by Rashid Owoyele
Originally published on LinkedIn on February 23, 2023
In previous generations the professional identities of adults were fundamental elements of their social identities and relationships in their local communities and social ecosystems. In the first half of the 20th century adults were expected to have in their lifetimes approximately 3 to 5 different careers. In the latter half of the 21st century that number of lifetime career shifts had grown to be around 6 to 9 career shifts in an adult lifespan. In the generations of those who were born in the 1980‘s and after, the career shifts per life have grown to be 20+ shifts in an adult‘s professional life. These numbers are not without impacts, and these seem to be less rigorously explored than one might hope.
The impact of context switching of course favors those who can learn quickly, are adaptable and resilient, and favor the accumulation of transferable skills. But what about the psychological implications and requirements of surviving such rapidly shifting networks of social relation and interpersonal power dynamics and communication adjustments? As socially motivated creatures, humans experience their ostracism from social groups of peer belonging and identification as we would experience other forms of loss and harm. The pain of being excluded from a social group, working space, or collegial group can have just as much impact on our internal worlds as that of losing a pet or a loved one. Yet the amount of attention given to the off-boarding experience across different contexts is still in dire need of redesign.
The negative impacts of leaving a job that one has spent long periods of time incorporating into our decision-making process, imagining our future with this role and these people by our sides, and their disappearance from our lives can be quite harmful, but given the increasing rate at which we experience this phenomenon why has so little attention been given to shaping this experience in most places?
This is an opportunity space for intervention and I have many questions I would like to explore through the remainder of my career. Given my affiliation with cooperativism as a potential world-system with many recognized benefits, I can’t help but think of the cooperative organization, or better a cooperative economy, which can address the SDGs and be key to environmental, social, and economic justice. Author Jeffrey Pfeffer, in book Dying for a Paycheck, assembles research which highlights the mental and physical harms reproduced in the working world. When the working environment is the outcome of co-design of the persons whom are impacted by the conditions set forth by the design of both business and industrial practices, one can imagine that there is a greater likelihood that the factors leading to environmental, psychological, physical and social health impacts and morbidity will be reduced.
Emerging Questions:
How might being part of an organization as an owner-worker change the relationship between the individual and organization?
What other systems of correction, remediation, and development would emerge as beneficial in the place of termination?
If we have a game-theory approach to engaging with our workplace how do infinite organizational games play in comparison to the current finite organizational games that we have come to expect in the termination-centered penalty system world?
What would be the potential public health savings/benefits of a global reduction in termination-connected stress, depression, anxiety, and loss of productivity?
How will next generation cooperatives ensure to stem free-riders and appropriately incentivize those who are effective employees?
How will we shift evaluation from efficiency-based standards to effective-based or other values around which to measure performance in infinite-game constructed organizations?
Okay, I admit… I have gotten off track here somehow. But, give me feedback and thoughts, please? Help me finish this thought? What did I miss and what do you know which adds to this line of inquiry?