First, we kill the management consultants!
This rather arresting slogan appears in a book I read over the summer break, a provocative work of fiction by Australian author Denis Glover called Factory 19. The book centres around a utopian experiment in Tasmania to escape the soulless managerialism of the modern technological world, before computers, smartphones and managements consultants started ripping out jobs, distracting our attention from other humans around us, and destroying local communities. Billionaire entrepreneur Dundas Faussett (whose career backstory closely parallels that of real life Tasmanian entrepreneur and MONA founder David Walsh) sets up a factory and township modelled on life in 1948, and re-instates such economically inefficient luxuries as a tea-lady who takes delicious home-made cakes around on a trolley.
Like most utopian communities, the grand experiment ultimately succumbs to the foibles and follies of its human participants, exacerbated by the risks created by not having access to all the modern technologies and medicines that we take for granted. But the basic point that Glover is making is an interesting one. Is our headlong progress towards the future and the accelerating adoption of new technologies really creating a better world for us, or are we losing something essential and valuable in terms of human worth, dignity and meaningful employment?
We shouldn’t just blame new technologies, which have been emerging and dramatically reshaping our social interactions and the nature of work for centuries (think of the printing press or the spinning jenny). Underlying Glover’s question is the whole neo-liberal construct of shareholder capitalism, popularised by Milton Friedman, which elevates profit and returns to shareholders over all other values. It is this economic ideology that has driven the ‘managerialism’ that Glover is decrying. The real question is, how can we ensure that as we introduce new technologies, we keep our eyes on the value and dignity of human beings, and create more, not less, opportunities for human beings to thrive in community and be engaged in meaningful work?
I’m very much hoping that come the revolution, I won’t be one of the management consultants that the disenfranchised mob wants to line up against the wall and shoot. And more importantly, that I have played my part in shaping a way of doing business and transforming organisations that adds human, social, environmental and economic value to the world.
