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The Organization Man
Regarded as one of the most important sociological and business commentaries of modern times, The Organization Man developed the first thorough description of the impact of mass organization on American society. During the height of the Eisenhower administration, corporations appeared to provide a blissful answer to postwar life with the marketing of new technologies--television, affordable cars, space travel, fast food--and lifestyles, such as carefully planned suburban communities centered around the nuclear family. William H. Whyte found this phenomenon alarming.
As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status.
Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.
As an editor for Fortune magazine, Whyte was well placed to observe corporate America; it became clear to him that the American belief in the perfectibility of society was shifting from one of individual initiative to one that could be achieved at the expense of the individual. With its clear analysis of contemporary working and living arrangements, The Organization Man rapidly achieved bestseller status.
Since the time of the book's original publication, the American workplace has undergone massive changes. In the 1990s, the rule of large corporations seemed less relevant as small entrepreneurs made fortunes from new technologies, in the process bucking old corporate trends. In fact this "new economy" appeared to have doomed Whyte's original analysis as an artifact from a bygone day. But the recent collapse of so many startup businesses, gigantic mergers of international conglomerates, and the reality of economic globalization make The Organization Man all the more essential as background for understanding today's global market. This edition contains a new foreword by noted journalist and author Joseph Nocera. In an afterword Jenny Bell Whyte describes how The Organization Man was written.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
78 people are currently reading
3264 people want to read
About the author
William H. Whyte
19 books55 followersWilliam Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte (1917 - 12 January 1999) was an American urbanist, organizational analyst, journalist and people-watcher.
Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and died in New York City in 1999. An early graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, he graduated from Princeton University and then served in Marine Corps. In 1946 he joined Fortune magazine.
Whyte wrote a 1956 bestseller titled The Organization Man after Fortune magazine sponsored him to do extensive interviews on the CEOs of corporations such as General Electric and Ford.
While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behavior in urban settings. With research assistants wielding still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of urban public life in an objective and measurable way.
These observations developed into the Street Life Project, an ongoing study of pedestrian behavior and city dynamics, and eventually to Whyte's book called City: Rediscovering the Center (1988). City presents Whyte's conclusions about jaywalking, 'schmoozing patterns,' the actual use of urban plazas, appropriate sidewalk width, and other issues. This work remains valuable because it's based on careful observation, and because it contradicts other conventional wisdom, for instance, the idea that pedestrian traffic and auto traffic should be separated.
Whyte also worked closely with the renovation of Bryant Park in New York City.
Whyte served as mentor to many, including the urban-planning writer Jane Jacobs, Paco Underhill, who has applied the same technique to measuring and improving retail environments, Dan Biederman of Bryant Park Corporation, who led the renovation of Bryant Park and the Business Improvement District movement in New York City, and Fred Kent, head of the Project for Public Spaces.
His books include: Is Anybody Listening? (1952), Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development (1964), The Last Landscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a companion film of the same name in 1988), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).
Whyte was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania and died in New York City in 1999. An early graduate of St. Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware, he graduated from Princeton University and then served in Marine Corps. In 1946 he joined Fortune magazine.
Whyte wrote a 1956 bestseller titled The Organization Man after Fortune magazine sponsored him to do extensive interviews on the CEOs of corporations such as General Electric and Ford.
While working with the New York City Planning Commission in 1969, Whyte began to use direct observation to describe behavior in urban settings. With research assistants wielding still cameras, movie cameras, and notebooks, Whyte described the substance of urban public life in an objective and measurable way.
These observations developed into the Street Life Project, an ongoing study of pedestrian behavior and city dynamics, and eventually to Whyte's book called City: Rediscovering the Center (1988). City presents Whyte's conclusions about jaywalking, 'schmoozing patterns,' the actual use of urban plazas, appropriate sidewalk width, and other issues. This work remains valuable because it's based on careful observation, and because it contradicts other conventional wisdom, for instance, the idea that pedestrian traffic and auto traffic should be separated.
Whyte also worked closely with the renovation of Bryant Park in New York City.
Whyte served as mentor to many, including the urban-planning writer Jane Jacobs, Paco Underhill, who has applied the same technique to measuring and improving retail environments, Dan Biederman of Bryant Park Corporation, who led the renovation of Bryant Park and the Business Improvement District movement in New York City, and Fred Kent, head of the Project for Public Spaces.
His books include: Is Anybody Listening? (1952), Securing Open Spaces for Urban America (1959), Cluster Development (1964), The Last Landscape (1968; "about the way metropolitan areas look and the way they might look"), The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980; plus a companion film of the same name in 1988), and City: Rediscovering the Center (1988).
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March 7, 2017
I changed this to a 3 1/2 on the assumption that if I read it again (assuming I could get through it) I'd think a bit more of it than I did 53+ years ago.
(originally posted 1/25/13)
I read this book fifty years ago now, in the summer of '62. It was to be read before starting my freshman year in college.
