The malaise of which Nelson speaks is true whether the employee is working within the chaotic environment of an urban governmental office or within the seemingly more sedate confines of an established American bank. The pervasive sense of edginess is not created by the level of confusion in the daily life of knowledge workers. Rather it is the frequent shifts that occur in their lives between different systems and subsystems that each have their own distinctive character and culture without being bound together by any common purpose or sustaining vision[li]—as observed by one bank employee:
“I would like to think of [my bank] as a modern [rather than postmodern] organization because I have no doubt of my entitlement for some amount of security, stability and comfort. The modern world was too secure . . . it has not prepared me for the turbulence and chaos of this formless and unpredictable (postmodern) era. Living at the “edge” sounds too dangerous for one knows not what surprises await at the bend of the white water environment. For who would need chaos in their lives when the world is turbulent and complex enough?”
Many twentieth century intellectuals (for example, Rollo May, Erich Fromm, Jean Paul Sartre, Teilhard de Chardin) saw the primary source of modern man’s anxiety and his accompanying sense of alienation to be based in the evolution of reflection and consciousness. We look around us at the enormous continuum of time and space and wonder what our role is or should be in this world. The modern-day question has been: can we really make a difference? This question was posed (and answered) by the protagonist, George Bailey, in Frank Capra’s film classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. George, like most of us, wonders if anyone’s life would be different if the world would really be worse off (or better off, for that matter) if he had never existed. With the help of an angel-in-training, George discovered that his life did make a difference. Capra, no doubt, wanted the filmgoers of his day (late 1930s and early 1940s) to also be assured that they make a difference. Unfortunately, in the early years of the 21st Century, we have no Frank Capra to tell us that we are important.
Our postmodern world, unfortunately, has become much too complicated and communities much too large and impersonal for many of us to gain much reassurance about our place in the universe. The postmodern question might be: What will make a difference? Or perhaps: what does “making a difference” really mean? I would suggest that the size and complexity of our postmodern organizations compound the modern-day anxiety identified by many social observers. This anxiety is also compounded by the profound individualism of contemporary Western society and by the unpredictability and seeming randomness of events and forces (both internal and external) that we face on a daily basis. Modernistic individualism—which was promoted by the Protestant emphasis on personal relationships with God and the acquisition of personal wealth—must give way to a new form of community awareness and commitment.[lii]
This new sense of interdependence must occur if we are to avoid the spiritual starvation of which the administrator of a moderately large manufacturing firm spoke, when analyzing her own company:
“[There is a] lack of a visible spiritual anchor accepted across the company. Each individual is fulfilling their particular spiritual need and the organization in general is starving. We are on an annuity program. We stay because of the unique opportunity and the potential for great wealth. Many of us are doing the same things we have done all our careers. There is no growth, no fulfillment. In this desert land we cannot find large groups banded together, instead, we have small groups all going in a different direction. . . . We are fearful and unsure that we can provide our personnel a better life. Even I . . . continue to focus on the bad things that happen. I explain everything in the negative. My glass is half empty and not half full. . . .
In all the key areas I see [my company] moving toward a postmodern organization. I believe that this is caused by the diversity of people at [my company] and a lack of leadership in many key areas of the company. When I speak of leadership, I am not speaking of the “great man,” but a clear statement of purpose. We are doing great at doing the specific task required to make a product and develop a market. We are, still, lacking an entire human orientation at the top. This approach allows our personnel to develop their own approaches, adding chaos at one level and order to another, but never in sync. Everyone and anyone can have a butterfly effect on the company.”
