Could “The Organization Man” of 1956, a corporate loyalist and conformist, exist today when the watchwords are entrepreneurship and innovation? Or is that character type as outdated as “I Love Lucy,” the poodle skirt and the Chevy Bel Air?
Our package of stories this week was inspired by these questions and led us to explore the birth of the phrase half a century ago in William H. Whyte’s book of the same name. Villanova University Professor Eugene McCarraher revisits the text. Associate Managing Editor for Business Jim Kirk returns to Park Forest, the site of Whyte’s original research, to explain how the utopian community has evolved over the last decades since he first played in the town’s neat cul-de-sacs.
Chief Business Correspondent David Greising assesses the power and relevance of the book in the context of what it foreshadowed in the world of business. “The tendencies we value today-the flash and dazzle of the entrepreneurial start-up, the financial engineering of the hedge fund manager, the CEO mesmerized by the bottom line and the back-dated stock options-those aren’t necessarily better than the seemingly quaint and outdated ideals that Whyte described,” David observes.
So what is the proper armor to wear to deal with today’s world?
“The gray flannel suit wasn’t the answer to all of life’s questions,” David says. “But neither is the Silicon Valley polo shirt.”
———-
etaylor@tribune.com
