The late Bill Bridges, author of one of the best books on personal change in an organizational environment – Transitions – indicated in both his writing and speaking, that the concept of having a “job” was a very recent phenomenon.
According to Bill, in the not so distant past, people were self-employed as tradesmen, farmers, serfs or noblemen, or warriors/soldiers. There were no jobs as we envision them.
Another perspective comes from the work of the German sociologist/philosopher, Max Weber. He is known as the father of bureaucracy but not in the negative sense that it is seen today. His concept of bureaucracy was formulated to counter the idea that a person’s class and role was a function of his or her birthright, not of skills or talent. Thus, he came up with the unique idea of separating the “office from the officer,” and developed a new concept now called a “job description.”
As downsizing and the new employment contract unfold, many people are finding that their livelihood is more a function of their skills and adaptability than of any concept of a permanent job.
As politicians continue to lament the lack of “jobs” and blame each other, they may be going against the tide of what is really taking place. We seem to be evolving into an economic system where there is no employment permanence and where skills, adaptability, and the ability to learn and adapt is the currency of the realm. The concept of a long term, continuing set of duties that are verbalized in a thing called a job description may be an artifact of a very short period of economic history.