I don't think I got much out of it. Although I had had good marks in high school, I came from a small town in the Midwest. My classmates in college were mostly from big high schools in the east. Some of them may have been sophisticated enough to see what Whyte was talking about, or more likely just recognized their own fathers from his narrative. My dad was a school teacher in that small town, hence had nothing in common with Whyte's Organization Man; and hence I really didn't know what he was talking about, I suppose. It was a long time ago.
The other thing was, one had to have something of a grown-up point of view to take in a book like this, it certainly wasn't written for kids. But when I entered college, I was a kid. I learned about grown-up outlooks, things of real interest to adults, how to be an adult in college. Kids in, adults (or, adults-on-the-way) out. That was college for me.
(originally posted 1/25/13)
I read this book fifty years ago now, in the summer of '62. It was to be read before starting my freshman year in college.
I don't think I got much out of it. Although I had had good marks in high school, I came from a small town in the Midwest. My classmates in college were mostly from big high schools in the east. Some of them may have been sophisticated enough to see what Whyte was talking about, or more likely just recognized their own fathers from his narrative. My dad was a school teacher in that small town, hence had nothing in common with Whyte's Organization Man; and hence I really didn't know what he was talking about, I suppose. It was a long time ago.
The other thing was, one had to have something of a grown-up point of view to take in a book like this, it certainly wasn't written for kids. But when I entered college, I was a kid. I learned about grown-up outlooks, things of real interest to adults, how to be an adult in college. Kids in, adults (or, adults-on-the-way) out. That was college for me.
May 20, 2009
I bookmooched this just to read a couple of chapters on a Chicago suburb called Park Forest. I started reading somewhere in the middle and became so engrossed that when I finished I started back at the beginning. On the surface it would appear that a book that discusses the rise of the company businessman (white men, all) would yield nothing important to my life, but instead this book gave me a glimpse into an America that I never knew first hand yet is still mythologized by the media and Republicans. Most of the sources are from the 40s and 50s. Also, as contemporary readers we know how it all turned out--how all those suburban kids of the 50s turned into the hippies of the 60s. We also see that this model of business, an employee faithful to a company for an entire career, faded away. In fact, the generation that Whyte writes about is really the only one to receive the benefits of a job like this. Some of the companies he writes about ultimately smoked their employees with retirement, downgrades, things like that. The chapter on the way suburban neighborhoods work is great.
April 25, 2013
The world has sure changed!
Published June 2003 in WorldWIT.
Taking the Organization out of the Man
Sally's World, June 2003
http://www.sallyduros.com/taking-the-...
By SALLY DUROS
There's a book I have to read. It's called The Organization Man. It was written in 1956 by William Whyte, and it's about time that I learned what the book says.
When I was a girl, I held a secret deep and true, and that was that somehow even though I was female I would grow up to be an "Organization Man." My dad was an Organization Man, and my best friend's dad was an Organization Man, and the kids' next door, their dad was an Organization Man.
I wasn't sure what it meant exactly - It was just a book laying around our house - but I knew my dad was one, in my simplistic view because he wore a hat, and a suit, and he went to work downtown every day. My dad would leave the house at the same time every morning. When the weather was warm he would walk to the train. You could hear the screen door slam. I would sometimes watch him exit, impressed by how fast he walked. It was a mile-and-a-half to the commuter train that took him to downtown Chicago where the train belched him out with thousands of other people, and they all walked with great intention and urgency to the gleaming revolving-glass doors of the skyscrapers where they worked, engaged in their important missions of commerce and building things and selling stuff. I knew about that because he would bring me downtown with him a couple of times a year to show me off to the other civil engineers he worked with.
His route home led him like clockwork every day, up the side streets of our north side Chicago neighborhood, until he hit the end of the alley on an adjacent street. Which is when I would spy him coming around the corner, and I would run fast up the alley and jump into his arms, the dependable arms of an Organization Man dad, and he would carry me back to my mom, and siblings and the house, and it was nice and cozy like a TV sitcom.
My dad brought home the scent of ink, paper and concrete, and his face felt rough at the end of the day, and I liked that. He carried a briefcase, and he often had work to do in the evening.
Although I couldn't read the book The Organization Man, I knew my dad was one. Nearly all the dads I knew were Organization Men, except Mr. McHenry, and he owned his own business, and that seemed very strange and mysterious, and he was around during the day and even had a small disassembled airplane in his back yard, which was very exotic and alien.
I was reminded of these childhood memories when I was chatting with Penny Pickett, Business Director for the Telecommunications Development Fund, at Springboard 2003-Midwest, the women's venture capital forum. Penny was talking about the changes she has seen in the way businesses are viewed since she had started her own business first in 1980.
She started her business in 1980. When it was initially based in her home, it might solicit a condescending comment and a pat on the head. But when men headed to their garages and their basements after businesses embedding the culture of "The Organization Man" had mass layoffs during the 1980s, the conversation rose to another level. That's when the descriptive word "entrepreneur" emerged.
A basic tenet of The Organization Man was the idea that an employee gave the corporation loyalty and, in turn, the corporation took care of you. Some folks referred to that disparagingly as corporate welfare. The book proposed that employees would have 20-, 30-, and 40-year careers with one corporation.
