Human beings have been managing many things for a long time; we manage piling rocks into a wall, corralling livestock, selling stocks and bonds and so forth. The “management of things” means things are used and applied to situations by human effort so that a reasonably predictable outcome is the result. This is fairly straight-forward, yet somewhere along the way belief in the management of people arose; the problem is – people are not things.
The management of a pile of rocks is clearly the management of things, in this case, hard heavy inanimate material things. If a rock is dropped and chipped, thrown aside or broken into smaller pieces, a rock does not complain. Like most inanimate objects, rocks take well to management as long as the tools used to handle them and their final outcome suit the nature of rocks. Rocks are perfectly suited to making walls, but make lousy shirts.
When it comes to the management of livestock, domesticated animals (animate material living things) have been systematically bred over many generations to be compliant. Domesticated animals that naturally form herds can be led easily to enclosures, loading docks, trucks and even slaughter houses. The management of livestock has evolved, in no small part due to the extraordinary insights and designs of the remarkable Temple Grandin, an autistic researcher and author who’s lifelong work has helped reduce stress placed on managed livestock.
Managing a portfolio of stocks and bonds is the management of non-material things. Securities may be evidenced by numbers on actual pieces of paper, but such paper is just a symbolic token used in the financial exchange of value imputed to non-material financial instruments. A vast industry for the management of money now dominates global economics, and betting on the value of securities forms the heart of current investment strategy.
Managing things requires people; either we manage things ourselves or find others to help us. The basis upon which others help varies between cultures, however. In tribal culture or communal societies, the help provided by others is in exchange for helping them. In our capitalistic system, the basis of help is by contract, wages and law; under this system, things readily become “objects” to manage, thus it’s not surprising that people are also viewed as things, objects and resources to manage. Accordingly, companies regularly employ Human Resource Managers.
Two centuries ago, human slaves (at the time considered things, not people) were a resource managed in America; today it’s workers who are managed. Schools of “management and business” dominate university education and 40 percent of undergraduates major in business. This trend overlooks one significant and material fact: people do not like to be managed, and the whole idea is inherently contradictory. In order to manage people, tools of coercion, manipulation, threat, reward and punishment are used, and this leads to resentment, rebellion, lack of loyalty and even subversion. The push and pull produced through the objectification of people as things to be managed breeds distrust and undermines productivity, creativity and joy.
The alternative is “working with” people instead of insisting they be managed. Working with people means honestly considering the needs of others, mutually respecting opinions, establishing equitable pay and labor standards, and implementing ways to increase happiness. Think about it; Schools of Management and Business transformed instead into Schools of Collaboration and Happiness.
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