When the iron law of efficiency comes crashing down
This is part of my manuscript for a session with Keen Bull on how additive manufacturing will impact the world, at this years DIF-festival.
We believe three things are happening with organizations at the moment..
First, advantage of scale has given far more of us increased material wealth, access to mass education, longevity of life increased social complexity and so forth.
The mass production system has enabled us to grow as human beings. But as we grow we have also come to demand more from the business organizations we depend upon for consumption and employment (1).
This hasn’t been a part of the organizations toolbox.
Organizations have had a blueprint that was tailored for mass efficiency — but not meaningfulness, identity, belonging and individualization.
These elements, which are now essential to the output and progress of an organization were deemed problematic and irrelevant in the old system.
So there is a conflict at the moment between a new generation of employee needs and what the current organizational tools can offer.
