This really should come as no surprise. We saw that Bill Clinton would be a warm and fuzzy president back on election night. When the results were in, did Clinton and Vice President-elect Al Gore thump each other on the back? No, they hugged. Ever since, there’s been a whole lot of hugging going on.
For those alarmed by such displays, there is an explanation. This touchy-feely stuff is coming from a source Americans have long counted on for practical wisdom: business. Granted, there’s something odd about it. After all, isn’t corporate America supposed to be the precinct of the hardheaded, efficient and serious? Government has long been urged to imitate business; privatization of any enterprise is recommended with religious fervor. Isn’t that what we mean by “businesslike”?
Not anymore. Obviously you have to have the goods: computer savvy, a grasp of global trade or a keen eye for the best in subordinated debentures. But these days that’s not enough. And it’s the hard realities of competition that dictate the rise of the soft stuff. Companies that are determined to win the customer and beat the other guy to market find that the way they treat people makes a critical difference. Words like “empowerment” and “teamwork” are pronounced without embarrassment. People don’t just buy, sell or employ: they relate. Big bad bosses are out. Ask Jack Welch, much-admired chairman of General Electric, who was once nicknamed “Neutron Jack” for eliminating so many people while leaving the buildings standing. Last year Welch made headlines by declaring in GE’s annual report that people skills were now top priority at GE, and that “the autocrat, the big shot, the tyrant” were on their way out. In business these days, no one would be caught dead with a vision gap like George Bush’s. Companies in the know write and post “mission statements” designed to remind them of their goals. (These documents say things like “The Customer, Stupid,” but with lots more bells and whistles.)
Clinton’s campfire session is only one sign that he has embraced this idea. He has opened up executive dining rooms for the White House hoi polloi, cut back on limousine service and demanded his own phone line, so he can call without an assistant. These are classic moves for the new “leader” who doesn’t need to strut his stuff.
It’s no coincidence that a new generation has entered both the Oval Office and the corner office. “Empowerment,” for example, became a popular term back in the 1960s, when it was a euphemism for sharing the wealth, or moving up from the back of the bus. The term migrated to the 1970s human-potential movement, only to rear its fuzzy head in business about a decade ago. It’s now so familiar that Motorola runs TV ads promising that its new computers will “empower all your people.”
The new management model is also a byproduct of the women’s movement. Remember when women were wearing ties and jackets so that they could compete in those “Games Mother Never Taught You” (1977)? But sports metaphors aren’t everything these days. While Clinton is ridiculed for trying to “please” people or insisting on consensus, corporations are spending millions to teach their employees to do exactly that. In settings not unlike Camp David, executives and secretaries alike go on retreats to learn how to listen.
Why do they care? Mostly because the world moves faster and people (customers, voters) are more demanding. By the time the salesperson goes to ask her manager and his manager a question, the customer is in the store next door. So the once lowly clerk must have the information and authority to act quickly. Similarly, if you want to get a new GM car on the road before you’re swamped by red ink, you can’t wait through the old-fashioned, drawn-out “product cycle.” You can’t have separate departments of designers, engineers and marketers, all larded with bureaucracy. Instead, you assemble a team.
As professional cynics, journalists are the first people to scorn all this. And since rhetoric still exceeds the real thing, skepticism is necessary. But the ideas make sense. The stuff of the 1990s is the soft stuff-. educating kids, negotiating trade agreements, getting Muslims and Serbs to talk, blacks and Jews to live together, gay and straight soldiers to work together. Or for that matter, doctors, insurers and legislators to agree on a national health-care policy. Hey, that’s the real hard stuff.
General Patton is out. Bosses who delegate and nurture are in.
Democracy. If they can do it in Warsaw, you can do it in the workplace.
Sell? Employ? No, you gotta relate. See: leadership.
Not just holding stock or a job, but having a stake.
For the chief executive on down, continuing education is in style.
Compete against Brand X, not your fellow employees.
This wasn’t in vogue in the roaring ’80s. These days, those who laugh together profit together.
