Why one is an oppressive number

By Neil Patrick

In the early 20th century, rigid hierarchies caused a lot of suffering. In the 21st century workplace, they're still causing disenfranchisement...

"What?" I hear you say, “One is just a number. How can a single number mean anything, let alone be oppressive?”

Well hear me out.

In the early 20th century, ‘civilized’,' respectable', professional men from the British Commonwealth would serve one career, one boss, one wife, one monarch and one God. Ideally for the whole of their adult working life.

This was espoused as the ideal; the 'bio' of a good citizen.

1914 marked the zenith of what we could call the 'world of ones'. Before that date, loyalty to king and country was seen as a British citizen's overarching duty. After that date, the sense of obligation slowly but steadily ebbed away.

This cultural shift can be largely attributed to the fact that World War One resulted in the deaths of over a million people from Britain and the Commonwealth countries.

In the words of historian Samuel Hynes:

"A generation of innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy. They were slaughtered.... Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old men at home who had lied to them. They rejected the values of the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance."

Thus emerged the first widespread questioning of the legitimacy of governments to demand the ultimate sacrifice from their citizens. Exactly one hundred years have passed since the outbreak of the First World War. It was also called "the war to end all wars". Except it wasn't and it didn't.

The 20th century was a world of rigid hierarchies. For its people, it was experienced through top down command and control structures. Despite several notable relapses, most western governments became increasingly democratic. Nonetheless, most of these structures still retained features of medieval feudalism.

Credit: Wikipedia

Fast forward to today and this ‘world of ones’ is starting to look increasingly archaic:

• Loose informal networks create more and more of our professional contacts and engagements.

• News sources include almost as many independent commentators as staff journalists. 

• Influence and communications don't just move top down. They also move laterally from one to many. Peer to peer. Social media and its enabling of the Arab Spring is a great example of this.

• Fewer people than ever experience a whole lifetime with the same spouse.

• More and more people work within complex matrix structures at work, where, they don’t just serve one boss, they have to deal with many.

• No-one still seriously expects to have just one job for the whole of their adult life. In fact the average tenure in jobs has been getting shorter and shorter.

The rise of social media has brought with it a democratization of communication that would be terrifying to the ruling elites of the early 20th century. Their top down command and control structures would be seriously destabilized.

The ‘world of ones’ is now well past its sell-by date and has become redundant in more and more walks of life. But it shows few signs of retreat in most workplaces.

Most employers still cling to a requirement for absolute fealty from their employees. They apply binding contracts. They demand complete loyalty. And in some cases even require a promise that if we leave or are sacked, we won't compete with them.

They however remain free to dictate what will and won’t happen to our jobs. And usually these decisions rest with just a handful of people.

It's an unequal contract in which the employee waives much of their freedom in exchange for a pay cheque and a limited selection of other privileges.

Enlightened employers such as Zappos are bravely moving forward with new ideas more in keeping with the 21st century, like abolishing job titles and placing decisions in the hands not of managers, but self-governing circles. Employees may be members of several circles and hold a different position within each.

I’m not an anarchist or a communist or anti-monarchist. I don’t advocate revolution, or infidelity, or the abandoning of religious beliefs. I just think it’s time for all employers to get into the 21st century in terms of how they think about their relationship with their people and how those people are organised, motivated, governed and rewarded.

After all, as CEOs are always reminding us, their people are their most valuable asset. Not their serfs. Aren't they?