Carsten K. Rath - Specialized Slaves

Specialization was considered a central feature of the modern working world just a few years ago.

Today, reality often looks different: Everyone is doing something different than before, but little of what they do best. What has actually become of specialization? I have the impression that it has fallen victim to efficiency. There are fewer generalists with a broad horizon and more highly specialized experts who represent the pinnacle of their field. To a certain extent, this mindset makes more sense than ever in the face of the digitization of the working world: When all employees of a company are optimally interconnected and in constant contact, all these highly specialized knowledge workers can contribute their part to success. The company benefits from maximum expertise in all areas - if leadership can bring together the many individual performances to an optimal end result in the interest of the customer. Sounds good. But what does the reality of specialization in companies look like? What has turned the good idea into monkey business? And what does the customer get out of it?

DESIRE AND REALITY

In the wildest dreams of management theorists, specialization would work like the work in a beehive: Everyone knows their specific task and performs it consistently, without looking left and right. Everything interlocks optimally. No wasted capacities, no friction losses, no performance deficits, no lack of motivation, no need for explanation. In a beehive, specialization is taken to the extreme, and it works perfectly. There is just one small problem:

WE ARE NOT BEES.

Our companies consist of people with their own personalities, individual talents, and a need for emotional belonging. We want to feel the purpose behind what we do. Because unlike bees, freedom is built into us as humans. We don't have to. Our survival does not depend on the survival of the beehive. We only put in effort when we understand why and want to follow that mission. Therefore, leadership serves to strengthen the desire, not the necessity. And that's why we need a broad horizon. When employees are separated from the purpose of the company in their actions, they lose orientation. Because unlike the genetic programming of bees, the success of a company is a human-made cultural achievement. We cannot demand that employees blindly follow. We must convey to them why they should engage. If we can't even achieve that with our employees, how can the customer then identify with the company?

EXPERT MANAGERS VS. EXPERIENCE LEADERS

This is why there are difficulties when a company tries to organize itself like a beehive: maximally trimmed for efficiency. Unfortunately, many companies do just that: they misuse the paradigm of specialization to reduce leadership to efficiency optimization. Last but not least, the one-sided focus on efficiency is often also a result of promotion mechanisms, especially in large companies: Usually, experts are made into managers who have excellent expertise. They tend to view leadership from the perspective of their specialized knowledge. Therefore, their approach to leadership often involves breaking down their expertise into small pieces and passing them down as tasks. In stark contrast are experience managers who rise to leadership positions due to their social skills. They have a lot of life experience, management experience, and experience in dealing with people - and understand leadership as a complex network of relationships and talents. In the current issue of the business magazine "Brandeins," the clerk of a German corporation is quoted as saying: "Many here are only responsible for a small area. Suddenly, you have to know much less. It becomes easier, but that is rather demotivating. Most here would find it more exciting to be responsible for more work steps." These words contain a lot of truth about what a leadership focused on efficiency is lacking. Specialization is an advantage when it serves to bundle talents in the right place. However, it becomes a disadvantage when it serves to alienate people from their company through maximum reduction of responsibilities. If a clerk spends the whole day entering travel expense reports into a template - year in, year out - then her work is fulfilled with about as much purpose as that of a galley slave. The significant difference is that she can leave. And sooner or later, she probably will. More information about our Top100 Speaker Carsten K. Rath. https://www.speakers-excellence.de/redner/carsten-k-rath-service-hotelbranche.html