When my dad started working for the organization, it had about 60 employees based in Chicago. When he left, the company had about 700 working worldwide. When the company merged with another two years ago, it had about 1200, still a small-to-medium sized business by most measures.
My dad retired from the organization nearly two decades ago, with 35 years under his belt. His company merged with another one two years ago, but still the company sticks with its tradition of inviting every one who ever worked for the company to the holiday party. My dad still sees many of his colleagues from the old organization. He can thank the organization for financial stability for his family, a lifetime of friends, and work that challenged him and he enjoyed. My dad says that it was a pretty good deal.
If there was a downside to being an Organization Man, it was the spiritual demand the organization made on the individual.
"This book is about the organization man. If the term is vague, it is because I can think of no other way to describe the people I am talking about. They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only work for The Organization. The ones I am talking about belong to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions."
- From the book The Organization Man, William Whyte
As painful as the evolution has been, today we are seeking a spiritual anchor in work, and this has been especially liberating for dads. Today it is as common to see dads who are self employed as dads who are working for organizations. Dads and men, in general, once a rarity after school at playgrounds, are becoming increasingly common. Whether there by choice or because of a lay-off -most of them look pretty happy to be refereeing the basketball games, manning the tube swings, testing the jungle gym and toting the backpacks of their kids. That's an experience that the organization never granted my Dad and other Dads of his generation.
If the organization doesn't seem to have room for "The Organization Man" anymore, some of us have learned a new way to be in the world that means creating our own organization - even if it is only in our heads. This way of being isn't easier. But Pickett says, we are nonetheless learning new behaviors.
"People today are more flexible and more entrepreneurial, even if they do go to big companies," she says. "More people are biting the bullet and learning the characteristics of entrepreneurs."
This brought to mind a friend of mine who has adapted the mindset of a contract employee, even though she is a full-time employee. Pickett believes that given the choice people like my friend would elect for a more comfortable work lifestyle.
One also shouldn't confuse the heart-sets of a small-business owner and that of an entrepreneur, Pickett says.
"A capable business owner is the person who's been pink-slipped and is desperate; they need an income," she says." They haven't been able to find a job, so they start a company."
"Small-business owners, we couldn't survive without them," she says. "They build good companies. They provide services that we all use. They're important to their communities. They pay their taxes. They're good people. They're just not driven the way entrepreneurs are."
"The entrepreneur is somebody who tends to be pretty bright, but tends to get fairly bored," she says. "They like to learn new situations, but once they've done that they will get bored fairly quickly if it becomes routine. An entrepreneur has a real need to fix things, to improve things, to really change the world. Now money may be the thing that you keep score with, but in many ways, I don't think money is the real goal."
"An entrepreneur is a do-gooder who has a strong conviction that there's something that they can do that's going to make the world better or make people's lives better or solve something that really is hurting a lot of people," Pickett says. "They'd like to make money. That's great, because in many ways, making a lot of money just gives them the cushion where they can flush out other ideas. It's a vision thing."
I look at it this way, if the small-business owner is the eagle on the U.S. seal, and the entrepreneur is the cowboy on the frontier, then The Organization Man should be honored on the face of our dollar bills.
Today, Dads are just as likely to be one as another, and Father's Day is the time to honor all of them. Happy Father's Day, Dad!
Recommended reading for this Father's Day: The Organization Man, by William Whyte; Not Just A Living by Mark Henricks; Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte; and Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson.The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a GenerationNot Just A Living: The Complete Guide To Creating A Business That Gives You A LifeCrossing the Unknown SeaSacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior
Published June 2003 in WorldWIT.
Taking the Organization out of the Man
Sally's World, June 2003
http://www.sallyduros.com/taking-the-...
By SALLY DUROS
There's a book I have to read. It's called The Organization Man. It was written in 1956 by William Whyte, and it's about time that I learned what the book says.
When I was a girl, I held a secret deep and true, and that was that somehow even though I was female I would grow up to be an "Organization Man." My dad was an Organization Man, and my best friend's dad was an Organization Man, and the kids' next door, their dad was an Organization Man.
I wasn't sure what it meant exactly - It was just a book laying around our house - but I knew my dad was one, in my simplistic view because he wore a hat, and a suit, and he went to work downtown every day. My dad would leave the house at the same time every morning. When the weather was warm he would walk to the train. You could hear the screen door slam. I would sometimes watch him exit, impressed by how fast he walked. It was a mile-and-a-half to the commuter train that took him to downtown Chicago where the train belched him out with thousands of other people, and they all walked with great intention and urgency to the gleaming revolving-glass doors of the skyscrapers where they worked, engaged in their important missions of commerce and building things and selling stuff. I knew about that because he would bring me downtown with him a couple of times a year to show me off to the other civil engineers he worked with.
His route home led him like clockwork every day, up the side streets of our north side Chicago neighborhood, until he hit the end of the alley on an adjacent street. Which is when I would spy him coming around the corner, and I would run fast up the alley and jump into his arms, the dependable arms of an Organization Man dad, and he would carry me back to my mom, and siblings and the house, and it was nice and cozy like a TV sitcom.
