Ms. Jacoby, without apology, bemoans the state of American culture, specifically the lack of knowledge and a bias against intellectualism that pervades our society. According to a passage in the International Herald Tribune, she decided to write the book after overhearing two slackers in a Manhattan bar confuse Pearl Harbor with the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Her book is primed to set off debate and criticism, but it contains a theme that hits one of our cultural maladies with ICBM-like accuracy.

Her newly published book covers society in general, but many of our workplaces could be her sole target.

Just consider these questions:

• How many times have you heard the statement, “We need to bring this down to their level?”

• How many of your co-workers read more than 3 business related books per year (who are not students)?

• How often do you hear co-workers yelling “eureka!” when selected to attend a 5-day training program?

• How many consultants have been labeled as “too academic,” and passed over in favor of pop psychologists ( “Five and Dime” consultants) adept at entertaining and “talking the talk,” but who tout non-evidence based theories – or describe human behavior in terms that are so fuzzy that they could not repeat their comments if so asked?

• How many employee communications get rewritten to a 5^th grade reading level because they contain too many multi-syllabic words?

What do you think?

Check out the incredibly witty cartoons at Savage Chickens. Doug Savage offers some real gems. They’re definitely Dilbert-class.  The toons that follow are a hoot!

In “The Employee Value Proposition: How To Be An Employer Of Choice,” Stewart Black of INSEAD highlights the key organizational dimensions to use in building a strong employment brand. The article slices through much of the typical malarkey on the topic - and offers condensed, pithy advice for the busy executive.

Teresa Wellbourne, an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan, and CEO of eePulse, Inc., is an academician with an uncanny ability to translate her research into lucid narrative. Her article, “Employee Engagement: Beyond The Fad And Into The Executive Suite,” offers a meaty, alternative explanation for what drives the highest level of employee contribution.

“Employee Screening: Theory and Evidence” is a nice piece of research that supports the proposition that it’s possible to screen for candidates who are better predisposed to team-based environments.

An article appearing at Associated Content reported that 53% of those surveyed believed that politics should never be discussed in the workplace. These results seem to reflect the conventional wisdom that discussions about religion, politics and sex should be off limits during the workday.

Some companies do not shun politics in the workplace. They allow employees to take sabbaticals while serving in a state legislature, or invite candidates for key offices the opportunity to visit their work sites. However, I suspect that most would take issue with using cubicle shields as depicted below.

While neither survey reported this, most employees hold “politically intrusive” leaders in a different light than those who walk a line of neutrality. Leaders who like to “open their Kimono” with respect to political affiliation or endorsement are often seen by employees as being more interpersonally challenged and Neanderthal-like than leaders who believe political activity is something to be engaged in away from work.

Politics can be very emotional topic for many. Nonetheless, the most disciplined leader will do him or herself a huge favor by refraining from political banter in the workplace. He or she can further their leadership presence by being “banner blind” and not judging others based on their political affiliation.

The article hardly rocks, but it’s still relevant, and only in need of minor updating.   I’d probably add these additional reasons why improvement efforts frequently fail:

Lack of resources. This is becoming a more significant issue in organizations. Consultants report to me that they find their clients increasingly short on time, money and energy;

Change fatigue. Some organizations do not provide folks with enough time to fully digest a change effort —- and then all of a sudden, a new one appears. Some employees are becoming “change drunk,” the organizational version of the “punch drunk” boxer;

Organizational arteriosclerosis – Some organizations have “hardening of the arteries,” and are led by individuals too arrogant to believe that they need to change – or that the organization needs to change. This is especially true in younger companies that were highly successful in their infancy.

What other reasons come to mind for you?

Fortune’s list of 100 Top Employers is a perennial attention grabber for me. It’s thorough. It’s titillating. It’s outright entertaining to read about the “over the top” perks offered by America’s most sought after employers.

This special issue goes far in fueling the conventional thinking that happy or satisfied employees drive higher levels of operating performance. The most recent academic endorsement of that theme comes from Knowledge at Wharton, which referenced an interesting piece of research by Professor Alex Edmans showing a strong causative relationship between employee satisfaction and share price appreciation.

Employee motivation and happiness on the job are very complex. With each passing year, new research adds a thicker veneer of esotery to the topic. A subscription to the Academy of Management Journal or Personnel Psychology will prove the point. Wading through this research quickly makes one glassy eyed. To stay “grounded,” I must remind myself that employee satisfaction is important, but at the end of the day it’s only a necessary – and not a sufficient condition for high levels of employee engagement.

Employee happiness and satisfaction are passive mental states. One can be very happy on the job —- so happy that he or she spends the bulk of the day at the water cooler or in a side hall chit chatting with co-workers. The employee may be happy; but are they engaged and committed to the enterprise?

While surfing through back issues of the NTL publication, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, I stumbled across an incredible article written 38 years ago by Roger Harrison.

Roger may not be as well known as some of his contemporaries, but suffice it to say that he has been a leading organization development (OD) practitioner and theorist since 1956, and has been involved in most of the developments and applications of OD from its inception. A leading force behind the advent of t-groups and sensitivity training, his writings and work are a treasure trove of original thought on building healthier organizations.

His article, “Choosing the Depth of Organizational Intervention,” really struck home for me. He advances two key axioms in the article:

An organization development intervention should occur at a level no deeper than that required to produce enduring solutions to the problems at hand; and

The intervention should be at a level no deeper than that at which the energy and resources of the client can be committed to problem solving and to change.

