Wonderbringers Newsletter with Monica Parker
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Hello wonderseekers!
Merriam-Webster dictionaries have added some new words to their lexicon just this past week. Among them are nepo baby (I should be so lucky), jam band (the source of my misspent youth), and late capitalism.
Merriam-Webster defines late capitalism as, “the current stage of capitalism that began in the second half of the 20th century, and that is characterized by globalization, the dominance of multinational corporations, broad commodification and consumerism, and extreme wealth inequality.”
Some examples of late capitalism at work? Just look at the headlines:
Hospital CEOs Got Richer as Nurses Faced Pay Cuts, Layoffs and Risked Their Lives
Companies paid top executives more than they paid in US taxes – report
Greed: John Deere rolls out hundreds of US layoffs and sends work to Mexico
Bosses are making their staff return to the office—or quit (but they’re notably absent themselves)
As I was constructing this week’s newsletter to talk about wonder at work, venting about how leaders seem so disconnected from their employees and how wonder can help, I realised that one of the primary issues lies with the fact that employees are all too aware we have entered late capitalism, and yet senior executives appear to still be living in the 1950’s.
The role of a CEO has purportedly been to create a strong familial (aka patriarchal) culture where shareholders are as equally well-served as the needs of a highly engaged, long-tenured workforce. Except, of course, that very rarely happened. This has been common knowledge for the worker bees in society, but execs apparently missed the memo (or failed to send it) as they remain blissfully unaware that a chasm has been developing between themselves and the people who work for them over the last 30 years.
In a stunning piece of research entitled The Great Separation: Top Earner Segregation at Work in Advanced Capitalist Economies, the University of Michigan authors reviewed data from the last three decades across 12 countries and found in “almost all countries a growing workplace isolation of top earners and dramatically declining exposure of top earners to bottom earners.”
Why? Well, late capitalism has a lot to do with it. These bosses sip from rarefied air. Put bluntly, they have become obscenely wealthy. Since 1978, top executive pay has increased 1085%. (You read that correctly, and that’s just the average — Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Fran Horowitz made 6,565 times more than A&F’s median employee.) That’s compared to a 24% increase in median worker pay in the same timeframe. For perspective, in the 1980s — the age of Gordon Gekko's “greed is good” — the average CEO made “only” 45 times the median employee's compensation.
And this breeds a more significant problem than simply not having to bring a brown bag lunch. Wealthier people are less empathetic. The reason posited by researchers is that wealth gives them greater independence from the support of others, and hence, they are less moved by others’ needs. You can imagine the knock-on effects of that on teamwork, communication, and decision-making.
Another reason for the disconnect? Their professional networks are too narrow, only overlapping with other senior execs at the same level. (Thanks, Kelly Hoey, for that nugget.) So, lacking diversity of thought in their cohort, their understanding of their employees is based on an overly-confident simulacrum, not the experiences of real people.
Lastly, COVID-19 and a Gen Z workforce have fundamentally changed the dynamic between employees and employers. The “we are family” illusion has evaporated, non-work networks reign supreme, and what is left is a remarkably clear-eyed view of the fungibility of individual contributors. (I had a little rant about this dynamic here.)
Just one example of this disconnect is the differing attitudes towards remote or hybrid working. Just recently, a survey by KPMG found that 83% of CEOs believe staff will be back in the office five days a week within the next three years, up from 63% just last year. (Mind you, 93% of CEOs say they will continue to work flexibly.) This is with data showing only 7% of staff want to work from the office full time, and 40% say they would quit their job if forced back. (And these are not idle threats.)
So, what did Amazon base their decision to drag folks back five days a week, even though only 7% want it? A “judgement call” by the senior leadership team. The problem is these judgment calls are being taken by leaders who have no connection whatsoever to the needs, norms, and nuances of their employees. Their top-down intuition is unmoored from reality.
Of course, we will see more breathy articles with terms like “quiet quitting” and “coffee badging” asking why “no one wants to work anymore.” But the answer is so clear: after all the data, the surveys, the analyses, and an existential foundation-shaking pandemic, leaders still aren't listening to their people. And absent listening, their ability to project what the future holds vis a vis their workforce is becoming more fantasy than fact.
This is why I say that fostering wonder at work is a radical act. To be bold enough to question anti-people decisions and lead from a place of pro-sociality; to ask meaningful questions of your people and be present in their responses rather than making gut decisions based on an incurious mindset; to empathetically open the aperture of your thinking beyond that of a narrow senior executive lens — these all take bravery. Regrettably, I do not see a lot of it, but I remain ever hopeful.
Below, three ways to lead from a place of wonder.
Some wonderbringers for me this week:
How to dissolve work-life stress: Wonder can foster a thriving, inclusive workplace
Wonder in the workplace: How curiosity can prepare us for the future of work
Listen: HBR On Leadership: Great leaders balance ambition with humility
In case you missed it, here’s a bit more from me on Future Human’s podcast or Trust Builders podcast about how you can find more wonder at work.
And if you know someone who needs more wonder at work, feel free to forward them this newsletter and encourage them to sign up!
With wonder,
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