My dad brought home the scent of ink, paper and concrete, and his face felt rough at the end of the day, and I liked that. He carried a briefcase, and he often had work to do in the evening.
Although I couldn't read the book The Organization Man, I knew my dad was one. Nearly all the dads I knew were Organization Men, except Mr. McHenry, and he owned his own business, and that seemed very strange and mysterious, and he was around during the day and even had a small disassembled airplane in his back yard, which was very exotic and alien.
I was reminded of these childhood memories when I was chatting with Penny Pickett, Business Director for the Telecommunications Development Fund, at Springboard 2003-Midwest, the women's venture capital forum. Penny was talking about the changes she has seen in the way businesses are viewed since she had started her own business first in 1980.
She started her business in 1980. When it was initially based in her home, it might solicit a condescending comment and a pat on the head. But when men headed to their garages and their basements after businesses embedding the culture of "The Organization Man" had mass layoffs during the 1980s, the conversation rose to another level. That's when the descriptive word "entrepreneur" emerged.
A basic tenet of The Organization Man was the idea that an employee gave the corporation loyalty and, in turn, the corporation took care of you. Some folks referred to that disparagingly as corporate welfare. The book proposed that employees would have 20-, 30-, and 40-year careers with one corporation.
When my dad started working for the organization, it had about 60 employees based in Chicago. When he left, the company had about 700 working worldwide. When the company merged with another two years ago, it had about 1200, still a small-to-medium sized business by most measures.
My dad retired from the organization nearly two decades ago, with 35 years under his belt. His company merged with another one two years ago, but still the company sticks with its tradition of inviting every one who ever worked for the company to the holiday party. My dad still sees many of his colleagues from the old organization. He can thank the organization for financial stability for his family, a lifetime of friends, and work that challenged him and he enjoyed. My dad says that it was a pretty good deal.
If there was a downside to being an Organization Man, it was the spiritual demand the organization made on the individual.
"This book is about the organization man. If the term is vague, it is because I can think of no other way to describe the people I am talking about. They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only work for The Organization. The ones I am talking about belong to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions."
- From the book The Organization Man, William Whyte
As painful as the evolution has been, today we are seeking a spiritual anchor in work, and this has been especially liberating for dads. Today it is as common to see dads who are self employed as dads who are working for organizations. Dads and men, in general, once a rarity after school at playgrounds, are becoming increasingly common. Whether there by choice or because of a lay-off -most of them look pretty happy to be refereeing the basketball games, manning the tube swings, testing the jungle gym and toting the backpacks of their kids. That's an experience that the organization never granted my Dad and other Dads of his generation.
If the organization doesn't seem to have room for "The Organization Man" anymore, some of us have learned a new way to be in the world that means creating our own organization - even if it is only in our heads. This way of being isn't easier. But Pickett says, we are nonetheless learning new behaviors.
"People today are more flexible and more entrepreneurial, even if they do go to big companies," she says. "More people are biting the bullet and learning the characteristics of entrepreneurs."
This brought to mind a friend of mine who has adapted the mindset of a contract employee, even though she is a full-time employee. Pickett believes that given the choice people like my friend would elect for a more comfortable work lifestyle.
One also shouldn't confuse the heart-sets of a small-business owner and that of an entrepreneur, Pickett says.
"A capable business owner is the person who's been pink-slipped and is desperate; they need an income," she says." They haven't been able to find a job, so they start a company."
"Small-business owners, we couldn't survive without them," she says. "They build good companies. They provide services that we all use. They're important to their communities. They pay their taxes. They're good people. They're just not driven the way entrepreneurs are."
"The entrepreneur is somebody who tends to be pretty bright, but tends to get fairly bored," she says. "They like to learn new situations, but once they've done that they will get bored fairly quickly if it becomes routine. An entrepreneur has a real need to fix things, to improve things, to really change the world. Now money may be the thing that you keep score with, but in many ways, I don't think money is the real goal."
"An entrepreneur is a do-gooder who has a strong conviction that there's something that they can do that's going to make the world better or make people's lives better or solve something that really is hurting a lot of people," Pickett says. "They'd like to make money. That's great, because in many ways, making a lot of money just gives them the cushion where they can flush out other ideas. It's a vision thing."
I look at it this way, if the small-business owner is the eagle on the U.S. seal, and the entrepreneur is the cowboy on the frontier, then The Organization Man should be honored on the face of our dollar bills.
Today, Dads are just as likely to be one as another, and Father's Day is the time to honor all of them. Happy Father's Day, Dad!
Recommended reading for this Father's Day: The Organization Man, by William Whyte; Not Just A Living by Mark Henricks; Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte; and Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson.The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a GenerationNot Just A Living: The Complete Guide To Creating A Business That Gives You A LifeCrossing the Unknown SeaSacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior
January 29, 2015
This is a tremendous book - and I thoroughly recommend it for anyone involved in business. The lessons are as fresh and important today as they were 50-60 years ago. If you will, the "Organization Man" won out and we've forgotten Whyte's lessons about why this will be a problem.
