The Organization Man
This book is about the organization man. If the term is vague, it is because I can think of no other way to describe the people I am talking about. They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only work for The Organization. The ones I am talking about belong to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions. Only a few are top managers or ever will be. In a system that makes such hazy terminology as "junior executive" psychologically necessary, they are of the staff as much as the line, and most are destined to live poised in a middle area that still awaits a satisfactory euphemism. But they are the dominant members of our society nevertheless. They have not joined together into a recognizable elite -- our country does not stand still long enough for that -- but it is from their ranks that are coming most of the first and second echelons of our leadership, and it is their values which will set the American temper. - Introduction.
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- Personality testing in applications is hardly a new phenomenon. It was first popularized in the 50s, and has been resurging in lower paying or less technical industries for years to decades. William H Whyte's opus "The Organization Man" (1956) will be very informative to anyone looking to learn about why these tests are appearing in our jobs (especially with the current market), especially I think the fifth section, "The Organization Scientist", which is about research and technical workers interfacing with the broader corporate bureaucracy, even though in the context of the time it focuses on chemical and engineering researchers. This interview summarizes the broad strokes of the book: https://www.thirteen.org/openmind-archive/sociology/the-orga...
The Appendix, "How to Cheat on Personality Tests", should also be required reading for anyone entering the career hunt. This is one of its opening paragraphs to see its usefulness:
>By and large, however, your safety lies in getting a score between the 40th and 60th percentiles, which is to say, you should try to answer as if you were like everyone else is supposed to be. This is not always too easy to figure out, of course, and this is one of the reasons why I will go into some detail in the following paragraphs on the principal types of questions. When in doubt, however, there are two general rules you can follow: (1) When asked about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian answer possible. (2) To settle on the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: a) I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little more. b) I like things pretty well the way they are. c) I never worry much about anything. d) I don't care for books or music much. e) I love my wife and children. f) I don't let them get in the way of company work.
It could be updated a bit for the culture of 70 years later, but the general pattern is clear and easy to follow. Looking at the book and interview again, it's striking just how simultaneously insightful and down-to-earth Whyte was; the universal appeal comes from his investigation being both concretely practical "to the nth" and humanistically aspirational "to the nth". He didn't allow his important work to become either a watered-down compromise or an off-kilter harangue, and was too exacting to be unduly impressed either by the "death-rattle" sloganeering of his time's protestors ("Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" to "The Ascent of Stan","Love is all you need", etc) or by the benevolent assurances of the time's testers ("The Pipe Line", "The Fight Against Genius", "Society as Hero"). His prose is also excellent. They just don't make social scientists like they used to, and the field is worse off for it. Physics envy and/or the paper mill may have distracted from an old societal good that could be a huge boon today.
- Organizations, large and small, are all pathological. It isn't an epidemic of terrible social accidents, it's inherent to organizations as a method of grouping humans.
Essentially, people (and AFAIK, all primates) have a built in behavioural system to take excess credit for wins and minimize blame for losses. The details are a nasty tangle of evolutionary psychology but the consequences, in groups, are blame deficits. These deficits typically manifest as a simultaneous doublethink mix of low morale and unrealistic optimism. That's the pathology.
Good personnel management is about leveraging this instead of fighting it. I recommend The Organization Man (1956) and Moral Mazes (1988) if you want to read on the topic and/or fall asleep fast but if somebody knows a more recent text on the topic, please suggest it.
- Thanks for name-dropping that book. I've always wondered what exactly happened to GE, and I love history books that speak to the modern corporate era we inhabit.
My personal favorites of the genre are Titan (about Rockefeller and Standard Oil), The Organization Man (an anthropological study of the "company man" archetype from post-WW2 America), and Shoe Dog (much lighter reading than the other two, and a great read about the founding of Nike).
Anyway, I just grabbed a copy. More history book recommendations welcome!
- Check out William H. Whyte's The Organization Man, a 1956 book describing American society's turn towards valuing the group and togetherness for its own sake.
If you want the tl;dr, check out this 1982 interview with Whyte about that book:
- This is one of my most favorite essays and I think about it daily. I increasingly believe that modern workplace, with its emphasis on open space plans and team work, gradually develops groupthink that can be potentially destructive. [1]
It is not only the absorption of others' opinions. It is impossible to pause and critically evaluate thoughts for several minutes when not alone. Mistakes remain unidentified mainly because no one had a moment to discover them; conversely, they might get dismissed if their understanding requires larger amount of time. It is difficult to think for oneself. I work in a management/economic consultancy and see this every day.
How can "solitude" enter work?
[1] The Organization Man by William Whyte, a classic management book from the 50s, is a relevant resource for a critical analysis of a workplace along these lines.
- i figured much of this out years ago. the biggest piece of advice i can wholeheartedly recommend is be explicit about your priorities. once you do that, everything falls into place, decisions become easy.
my wife is sometimes confused as to why i haven't taken certain jobs or career paths but when i explain to her the impact it would have on things that are more important to me, she seems to understand. about a year ago, i was reminded of this in reading william whyte's "the organization man", in particular the chapters about family. right then and there i made a decision, i backed out of some job offers and have been pleased.
take care of yourself, that's the most basic lesson of all, and that doesn't mean focusing strictly on finances (real or anticipated) or your career.
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