Power and self-exploitation

The control of employees over time – an (incomplete) attempted explanation

It’s a good thing that we have left Taylorism behind us. Today, leadership is mentoring, flexible working hours and autonomous teams in agile structures ensure ‘eye level’ and meaningful activities. Employees are satisfied and motivated. Companies are successful.

Really? No.

With the humanisation of the world of work, companies wanted to get away from rigid processes, dehumanised organisations, little participation, formal hierarchies and patriarchal structures. One-size-fits-all solutions and methods promising salvation emerged so quickly that the trends sometimes overtook themselves. Unfortunately, the effects and consequences of agile, lean, Spotify & Co. were and are often overlooked. When no ‘controller’ of the work is present, the powers become less visible. And yet people are kept productive and ‘on track’. Power has changed. But the functions have remained, only now they are exercised by the employees themselves.

Where instruction and control used to ensure the functioning of the ‘human resource’, self-optimisation and self-realisation have now taken their place. The techniques of power are less visible. Disguised by the mask of humanisation, power is depersonalised and subtle. We imagine ourselves to be freer and our behaviour is even more conformist. At the same time, the numbers of burn-out and depression are constantly increasing. This is not due to Tayloristic remnants, but to blind obedience to New Work.

Taylor came and stayed

Of course, putting the productivity of the individual (and thus of the company) at the centre is not a modern phenomenon. The development from large-scale enterprise to industrial factory describes the ever-increasing spiral of discipline, control and productivity. Soon, more bureaucracy, division of labour and mechanisation were needed to be able to produce on the assembly line in factories like Ford’s from 1913. From this point on, building concepts also became more important. After all, they were supposed to enable control and humanisation in one fell swoop. The panoptic factory was born. A few supervisors had an overview of the workers, who in turn could not know when exactly they were being observed. At the same time, the buildings became brighter and more beautiful.

We no longer live in the industrial age, and we have long been wondering what may come after the information age. The fundamental ideas of the division of labour, control and productivity have remained and have established themselves in all areas of value creation.

If you want to coordinate a lot of people, you need control and conformity. The basic ingredients of modern tools.

Monitoring? We’ll do it ourselves!

A modern office building with an ‘open space’ concept, small meeting islands and telephone-box-like retreat rooms is the backdrop against which one of the agile teams holds its daily stand-ups. The participants stand in front of a Kanban board and make it clear what is coming up. Post-its are used to record who has taken on which tasks and how far they have progressed. A meeting is necessary and easy to find, because everyone can see their colleagues’ calendar. The collaboration platform shows who is currently “busy” or on holiday or absent or, or, or. It’s normal for participants to keep looking at their smartphones and checking e-mails, because quick responses are part of good manners.

That’s good, isn’t it? The team organises itself and has so much more freedom. Yes, that’s good. At this point, however, I would like to explicitly point out the function of control. Of course, there is no longer any need for a supervisor or foreman. Control is woven into the working mode. Starting with the modern premises, the transparency of platforms and boards, and extending to the Post-its that can provide information. The control of the past is not gone, it just takes place differently.

Productive and compliant

Monitoring is one side of the coin. The other is compliance. This is essential if a large number of people are to work together in a coordinated manner towards a common business goal. Compliance requires guidelines, i.e. a standard that people can use for orientation. That is why organisations continuously proclaim what is considered normal. They measure, test and query. Personality tests, employee appraisals, feedback rounds, job profiles and certificates. The modern employee spends a large part of their time documenting their normality.

Values and purpose workshops take care of the rest. Because they produce nothing more than targets for people. This is how they become calculable and compliant. ‘Normal’. The seemingly friendly guiding principle of many organisations, that they ‘develop their employees’, only partially conceals the purpose of normalisation (and thus optimisation). Be responsible, be effective, be self-effective, be yourself, find your personal purpose, team purpose, control your emotions, be fit, healthy and have the right attitude.

Power is the driving force

The New Work bubble has popped with the slogan of humanisation, promising to do so much for people and their working conditions. It should not go unmentioned here that the people involved certainly have good intentions.

But humanisation is just a mask; ultimately, power is the driving force. Understood in the sense of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, power is by no means negatively connoted here. On the contrary, its various forms are what make collaboration, creativity and success possible in the first place. Power is the driving force. Only when we are unaware of when and where we blindly follow it does it become difficult to avoid self-exploitation.

Power must be analysed as something that circulates, or rather, as something that only works in a chain. It is never localised here or there, it is never in the hands of a few. Power is exercised as a network, and individuals not only circulate through this network, but are also always able to suffer this power and also exercise it. They are never the inert target of power, they are always its transmitters. Power passes through individuals, it is not applied to them. (Michel Foucault, 1973)

‘Our employees need an agile mindset,’ for example, is pure disciplinary power. The requirement of what attitude and way of thinking is ‘right’ is only intended to ensure conformity and productivity. It would be more appropriate to talk about performance and expected results instead of adding a great deal of moral pressure.

Or take the whole wellbeing movement. Once again, it is the mantle of humanisation under which yoga, healthy snacks or massages are offered. This accesses people’s bodies, which should also be kept fit in the interests of productivity. In many organisations, such initiatives come from the HR departments and have a very pastoral undertone. It is not just an invitation, but here too it is about power.

Is that all bad? Of course not. All these instruments of power ensure productivity and that is good. At the same time, we do not notice that they subtly undermine our freedom and invite us to self-exploitation, also because the normative pressure on the individual increases. And so perhaps the biggest change in the world of work is that the techniques of power and their exercise have quietly and steadily been transferred to the people themselves. We are no longer supervised by a supervisor, we do it ourselves. Fitness watch, Outlook, Instagram, MS Teams & Co. We believe in our individuality and hardly notice how compliantly we move through the world of work. We believe that more self-determination and decision-making freedom increase our freedom and overlook the signals of the subsequent self-exploitation. That is the danger. And it is greater than it was in the days of Fordism because it is not visible.

Reflection on power

It is precisely the responsibility of areas such as HR, OD and leadership to reflect on the instruments of power that are in effect. This requires a constant eye on the effect that can be achieved with all the selected measures, methods and tools. What effect do the structures we create have on people? Where and how do we establish norms? Where do we make it easy for people to exploit themselves? Which masks of our actions conceal the effects?

This reflection is imperative for all companies that claim ‘our employees are important to us’.

Notes:

[1] Michel Foucault: Madness and Civilization

Stephanie Borgert wants to make a difference in the lives of the people she works with. You can easily contact her via LinkedIn and exchange ideas about managing complexity. Alternatively, it is worth taking a look at the interesting books she has published.

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