Have to say, though, the modern intro is a silly introduction. Some writer (probably well know) at Fortune tells us "nice read but we don't have these problems any more"... Yikes. I don't think he's ever lived within the world of the companies he covers. Probably talks with the c-level execs and, of course, they paint a perfect picture.
William Whyte's writing is perceptive and thorough. The one serious challenge I found as a modern reader was in the first chapters where he reflects a 1950's analysis of where women can fit in a corporation - so be forewarned he observes they are "secretaries".
Once past that section, his sections on testing and on genius are absolutely outstanding. Also some of the chapters on suburbs are brilliant - although I skipped through the first couple. If you read it, check the Wikipedia page on the Park Forest suburb outside Chicago where Whyte did extensive studies.
The chapter "The Fight Against Genius" is brilliant and may be my favorite. And despite the Fortune editor's theory, we did NOT learn these lessons. Even the poster child Google didn't pay attention. Google's "20% allowable" for working on "whatever you want" hasn't really delivered what it intended. Whyte could predict this - he discusses a similar structure in a company in the 1950's...which also doesn't do what's intended - driving far too applied research rather than blue sky research.
All in all, this book should be mandatory today. And I hate those reviews which indicate it's "just for the 1950's". My experience with massive corporate world has made it clear: Business schools didn't learn the lessons from this book that they should have.
Have to say, though, the modern intro is a silly introduction. Some writer (probably well know) at Fortune tells us "nice read but we don't have these problems any more"... Yikes. I don't think he's ever lived within the world of the companies he covers. Probably talks with the c-level execs and, of course, they paint a perfect picture.
William Whyte's writing is perceptive and thorough. The one serious challenge I found as a modern reader was in the first chapters where he reflects a 1950's analysis of where women can fit in a corporation - so be forewarned he observes they are "secretaries".
Once past that section, his sections on testing and on genius are absolutely outstanding. Also some of the chapters on suburbs are brilliant - although I skipped through the first couple. If you read it, check the Wikipedia page on the Park Forest suburb outside Chicago where Whyte did extensive studies.
The chapter "The Fight Against Genius" is brilliant and may be my favorite. And despite the Fortune editor's theory, we did NOT learn these lessons. Even the poster child Google didn't pay attention. Google's "20% allowable" for working on "whatever you want" hasn't really delivered what it intended. Whyte could predict this - he discusses a similar structure in a company in the 1950's...which also doesn't do what's intended - driving far too applied research rather than blue sky research.
All in all, this book should be mandatory today. And I hate those reviews which indicate it's "just for the 1950's". My experience with massive corporate world has made it clear: Business schools didn't learn the lessons from this book that they should have.
November 23, 2014
I read this about a dozen years ago in grad school, and I believe it is one of the seminal academic books of mid-century America. Whyte documented the radical shift in social importance that large corporations had attained along with their economic preeminence.
However, the book is obsolete as anything but sociological history. The faithful organization man required a paternalistic corporation to make sense, and that pairing collapsed with the advent of deep international competition in the seventies and eighties. Today, there is no lack of scathing criticism concerning the faithlessness of the typical corporation, and wise employees have long learned to plan for the possibility of being laid off, even by a corporation that is profitable.
For a more complete view of the impact the book made at the time, and on the author's later contributions, the Economist has an excellent short review of this classic here.
However, the book is obsolete as anything but sociological history. The faithful organization man required a paternalistic corporation to make sense, and that pairing collapsed with the advent of deep international competition in the seventies and eighties. Today, there is no lack of scathing criticism concerning the faithlessness of the typical corporation, and wise employees have long learned to plan for the possibility of being laid off, even by a corporation that is profitable.
For a more complete view of the impact the book made at the time, and on the author's later contributions, the Economist has an excellent short review of this classic here.
May 30, 2009
This book was originally published in 1956 and reissued in 2002.
It was remarkably prescient in its warning against conformity and groupthink. Whyte advocated a healthy ecosystem of divergent personality types and thinking patterns in order to build more resilient companies/communities/societies. This is a very topical and thought-provoking book and I am enjoying it immensely.
It was remarkably prescient in its warning against conformity and groupthink. Whyte advocated a healthy ecosystem of divergent personality types and thinking patterns in order to build more resilient companies/communities/societies. This is a very topical and thought-provoking book and I am enjoying it immensely.
July 8, 2008
It's all that and a bag of myers briggs tests...
I love books like this, It calls bullshit on about a century of management theory, oddly enough, it was written in the middle of that century, making even more telling.
I love books like this, It calls bullshit on about a century of management theory, oddly enough, it was written in the middle of that century, making even more telling.
May 11, 2015
It's very hard to remember through the book that it was written in the 1950s - even though a lot of stuff in the family dynamics seems old-fashioned, most of the observations on the dynamic in the corporations and the people that work in it seem spot-on.
There are some great discussions on individuality, on the scientists in the corporations and academia, the group life and its consequences. Some times the book reads like an anti-utopia, sometimes it has more utopia-like tones, but in the end it's a really balanced and insightful view on the social dynamics and life in such groups.