All too often organizational development and human resource professionals ignore those two pearls of wisdom – and embark on a change interventions that are doomed to fail.

My trip abroad was one of the most educational experiences in my life - not unlike the first year that I lived in NYC on the Upper West Side (during the Koch years I might add).  I’ve reached several conclusions based on my organizational development work abroad:

1. Most employees across the globe want the same thing from their workplace – a good boss, recognition, fair pay, and trust in their organization;

2. We are a global community. Most people are decent individuals, and harbor wholesome values not unlike what I remember during my formative years in the Midwest;

3. There are cultural differences - and some of these play out in how women are viewed in the respective society; and

4. Our country is revered for its wealth and power; but adhored for its wastefulness and high consumption of natural resources.

My next post will be about a great article that I rediscovered – one written by one of the original titans in the field of OD.

Dr. Robert Hogan delivered a great article at the recent Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference in New York City.  Ambiguities of Effectiveness does a nice job in presenting the notion that successful leadership often comes with both a bright side – and a dark side.

Job Vent is yet another site that enables folks to rant, rate and disclose the inner workings of their employers. What’s nifty about this site is that it allows for balanced feedback.  Employers who are loved by their employees – as well as those who are disliked by their troops - are both listed.

In “Employers Lukewarm about Retaining Older Workers,” the Center for Retirement Research offers a cautionary note about the employment prospects of older workers. This brief reports on whether employers will create opportunities for employees to work longer. The policy community generally thinks they will.  Many observers say employers will face labor shortages and a loss of “institutional intelligence” when the Boomers exit the labor force, and these developments will push them to seek out older workers. However, their survey results raises a cautionary flag – as inexplicable as it may sound.

Nick McCormick, a practicing information technology manager, has penned a very readable book entitled “Lead Well and Prosper.”  The publication would be extremely helpful for the individual who is completely new to the world of supervision.  Fifteen key themes for leading others effectively are presented in simple, pragmatic prose.

Check out the blog, You Not Sneaky, which recently presented a couple of great posts dealing with the topic of immigration.  Highly theoretical, but provocative, the economist author draws a number of conclusions suggesting that many of the Lou Dobbs wannabes are missing the mark.  For example, he points out that concerns over the impact on health and social welfare costs by immigrants is mostly bunk.  It’s refreshing to find an article with some intellectual rigor on the topic.  Some in the media who are rightward leaning, the radical right, and racist Skinheads are engaged in demagoguery not seen since Rev. Coughlin during the waning days of the Great Depression.  Certainly more balance needs to be brought to the debate.

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River.  Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.  On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat.  A management team composed of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion:  The Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.  They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team’s management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the ‘Rowing Team Quality First Program,’ with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. The new change initiative also included plans for getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, plus extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the senior executives as bonuses and the next year’s racing team was outsourced to India .

Sadly, The End.

Sad, but oh so true! Here’s something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can’t make money paying American wages. Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US .

The last quarter’s results: Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

Some workers “whistle while they work.” Others, too encumbered to hymn or sing aloud, sing vicariously through IPODS and streaming music such as Last.fm.

Singing in the workplace has helped workers in different settings and epochs to reduce feelings of boredom. In the United States, many people associate work songs with American slaves, who sang songs to remind them of their homeland.

In America, the most famous slave songs were typically in a call-and-answer format, where a lead would sing a verse or verses and the other workers would respond with a chorus. One very famous song from this era is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, a spiritual. Frederick Douglass, a slave that escaped to New York, noted in 1845 that:

“While on their way (to work), the slaves would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out, if not in the word, in the sound; and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. This they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do.”

Here is an interesting catalog of songs with a work-related theme. They may not be “true” work songs in the sense that people often sing them for the reasons cited above. Rather, they simply demonstrate that covering the work world in a more melodic sense still captures listeners.

A more detailed listing can be found at http://www.planningcommunications.com/jf/work_songs.htm

Out of Work — Gary U.S. Bonds. With a little help from the Boss, Mr. Bonds briefly revived his career with this satire of the Ford Administration’s sad efforts to “whip inflation now” (remember the “Win” buttons that proliferated during that recession?). Album: On the Line, 1982.

Get a Job — The Silhouttes first recorded this — before Sha–Na–Na revived it.

Shangri–La— The Kinks. Arguably, one of the greatest songs in rock history, this tune reminds us why we work when it isn’t a job we love. Album: Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1969; and the Kinks’ Kronikles.

Get Back in Line — The Kinks. An extraordinarily poignant tune tells the tale of working stiffs who have to wait to be picked by the union to work that day. “All I want to do is make some money and bring you home some wine,” sings Ray Davies. It’s songs like these that raise the Kinks far above the songs for which they are most famous. Available on what many critics consider to be one of the very best compilations ever published, The Kink Kronikles. Reprise 6454. Check it out!

Maggie’s Farm — Bob Dylan. He may not have wanted to work on Maggie’s farm no more, but Dylan used this song to introduce his folk audience to his rock and roll side amid boos.

Welcome to the Working Week — Elvis Costello. An incendiary tune from back when Elvis had fire. Album: My Aim is True, 1977.

Soon as I Get Home — Babyface. This man works all day and he’ll cook dinner, buy your clothes, pay your rent, and more … as soon as he gets home from work. Who said there are no good men left anymore? Album: Babyface, 1989.

Salt of the Earth — Rolling Stones. A low–key gem about working people.