John Guaspari
EXCLUSIVE ONLINE COLUMNIST

A strong and widespread sense of dispiritedness infects the workplace today. It presents itself when people ask themselves two very basic questions--"What am I putting into my work?" and "What am I getting out of it?"--and it dawns on them that maybe the deal isn't so good anymore. Management doesn't talk much about such dispiritedness because, after all, isn't management supposed to be responsible for employee satisfaction and morale? Nonmanagers don't have to be told not to go public with such thoughts in the same way that people hiding in closets from ax murderers don't have to be told not to hum. There are some things you just know.

So I'll say it here. People are being sucked dry. Employee rolls may have been reduced, but the amount of work to be done hasn't. (Hello, reengineering.) The pace of the work day--and night--has become more frenetic. (Hello, Internet, cell phones and modem ports in airplane seat backs.) The workplace has indeed become more participative, but about the only thing people aren't asked to participate in is decisions about the degree to which they are to participate. (Hello, cross-functional project teams and self-directed work groups.)

The result is long hours, turbulent schedules, ever greater responsibility, high stress and little near-term gratification. This is all against the backdrop of accelerating change, abrogated social and psychological contracts, and, yes, decreasing job security.

But what if when the business asked for more, we said, "No"?

What if, instead of saying: "Here's the work that needs doing. Let's make our schedules (our lives) fit it," we said, instead: "Here is the time that's available. Let's make the work fit it. People may only work 40 hours per week. They've got to produce the same results. And they've got to do it with the same number of people. But 'Only 40!' will be our rallying cry."

"Preposterous," you're thinking. But, think back to the conventional wisdom surrounding quality: "A certain number of defects is inevitable." Therefore, work processes and procedures were designed accordingly, replete with massive inspection, rework stations and all of the other appurtenances of a "mistakes happen" mentality.

Then the quality gurus said no! They established an ambitious (preposterous?) target--zero defects--to make a philosophical point: Accepting a tolerable level of defects is a cop-out; a zero defects goal forces us to put our energy and skills into confronting and dealing with the process issues at the root of our quality problems.

Or take the conventional wisdom prior to our move toward just-in-time (JIT) inventory: "We need to keep some extra inventory on hand so that we're covered when things go wrong."

JIT said no! Extra safety stock shields you from having to confront problems. With zero extra inventory, the shield is gone and the issues have to be dealt with.

In both cases, an ambitious (preposterous?) target was set, the real, root issues were joined, and dramatic improvement followed.

Might not the same dynamic play out with this issue of dispiritedness? The conventional wisdom today is, of course, that if you have the "right stuff", you're on the job 50, 60, 70, 80-plus hours each week. The tacit premise is this: "There are 168 hours in the week. That gives us a safety stock--i.e., insurance against the 'inevitable' defects--of 128 hours per week per person." The result? Chronic 6:00 p.m. meetings, one more task force, extra energy burned in fretting about the crises du jour . all leaving precious little time for Little League games, family dinners and other of life's more sublime moments that succor the spirit and soul.

In light of all of the above, I offer a modest proposal. What if we adopted the following as a central operating premise:

Henceforth, any hours beyond 40 per week should be considered a defect in the way we run our business, and any such defect is unacceptable. Why have we historically tapped into the "extra" 128 hours of time inventory? Because we could; its existence has enabled us to avoid having to address the real issues that made its use necessary. Well, that's not true any more. Henceforth, our weekly safety stock of time inventory shall be reduced to zero hours per person. It behooves us, therefore, to get to root causes . to figure out what we need to do to eliminate these time defects and the residual need for a safety stock of people's time that goes with them.

The point is not that people would work shorter hours. It's that the existence of a hard limit to the number of hours available would lay bare the assumption that all issues can be dealt with by asking people for more. It is the breathtaking arrogance of this assumption, not the incremental hours worked, that is at the root of the current epidemic of dispiritedness.

Maybe it's time to challenge the conventional wisdom. Maybe it's time to set an ambitious (preposterous?) target. Maybe a rallying cry like "Only 40!" can help get the debate started.

About the author

John Guaspari is president of Guaspari & Salz Inc., a Concord, Massachusetts-based management consulting firm. His books include I Know It When I See It and The Customer Connection.