The language was a bit hard at first, but it doesn't make the book unreadable.
There are some great discussions on individuality, on the scientists in the corporations and academia, the group life and its consequences. Some times the book reads like an anti-utopia, sometimes it has more utopia-like tones, but in the end it's a really balanced and insightful view on the social dynamics and life in such groups.
The language was a bit hard at first, but it doesn't make the book unreadable.
September 22, 2021
The book is about a tension between individualism and group conformity. While it ebbs and flows, conformity is in Whyte's time overwhelmingly dominant – in business, academia, foundations, philanthropy, suburbia, schools and social life. Today, the difference is that the all-encompassing group ethos has merged with science. Hence, the book’s title. The goal of organizational life is the “scientific perfectibility of society” based on the “exact science of man.”
In contrast to the Protestant Ethic that stresses individualism, Whyte refers to the contemporary organizational phenomenon as the Social Ethic. This is more than just conformity to group life; it is rather an all-encompassing moral imperative: the organization “man” must integrate “him"self fully into the organization. The organization in turn obliges by saying that the wholesale group integration is good, so much so that the individual cannot imagine a life without it. The beneficence is total. To be separated from the group is borderline horror.
Group life provides community in the best sense, yet, Whyte presents a bleak and depressive picture of what life within in organization means. He is for “resisting.” He is for the individual taking some of his life back, though he is remarkably weak on how that might be done.
Though Whyte writes of the organization man as a modern-day phenomenon, I was struck by how much it reflects universal patterns from the hunter-gatherers to moderns. Biologically, we are about protecting and providing for our self-interest. This is the basis for individualism. But we cannot do that without the group. Without the group we die so social instincts push us to merge with it. Evolution does that job for us. Now our survival and well-being is tied to group life. This is the origin of the organization man. The difference in scale and complexity is vast, but the motive force is the same: We are about our self-interest which also is tied to our overwhelming need for group life. There’s tension between the two; there always has been and there always will be. Freud’s id is inherently tied to superego and the ego struggles forever.
In contrast to the Protestant Ethic that stresses individualism, Whyte refers to the contemporary organizational phenomenon as the Social Ethic. This is more than just conformity to group life; it is rather an all-encompassing moral imperative: the organization “man” must integrate “him"self fully into the organization. The organization in turn obliges by saying that the wholesale group integration is good, so much so that the individual cannot imagine a life without it. The beneficence is total. To be separated from the group is borderline horror.
Group life provides community in the best sense, yet, Whyte presents a bleak and depressive picture of what life within in organization means. He is for “resisting.” He is for the individual taking some of his life back, though he is remarkably weak on how that might be done.
Though Whyte writes of the organization man as a modern-day phenomenon, I was struck by how much it reflects universal patterns from the hunter-gatherers to moderns. Biologically, we are about protecting and providing for our self-interest. This is the basis for individualism. But we cannot do that without the group. Without the group we die so social instincts push us to merge with it. Evolution does that job for us. Now our survival and well-being is tied to group life. This is the origin of the organization man. The difference in scale and complexity is vast, but the motive force is the same: We are about our self-interest which also is tied to our overwhelming need for group life. There’s tension between the two; there always has been and there always will be. Freud’s id is inherently tied to superego and the ego struggles forever.
March 22, 2022
I'm not really sure what I was expecting from this, I had heard of the book and thought it might be sociology a la Marcuse, but it turned out to be a rambling, discursive study of corporate culture in the US of the 1950s. As you often find, there's a lot here that makes you wonder what is actually new about current times, and what is merely a rephrased perennial issue, but things that do stand out include: the concern that the America of the 1950s was becoming far too communal, far too bureaucratic… worries about the prevalence of psychometric testing in the workforce… research funding and the problems of conformity in academia, and then a long study of a particular suburban milieu, with its cliques, joiners and leaders and so on.
It would, of course, be interesting to read an equivalent study of corporate people from the present day – I suspect it would conclude that an un-reflective individualism was the problem, the opposite of White's analysis from half a century ago.
It would, of course, be interesting to read an equivalent study of corporate people from the present day – I suspect it would conclude that an un-reflective individualism was the problem, the opposite of White's analysis from half a century ago.
March 25, 2023
This is an excellent and fascinating book
1 part introductory to corporate culture in the 50s
1 part guidebook for a more individual society
1 part introduction to suburban culture of the 50s
My favorite part is the chapters on “ how to cheat on personality tests “
The independent research done throughout is excellent and adds weight without leaning on the generally small samples too much
5/5
1 part introductory to corporate culture in the 50s
1 part guidebook for a more individual society
1 part introduction to suburban culture of the 50s
My favorite part is the chapters on “ how to cheat on personality tests “
The independent research done throughout is excellent and adds weight without leaning on the generally small samples too much
5/5
March 19, 2008
As an architect interested in US settlement patterns, I was mainly under whelmed with this one. Perhaps it's the constant references to Organization Man in seemingly every other book or journal article that has touched on the subject of suburbia. Not that it shouldn't be referenced – a couple parts were interesting - but there's the issue that most of the other authors obvious haven't read Whyte's book! I'm not going into detail as it was a while back when I spent way too much time with this, but far from critiquing the lameness of the "organization" guy (yes, most of the ladies were still housewives...or house wives again after WWII anyway) and the irresponsible separatist flight into potato fields aided by big tailfin-bedecked Chevys, Whyte approaches the suburban dwellers of mid-century in a very methodically open-minded way. Despite my admiration for this, I was mostly bored to tears (no doubt the half-century separation exacerbated my ennui) and I felt, in contrast to the umpteen hundred times I've heard how provocative and indispensable this book is for any analysis of the physical/planning issues relevant to suburban culture, that only about 1.24 chapters were of any interest at all. And I recall said chapter (6? 12?) was the one with those terrific adjacency diagrams – truly where Whyte shines...err, shone.
