Wanted: Courage to Change our Work.
While emailing some old friends last week I discovered a common problem that I share with my two friends in regards to a general frustration with the work that we do. This frustration reminded me of the struggle I have with a concept often promoted by Robert Greenleaf that the only way to change our institutions is for folks with servant attitudes to get into them and work on changing them from the inside. Compared to Greenleaf who worked at AT&T for 38 years, this seems like an awful tall order when the longest stint I have ever worked at the same place was for twelve years, with an average at the other four jobs (not counting the part-time ones) of more like two years.
One of the biggest struggles I have with Greenleaf’s proposal is how difficult it can be to keep sane in systems that are geared towards our “free market economy” goals of working to crank out more products (in my case working to manage the pollution that results from our productions), to earn money, to buy more stuff. For more on this idea take a look at the “Story of Stuff” web site and the film that goes with it.
After spending a few days in a bit of a depression over this dilemma, I found an old copy of the May/June 2007 Orion Magazine with an essay by Curtis White titled “The Ecology of Work.” I had read this article when I first received the magazine, and was really inspired by White’s writing. Somewhere along the way (a new job may have had something to do with it) I had forgotten the inspiration.
White’s essay is written with a focus on what is wrong with the environmental movement, which is the same thing that is wrong with our society in general. According to White, “what precedes environmental degradation is the debasement of the human world. I would go so far as to say that there is no solution for environmental destruction that isn’t first a healing of the damage that has been done to the human community. (…) the damage to the human world has been done through work, through our jobs, and through the world of money.”
White see two ways out of our current ways of work, “First, we can simply wait for the catastrophic failure of global capitalism as a functioning sytem.” Or we can choose a second option, “We can start providing for a different world of work now, before the catastrophe. We need to insist on work that is not destructive, that deepens the worker, that encourages her creativity. Such a transformation requires a willingness to take a collective risk. (…) It means leaving a culture based on the idea of success as the accumulation of wealth-as-money. In its place we need a culture that understands success as life.”
There is much hope in White’s proposal for a new way of work, the same kind of hope I find when I read Greenleaf’s ideas on servant leadership. The challenge I have is how do I go from a focus of changing jobs to find meaning, to a focus on changing the work I have to find meaning. Please post a comment and let us know about the successes, failures, or challenges that you have faced in similar pursuits.
One of the biggest struggles I have with Greenleaf’s proposal is how difficult it can be to keep sane in systems that are geared towards our “free market economy” goals of working to crank out more products (in my case working to manage the pollution that results from our productions), to earn money, to buy more stuff. For more on this idea take a look at the “Story of Stuff” web site and the film that goes with it.
After spending a few days in a bit of a depression over this dilemma, I found an old copy of the May/June 2007 Orion Magazine with an essay by Curtis White titled “The Ecology of Work.” I had read this article when I first received the magazine, and was really inspired by White’s writing. Somewhere along the way (a new job may have had something to do with it) I had forgotten the inspiration.
White’s essay is written with a focus on what is wrong with the environmental movement, which is the same thing that is wrong with our society in general. According to White, “what precedes environmental degradation is the debasement of the human world. I would go so far as to say that there is no solution for environmental destruction that isn’t first a healing of the damage that has been done to the human community. (…) the damage to the human world has been done through work, through our jobs, and through the world of money.”
White see two ways out of our current ways of work, “First, we can simply wait for the catastrophic failure of global capitalism as a functioning sytem.” Or we can choose a second option, “We can start providing for a different world of work now, before the catastrophe. We need to insist on work that is not destructive, that deepens the worker, that encourages her creativity. Such a transformation requires a willingness to take a collective risk. (…) It means leaving a culture based on the idea of success as the accumulation of wealth-as-money. In its place we need a culture that understands success as life.”
There is much hope in White’s proposal for a new way of work, the same kind of hope I find when I read Greenleaf’s ideas on servant leadership. The challenge I have is how do I go from a focus of changing jobs to find meaning, to a focus on changing the work I have to find meaning. Please post a comment and let us know about the successes, failures, or challenges that you have faced in similar pursuits.
posted by Tom Jablonski at 10:06 PM
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