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Why are workaholics ill-suited for the new environment?

• As a rule workaholics are one-dimensional. All they do is work. Such a work-intensive lifestyle—however gratifying to neurotic needs—is highly specialized and leaves large areas of intelligence and personality stunted. Workaholics are often boring because they run on a narrow track. All they know and all they talk about is their specific work. In our new environment which demands multifacetedness the workaholic is inefficient.

• Workaholics are rarely creative. They may be productive—but rarely creative. Leisure is indispensable to the flowering of creativity. (As I will explain later in this text creativity is a necessary asset in the postindustrial world.)

• In our age of rapid obsolescence continuous update is a precondition to growth. Workaholics never slow down long enough to update. Sooner or later this shows up in their work.

• Workaholics rarely live long. They are in hyperspeed and therefore burn out quickly—this at a time when people are living longer and longer.

When you overwork both the quality of your life and the quality of your work suffer.

"But I love my work. I don't even think of it as work."

I have a friend who is disdainful of the industrial age. He says he loves the telespheral world. He makes heavy use of automated office equip­ment and smart telecom systems—go-anywhere telephones—portable computers—videoconferences—etc.

There is a hitch. My friend is a workaholic. He works ten or eleven hours a day. Six or seven days a week. Even at social gatherings he talks about nothing but work.

"But Hove my work—"he says. "Idon't even think of it as work."

This is the workaholic's classical rationale. The fact is that if all you love is your work—if all you do is work—that makes for a one-dimensional life.

What is the benefit of deploying telespheral technology if your social values and work habits are still industrial age?

A work-intensive lifestyle is inherently outdated—no matter how updated the technology you use.

Workaholics are anachronisms in our times. They are carryovers from an earlier age when hard work was a prerequisite to survival and there­fore considered a virtue.

Hard work is no longer necessary. We can produce more while work­ing less and less.

In modem societies people who still work hard do so only because they do not manage their emotions and resources and time intelligently.

In our times of global surpluses and intelligent machines hard work is bad economics.

Compressed workweek—job sharing—flex time—temporary work —four-day workweek—these are all steps in the right direction.

We need to encourage people to work less and play more. Such a shift in emphasis will also help the "leisure industry" which not sur­prisingly is one of the explosive growth areas in the new economy.

The traditional yardsticks of success have been wealth—power— rank. The assumption has always been that the busier you are the more successful.

We need new yardsticks to measure success in the postindustrial world. Success in today's environment can be gauged by how much quality free time you have. The successful person today is one who has a balanced life of leisure/work/fun.


Date: 2015-02-28; view: 913


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