February 2, 2009
Today, students graduating go work for organizations. Whether you're an engineer, a teacher, or even a doctor, you usually join some kind of company.
This book is about that phenomenon, and how in joining these organizations, people place part of the control of their lives into the hands of others.
Written back when large multi-national corporations were rare. It's interesting even to read about any alternative to joining large corporations.
This book is about that phenomenon, and how in joining these organizations, people place part of the control of their lives into the hands of others.
Written back when large multi-national corporations were rare. It's interesting even to read about any alternative to joining large corporations.
December 18, 2014
This book is interesting as a zeitgeist of 1950s corporate America, but is obsolete nowadays. Its chapters on The Organization Man in fiction were enjoyable, but the Organization as a surrogate father seems to be a pipe dream nowadays. Companies focus nowadays on efficiency (outsourcing is one of its methods of getting a job done), and the paternalistic Organization of yesteryear is all but extinct.
March 14, 2021
Interesting to see how lots of stereotypes of people who work in large organizations in the 50s are similar to people who work in them now. Also surprised to see some things (like "supermom") get talked about.
Also interesting to see *just how* high trust 50s suburbia was. Not just no locks on the doors, but you would just go into each other's houses. There was a quote about a section of the neighborhood full of paranoid weirdos (j/k) who would knock first.
Also interesting to see *just how* high trust 50s suburbia was. Not just no locks on the doors, but you would just go into each other's houses. There was a quote about a section of the neighborhood full of paranoid weirdos (j/k) who would knock first.
October 26, 2009
A little dry in places, but it got much better as it went along. It's fascinating to read Whyte's concern about unmanageable mortgages and revolving credit (in the days before credit cards) ... the more things change, etc.
September 1, 2021
I don’t know why I’m reading all these outdated works of sociology.
October 23, 2010
I read this because of the RibbonFarm post about the office. Which is must read. That shit is awesome. Search for the Gervais Principle.
I love how at the end of the book is an appendix about how to beat personality tests.
Quotes:
"The new cookie-cutter suburbs were becoming, as he put it, "the dormitory of the next managerial class.""
"Man exists as a unit of society. Of himself, he is isolated, meaningless; only as he collaborates with others does he become worthwhile, for by sublimating himself in the group, he helps produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts."
"This is the new suburbia, the packaged villages that have become the dormitory of the new generation of organization men."
"This book is not a plea for nonconformity. Such pleas have an occasional therapeutic value, but as an abstraction, nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender."
"And how important, really, are these uniformities to the central issue of individualism? We must not let the outward forms deceive us. If individualism involve following one's destiny as one's own conscience directs, it must for most of us be a realizable destiny, and a sensible awareness of the rules of the game can be a condition of individualism as well as a constraint upon it. The man who drives a Buick Special and lives in a ranch-type house just like hundreds of other ranch-type houses can assert himself as effectively and courageously against his particular society as the bohemian against his particular society. He usually does not, it is true, but if he does, the surface uniformities can serve quite well as protective coloration. The organization people who are best able to control their environment rather than be controlled by it are well aware that they are not too easily distinguishable from the others in the outward obeisances paid to the good opinion of others. And that is one of the reasons they do control. They disarm society."
"Every decision he faces on the problem of the individual versus authority is something of a dilemma. It is not a case of whether he should fight against black tyranny or blaze a new trail against patent stupidity. That would be easy - intellectually, at least. The real issue is far more subtle. For it is not the evils of organization life that puzzle him, but its very beneficence. He is imprisoned in brotherhood. Because his area of maneuver seems so small and because the trapping so mundane, his fight lacks the heroic cast, but it is for all this as tough a fight as ever his predecessors had to fight."
"There is always plenty of room at the top."
"Not for lack of ambition do the younger men dream so moderately; what they lack is the illusion that they will carry on in the great entrepreneurial spirit."
"Man might not be perfectible after all, but there was another dream and now at last it seemed practical: the perfectibility of society."
"If the techniques are faulty, and this they admit, that is a matter of unfinished detail and insufficient funds, not principles, and no one should criticize until he offers a counter-utopia himself."
"Many a contemporary prescription for utopia can be summarized if you cross out the name of one group and substitute another in the following charge: 'Society has broken down; the family, the church, the community, the schools, business - each has failed to give the individual the belongingness he needs and this it is now the task of ------ group to do the job."
