Refreshing Western Society

5. Basic assumptions for life

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At the heart of any civilised society must be love. In this context I define love as a caring attitude to fellow humans. We see it when there has been a road accident. Everyone wants to help, whether we know the needy person or not. Despite all we have written in the other articles, there is still this all pervading desire for well being for others. Attempts to destroy it by encouragement of selfishness, especially by the Media, have never quite extinguished this need to help one another. Thank Goodness!
1. So one of the basic assumptions for life as a human is to love one another.
2. Another basic assumption is that human attitudes cannot be controlled by law.
3. Another is that man has an inherent tendency to do evil. Evil Concupiscence.
4. People will go on having families or offspring however evil the world the children are born into.
5. Hard cases make bad law.
6. People with an evil lifestyle want to draw others into that lifestyle

The Generations.
The above probably apply to most people. But the publicity given to different attitudes in different generations may need consideration here. Generation X etc.
Here is a table of the thought patterns for different age groups. This is very tentative as the same age groups can respond in completely different ways! These thought patterns have been gleaned from various sources and suggestions are welcome.

	Builders	Baby Boomers	Generation X	Gen. Y or Mosaic or Millennial Generation
Born:	1927 - 1945	1946 - 1964	1965 - 1983	1984 on
Age in 2002:	57 - 75	38 - 56	19 - 37	up to 18

Attitude to Reality:	Absolute	Values	Norms	Norms

Sense of Identity:	Society	Family	Peers	Image

Attitude to Purpose:	Responsible	Radical	Rights	Rights

Attitude to Truth:	Absolute	Where acceptable	No Truth	Explorative

Disagreements:	Avoid them	Decide most efficient	Open Discussion	Escape with Drink & Drugs

What really counts:	Experience	Competence	Ability to consult	Friends

As I fall within the Builders group I can vouch somewhat for them but, as most older people, I have been involved in all of the groups.
I do not know what is meant by 'Norms', perhaps someone can enlighten me!
Working with teenagers (Millennial Generation) I have noticed a great difference in their values to ours. A 13 year old girl was happy to swop a penknife, said to be worth one pound, for two cigarettes (which she was not allowed to smoke where she was). Having got the cigarettes she had to leave the building to smoke them but that was still worth more than the penknife, to her, at that time. To that generation 'I want it and I want it now' is the thought.
The table does not bring out some of the important characteristics of Generation X. They seem unreliable, not wanting to be committed, hard working when self motivated.
The readers must for themselves assess what success there will be in drawing Society back to being ethical, honest, balanced and fair, bearing in mind that the Society builders are likely to be the Generation X and the Millennial Generation upon whom we chiefly depend! I suggest that the Millennial will make a better job of things than did the Baby Boomers. Yes I know there are many exceptions!

Management Style.
By this we mean the attitude of managers to their task and to their subordinates.
There are 2 basic areas where managers have to decide their attitude:
1. The achievement of the task.
2. The well-being of their staff.

Various schemes have been developed over the years to help work out the relationship between these.
In the 1950s we had Magregor's theories. Theory X managers cared only for the achievement of the job. Theory Y cared for the job but also for the staff.
In the 1960s we had Blake and Moulton's Managerial Grid. Here is a sort of scheme based on that.

Vertical	9 1.9								9.9
	8
Concern	7
	6
for	5				5.5
	4
People	3
	2
	1 1.1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9 9.1
	Horizontal		Concern		for		Job

This grid shows concern for the job horizontally and concern for people vertically.
1.9 Shows maximum concern for the well-being of the staff but much concern for the job. 'Country Club Management!'
9.9 Shows concern for the staff combined with concern with the job will give maximum job satisfaction resulting in a job well done and satisfied staff.
5.5 Believes that you cannot have 9.9 so a compromise is the only solution, satisfying neither the job or the people.
1.1 Is concerned with nothing provided 'we keep our job!'.
9.1 Must get the job done whatever happens to the staff.

Case Study. J. Lyons & Co Ltd, Lyons Bakery, Cadby Hall, London. In the 1960s.
I was Maintenance Engineer in charge of the 100 + engineers looking after the machinery in each of the departments making cakes - Swiss Rolls, Individual Fruit Pies, Slab Cakes, French Cream Sandwiches, Cup Cakes Trifle Sponges, Cream Slices, Buns and so on. Yes it was a nice place to work!
The machinery was all automatic, from mixing, baking, cooling, jam and creaming, packaging. So a breakdown of the machinery was very serious.
When I was there we had a good team. People worked hard, had job satisfaction and were fairly treated by a caring company and a caring Manager!
There was a trade union but it had nothing to do because people were happy anyway. Yes I was 9.9!
I left and was replaced by a different sort of person. He was a graph and save costs man. He did not care for people, a classic 9.1.
He tried to save costs rather than do good engineering. If he saved 10% of maintenance costs that was only 10% of whatever the production costs were so the final saving was infinitesimal compared to the total costs. And a serious breakdown or strike could lose a years saving in lost production or wasted ingredients.
Inevitably he had trade union trouble that cost him dearly.
So what is best? 9.1 which many managers are, or 9.9 which many managers should be?
I used to lecture on this to supervisors in the J Lyons Management Training Centre and found that whilst supervisors were ignorant of such thinking, once told about it they were very receptive and the Company Managerial Style was all the time improving. It seems that many supervisors thought that to get people to work you had to be an aggressive 1930's bowler hatted forman. Nothing could be further from the truth.
End of Case Study.
There are of course people who will disagree with me. Some go for Management by Aggression, believing that stress between individuals and between individuals and management help production! It might temporally but causes much unhappiness and trouble with people and stress and illness. Don't go for that style!

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End of Article 5. February 2002