Reworking Authority

For many companies, the past decade has been marked by a sense of turbulence and redefinition. The growing role of information technologies and service businesses has prompted companies to reconsider how they are structured and even what businesses they are in. These changes have also affected how people work, what skills they need, and what kinds of careers they expect. One critical change in how people work, Larry Hirschhorn argues, is that in a psychological sense they are expected to bring more of themselves to their jobs. This change makes it necessary to create a new culture of authority - one in which superiors acknowledge their dependence on subordinates, subordinates can challenge superiors, and both are able to show vulnerability. In the old culture of authority, people suppressed disruptive feelings such as envy, resentment, and fear of dependency. Depersonalizing themselves, they became "alienated," and the work of their organizations suffered. In building a new culture of authority, we are challenged to express these feelings without disrupting our work. We learn how to bring our feelings to our tasks. Hirschhorn begins by examining the covert processes by which people caught between the old and new cultures of authority neither suppress nor express their feelings. Feelings, he points out, are activated but are not directed toward useful work. After presenting several instructive and moving case studies, Hirschhorn explores how organizations can create a culture of openness in which people become more psychologically present. The process entails an understanding of the changes taking place in how we experience our own identities at work and the identities of "others" in society at large. What is needed, Hirschhorn suggests, is a social policy of forgiveness and second chances.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.