Then:
The organization man seeks a redefinition of his place on Earth. … He needs, in short, something that will do for him what the Protestant Ethic once did. I am going to call it the Social Ethic. More than anything else it rationalizes the organization`s demands for fealty and gives those who offer it a sense of dedication in doing so. – From ”The Organization Man,” by William H. Whyte Jr., 1956
Now:
The rise of the enterprise ethic will challenge organizations to adapt to a work force that regards organizations differently than did the loyal organization man. … All a manager or anyone else can do by way of leadership is to become a sort of narrator, joining his or her voice to the other voices of the organization. – From ”The New Individualists,” by Paul Leinberger and Bruce Tucker, 1991
Thirty-five years ago, William H. Whyte Jr. published an insightful, witty critique of American business organizations and the legions of managers who devoted their lives to them. ”The Organization Man,” based largely on interviews with the original residents of suburban Park Forest, became a classic of social research.
This month the son of one of Whyte`s initial subjects has, with a co-author, published a book that examines the offspring of the generation Whyte profiled and suggests that many of the organizations their fathers built are in jeopardy.
”The New Individualists” (HarperCollins, $24.95), by Paul Leinberger and Bruce Tucker, says, as did Whyte`s book, that the growth of the American companies dominant after World War II resulted from the concurrent emergence of an American white middle-class culture that prized belonging above practically anything else.
The sons and daughters of that generation, though not rejecting organizational life per se, have rejected that culture, Leinberger and Tucker now say. At the same time, new, looser organizations relying on computers and computer networks are arising that don`t require it.
Several futurists and critics of American business have reached the same conclusion, but none has so carefully grounded this view in original research and intellectual argument. The notion that Baby Boomers, the largest cohort of Americans living today, are men and women who will use organizations for their own purposes rather than be used by them has broad implications for corporate management, consumer product marketing, community development and public policy.
Some giant American companies will accommodate and motivate the sons and daughters of the organization men as employees, customers, suppliers and other constitutents. Others cannot or will not, and they will disappear, say Leinberger and Tucker.
”They will die from within; they are not the kinds of companies you want to put your money on,” said Leinberger in an interview. Leinberger`s father was Park Forest`s official ”chaplain,” who helped meet residents` religious needs before formal churches were established.
Free-lance writer Tucker agreed that organization-man companies such as General Motors Corp., International Business Machines Corp. and Sears, Roebuck and Co. ”are in very serious trouble compared to their positions just a few years ago.” On the other hand, Leinberger believes Japanese business culture suffers from the same problems of hierarchy and sluggishness.
Leinberger and Tucker are scheduled to discuss their new book from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 18 in Park Forest`s Freedom Hall, 410 Lakewood, sponsored by the Park Forest Historical Society and HarperCollins Publishers.
Criticism of this book and its thesis may come from several quarters. For one thing, not everyone agrees the organization man is dead or dying. Despite the consolidations and restructurings of American business in the 1980s, in which many erstwhile organization men suffered layoffs, ”early retirements” and outright betrayal, large companies remain the entrenched hierarchies of management they`ve been since before Whyte wrote his book.
Whyte, now 73, who permitted Leinberger to study his research notes for
”The Organization Man,” applauds his effort with Tucker, but disputes their central conclusion.
”I think it`s a contribution, needless to say,” he said in an interview last week. ”I think there`s some very good research in their book. But I disagree with them on a number of things. Is the organization man dead? I don`t believe he is dead.”
Indeed, one result of the new book is that many Baby Boomers will go rummaging through boxes of their college textbooks to find Whyte`s book, which has remained remarkably poignant over 35 years.
Though the jargon has changed, many of the corporate ”human-relations”
theories and practices widely used and discussed today are the same manipulative nostrums Whyte belittled in the mid-1950s. Whyte`s book is still in print from Simon and Schuster.
Leinberger, a 1965 graduate of Rich Township High School`s east campus and the University of Illinois, says he initially suggested to Whyte that Whyte publish a contemporary version of ”The Organization Man.”
”His stance was there`s no reason to rewrite it because `I was right then, and I`m right now. But if anybody`s going to rewrite it, why don`t you? You`ve got the interest and the academic background, and you lived it,”`
Leinberger recalled.
On other grounds, the book may be attacked because it spotlights and even celebrates white, upper-middle class Americans at a time when not only the organization man, but also Western civilization, is being denigrated in the name of diversity and so-called political correctness. Although much of the book precisely maps the dead-end of Baby Boomers` self-absorption in the 1960s, `70s and `80s, the closing chapters say Boomers are evolving into the right people at the right time for America in the `90s.
No one can deny that the sons and daughters of America`s management class, no matter what paths in life they have chosen, are a crucial group of Americans in the `90s, said Tucker, 43, who considers himself, like Leinberger, a member of the generation. ”They`re the best educated and smartest people out there. You can`t survive without those people.”
Whether traditional American institutions can survive with these people is a more pressing issue, however. Leinberger believes that business and political leadership will have to adjust to the demands of maturing Baby Boomers, many of whom already have realized they probably never will be as well off economically as their parents.
”The big headline is, you have to lead by example,” said Leinberger.
”That`s not something that anyone has done for a long time. These individualists don`t follow banners; they don`t follow themes. They are very cynical. What you say is not nearly so important as what you do. You have to live a story, and it has to be a compelling-enough story.”
From a political standpoint, ”I can`t see them becoming mobilized on a national basis for any candidate or party,” said Tucker. Instead, the authors believe that local government, especially schools, will capture the attention and commitment of this generation, many of whom are having children relatively late in life.
Marketers will find that the key component of a purchase decision for many Baby Boom consumers is the process of choosing. ”They want to display their capacity for choice,” said Tucker. Those consumers want more than a product or service; they want a reason to buy. Having made ”freedom to choose” the hallmark of their generation`s ethic, Baby Boomers are well beyond ”keeping up with the Joneses.”
The authors note the apparent paradox that, despite the emphasis on personal choice and choosing, certain consumer products become virtual badges of the generation, if only for a short while, during the continual search for distinction.
”Yes, everybody has the same car or jogging shoes, and it looks like the same conformity all over again. But the important question to ask is, what does buying those Reeboks mean to the people who are buying them?” said Tucker.
Leinberger said that a few marketers of products or services who hit the right nerve, especially the sense of quality, will profit handsomely, if briefly, from this paradox.
”You have to create a product as if you`re creating it for a single individual,” not a mass market, he said. ”This is a generation of stout individuals, but they are indviduals all in the same way.”
