The Whipping Boy.

The Whipping Boy.

Idleness, indifference and irresponsibility are healthy responses to absurd work. — Frederick Herzberg

Corporations are everyone’s ‘whipping boy’ these days. Large organizations are vilified in a way that overshadows the positives of a corporate career, or at least sparks cynicism about what it takes to have one. This criticism is voiced eloquently and with passionate conviction even by those who will likely work in large organizations in the future.

A lot has changed in the world since Drucker wrote in 1952 that ‘the large business exists for the sake of the contribution which it makes to the welfare of society as a whole.’ More than seven decades on, one can only wonder what he smoked at the time. Today, corporations have become an object of almost universal scorn. Calling something or someone ‘corporate’ is perceived an insult.

Much of this attitude may well be deserved.

Working in a large organization can enrich human lives, as much as it can waste them in non-value-added activities. The muda, mura, and muri of knowledge work. Reports that gather dust. Memos that no one reads. Meetings that yield little. Presentations hastily delivered — and quickly ignored. Projects abandoned halfway. Budgeting, ad nauseam.

Frederick Herzberg, a psychologist who introduced the term ‘hygiene factors,’ points in the same direction. His work emphasizes that meaningless or poorly designed work can deflate people. Tasks that are pointless, illogical, repetitive, or lack purpose. Work that seems senseless in the bigger picture.

What is often interpreted as signs of laziness or moral failing is actually just a rational human response to a flawed work environment. These responses are healthy because they are protective mechanisms. They preserve our energy, sanity, and sense of purpose in the face of absurdity. Herzberg flips the usual criticism of disengaged employees on its head. He invites sympathy for acts of defiance.

Instead of blaming the worker, he challenges the work itself. He tells us to simply do better. Stop the waste. Eradicate the absurdities. Make work sensible.

And — most importantly — do not sneer at the people or the place.

Herzberg brings a sharp eye and a warm heart to the issue. He turns the light on and shows the way. Sadly, scorning corporations and thus mocking people who work or — God forbid — pursue professional careers in large organizations has become a popular pastime entertained by many. Even by people who have never worked in one.

Take Wendell Berry, a poet, who generously opined that ‘a corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.’ This would imply — rather insensitively — that we have lots of decent people out there trying to do the right thing daily, unaware of or oblivious to their own poor morals.

Selling moral allegiance to a pile of money? So much for poetic subtlety and empathy. There’s more of it in Herzberg.