Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Dan’s Biz Bookshelf: 'The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams'

“The beatings will continue until morale increases.” I could stop right here, drop the mic, and move on to another book. What our old friend Seth Godin is saying, armed with his usual laser-focused insight, is that how we work is not working.

People are not robots. We’re humans with a brain. We have ideas that motivate us and the last thing we need for motivation is being hit over the head with orders, mandates, and worst of all, threats.

Seth looks at people like Frederick Taylor, Al (Chainsaw) Dunlap, and (Nuclear) Jack Welsh as devils who do their part in taking our workforces down the path of perdition. Actually, down the path to what we have today—an antagonistic relationship between workers and bosses. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now, especially with a workforce comprised of people who need (even demand) a sense of purpose and an urgency of mission. They want to work on things that matter. Why? Because they want to matter.

“Managers seek to avoid defects,” he writes. “They work to improve productivity. They measure to standards, so they do their best work when they figure out how to remove subpar performers and eliminate roadblocks that slow down production. Leaders on the other hand, seek something better. Something previously undefined, unbuilt, or untapped. They are looking for Mozart not Muzak.”

In other words, creativity supersedes everything, especially when we can buy robots that will be more productive than people. But we built the robots, we think about the future, we create ways to handle it.

Without people, we have no innovation and without people, we have obviously no heart. Don’t believe me or even Seth? Well, you have to believe this:

“Amazon lost a quarter of its annual profits to turnover in 2021, according to internal documents reported by Engadget. In 2021, Amazon lost more than $8 billion to attrition. Only one out of three hires stayed more than three months. They might be in danger of depleting all the available labor supply in several major cities where they have centers.”

I dare say that everyone reading this has a pretty good idea why this is happening. Amazon is famously running what is tantamount to today’s version of a sweatshop, with employees monitored, searched, and scheduled, even down to controlled bathroom breaks. But most of us don’t really care because we want the convenience of getting the new toothbrush in 24 four hours or less.

This is the true epitome of what Seth writes about, and it’s representative of what is going on in all industries, including ours, by the way.

Do you say things like:

“People don’t want to work because the government gives them too much money.” You are the problem.

“We just can’t keep good people, especially in the plating shop. They come in for a day, and then they never come back.” You are the problem.

“We don’t promote anyone who doesn’t have a college degree.” You are the problem.

I urge you to read this book and get on the path to producing Mozart rather than Muzak.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.

Title: The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams
Author: Seth Godin
Publisher: Portfolio Penguin Books, 2023
Pages: 200
Price: $25