e utopia Principles
Why do we work in Organizations?
Why aren’t we all subsistence farmers? Why don’t we go out into the woods, cut down enough trees to make a field, dig out all the roots, plant and grow all of our own food, harvest the grain, grind the flour, make the bread, make our own houses from scratch, make our own clothes, make our own shoes, dig a well to get water, and so on? Little House in the Big Woods offers a romantic vision but I don’t think any of us who are used to living in a neighborhood in a house with indoor plumbing and electricity and heat and air conditioning and a refrigerator and a freezer and transportation and the grocery store and restaurants and malls and stores really would accept that kind of life. The major reason we work in organizations is for efficiency. Through a coordinated division of labor we are able to accomplish so much more with so much less effort than if each of us had to do everything for ourselves. I will spend my time building houses, you focus on making shoes. They will focus on growing food. In order to live the lives we have today, everybody really does need everybody else. Consider breakfast. Somebody assigned the stories, other people wrote them, other people edited and typeset them, printed them, distributed them throughout the city, somebody else delivered it to my house, all so I can read the newspaper at breakfast. This doesn’t take into account the people who made the paper and ink, the people who manage the forests from which newsprint is manufactured, or the people who mined, drilled, refined or otherwise processed the chemicals making up the ink; or the people who made and maintain the machines that make the paper and ink, or the people who made and maintain the presses that print the paper. Think of all the people involved in my scrambled eggs: the ones raising and tending the chickens, processing the eggs, making and maintaining the machines that process the eggs for retail, delivery, and then everyone at the grocery store.
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