches the real secret of service excellence to unlock contribution and service in your organisation with lasting results, the Inspired Service process shows leaders and managers how to enable environments that inspire people to serve. Inspired Service has been taught in leading companies like Pick 'n Pay, SAB, Absa, Dulux, Momentum, Sasol and Spoornet. Seats are limited and people are advised to go to www.values.co.za for bookings or to call Leany Erasmus at SoulCircle on +27 (0)86 176 8500 or +27 (0)82 598 5963 or email today.
