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| | | | --- | --- | | Red Rock Eater Digest | Most Recent Article: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 |
say it ain't so!
``` I have here the most horrifying documents. Entitled "The Do-It-Yourself Empowerment Kit", they were distributed to the employees of a prominent American manufacturer of office equipment. They consist of the usual stuff about delighting customers, together with a very large number of patronizing jokes. For example, it is explained that Empowerment (which is capitalized) will not: "A. Get you a better parking spot. B. Reduce your bad hair days. ... [you get the idea]".
Employees, furthermore, are introduced to the concept of "alignment", by analogy to wheel alignment on cars. A box suggests "an alignment check":
"Think about how strongly you agree or disagree with these statements:
I can see a clear link between my work and [company]'s objectives. I understand how the objectives of my work relate to the objectives of other groups we work with. Think some more."
By way of summary, it is repeatedly explained that "Empowerment = Direction and Communication + Ownership + The Way We Work = Growth and Productivity". And the package includes a poster: "The Empowering Work Environment", with subheadings that correspond to the terms of that equation.
The usual stuff, right? Yet throughout the package are scattered, and I am not making this up, Dilbert cartoons. Yes, that's right. On the cover, we find Dilbert and his coworkers jumping for joy above a United Features Syndicate copyright notice and the legend "Featuring DILBERT(TM) ... AS A REMINDER OF WHAT EMPOWERMENT ISN'T." On page 1, Dogbert is holding a cup of coffee and saying "Careful! This might be a trick!". On page 3, Dilbert warns a new employee or interviewee to run for her life from the company's empowerment program. ("Why would you have a special phrase for something like that?", she asks.) No pointy-haired managers appear until page 7 of the second installment of the Do-It-Yourself Empowerment Kit ("aptly named "Part Two""), in a cartoon in about "priorities" in which the Pointy-Haired One gives all of Dilbert's assignments an "A" priority. The final thought is, "Start a discussion. Start several discussions. Make a difference. Empowerment begins and ends with you.", together with the promise that NEXT TIME, "Coming up, a closer look at Owners role in an Empowering Work Environment."
No, I won't tell which company I'm talking about.
When I first heard about this, I thought surely that some copyrights were being violated. That was the first assumption of the person who sent me the materials as well. But looking at them first-hand, that seems unlikely. I dunno, it's like, it's like, Colin Powell endorsing reefer. I'm crushed. It makes such a frightening statement, like one of those old science fiction movies where everyone succumbs to the alien virus and turns into a zombie. You would think that the organizational communications people would have been embarrassed or ashamed. But that's not the way they think. The way they think is, employees have such-and-such perceptions of empowerment programs and we have to demonstrate that it's different this time. What better way to knock off the whole range of such perceptions in one single swoop than by coopting Dilbert? I mean, it turns out that Scott Adams has been doing the communicators' research work for them, ferreting out and cataloguing all of the most obscure perceptions of managerial pointy-headedness so that programs like this can circumvent them. History has ended. All meaning has imploded. We are lost. ```
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