"The hunch that wasn't followed up. The controversial point that didn't get debated. The idea that was suppressed. Were these acts of group co-operation or individual surrender? We are taking away from the individual the ability even to ask the question?"
"In further institutionalizing the great power of the majority, we are making the individual come to distrust himself. We are giving him a rationalization for the unconscious urging to find an authority that would resolve the burdens of free choice. We are tempting him to reinterpret the group pressures as a release, authority as freedom, and that this quest assumes a moral guise makes it only the more poignant."
"Small business is small because of nepotism and the roll-top desk outlook, the argument goes; big business, by contrast, has borrowed the tools of science and made them pay off. It has its great laboratories, its market-research departments, and the time and patience to use them."
"He didn't learn what business can't teach him because he was too busy learning what business could teach him, and teach him better." [on bschool]
"To be aware of one's conformity is to be aware that there is some antithesis between oneself and the demands of the system. This does not itself stimulate independence, but it is a necessary condition of it; and contrasted with the wishful vision of total harmony not being touted, it demonstrates a pretty tough-minded grasp of reality."
"To control one's destiny and not be controlled by it; to know which way the path will fork and to make the turning oneself; to have some index of achievement that no one can dispute - concrete and tangible for all to see, not dependent on the attitudes of others. It is an independence he will never have in full measure but me must forever seek it."
"I have argued that the dominant ideological drift in organization life is toward (1) idolatry of the system and (2) the misuse of science to achieve this...[Personality tests] are not science; only the illusion of it."
"The conclusions drawn from these aptitude and intelligence scores are, furthermore, limited to the relatively modest prediction of a man's capability of doing the same sort of thing he is asked to do on the tests."
"The mathematics is impeccable - and thus entrapping. Because "percentiles" and "coefficients" and "standard deviations" are of themselves neutral, the sheer methodology of using them can convince people that they are translating uncertainty into certainty, the subjective into the objective, and eliminating utterly the bugbear of value judgement. But the mathematics does not eliminate values; it only obscures them."
"No matter how many variables you add you cannot make a constant of them."
"The accuracy of the internal mathematics is confused with the accuracy of the premises."
"When tests are used as selection devices, they are not a neutral tool; they become a large factor in the very equation they purport to measure."
"If you want to get a high score you will do well to observe these two rules: (1) When asked for word associations or comments about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian answer possible. (2) When in doubt about the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little bit more. I like things pretty much the way they are. I never worry much about anything. I don't care for books or music much. I love my wife and children. I don't let them get in the way of company work."
"The administrator cannot understand that a man can dislike a company - perhaps even leave in disgust after several years - and still have mad a net contribution to the company cash register infinitely greater than all of his better-adjusted colleagues put together."
"In any field, we all want to reassure ourselves that things are the way they are because that's the way they should be, and science is no exception."
"God likes regular people - people who play baseball, like movie nuns. He smiles on society, and his message is a relaxing one. He does not scold you; he does not demand of you. He is a gregarious God and he can be found in the smiling happy people of the society about you." [Love means never making demands.]
"Democracy under private capitalism has shaved off the edges of these plateaus, and the whole population moves, according to the ethos of our culture, endlessly and breathlessly up one long, unbroken sandy slope of acquisition...form every point on the unbroken incline one can look ahead and see others with more than one has oneself."
"In a continually expanding economy, they reason, future prosperity will retroactively pay for today, and there is, accordingly, no good sense to self-denial."
"But where is the boat going? No one seems to have the faintest idea; nor, for that matter, do they see much point in even raising the question. Once people liked to think, at least, that they were in control of their destinies, but few of the younger organization people cherish such notions. Most see themselves as objects more acted upon than acting - and their future, therefore, determined as much by the system as by themselves."
"It is easy to fight obvious tyranny; it is not easy to fight benevolence, and few things are more calculated to rob the individual of his defenses than the idea that his interests and those of society can be wholly compatible."
"He must fight The Organization. Not stupidly, or selfishly, for the defects of individual self-regard are no more to be venerated than the defects of co-operation. But fight he must, for the demands for his surrender are constant and powerful, and the more he has come to like the life of organization the more difficult does he find it to resist these demands, or even to recognize them. It is wretched, dispiriting advice to hold before him the dream that ideally there need be no conflict between him and society. There always is; there always must be. Ideology cannot wish it away; the peace of mind offered by organization remains a surrender, and no less so for being offered in benevolence. That is the problem."
I love how at the end of the book is an appendix about how to beat personality tests.
Quotes:
"The new cookie-cutter suburbs were becoming, as he put it, "the dormitory of the next managerial class.""
"Man exists as a unit of society. Of himself, he is isolated, meaningless; only as he collaborates with others does he become worthwhile, for by sublimating himself in the group, he helps produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts."
"This is the new suburbia, the packaged villages that have become the dormitory of the new generation of organization men."
"This book is not a plea for nonconformity. Such pleas have an occasional therapeutic value, but as an abstraction, nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender."
"And how important, really, are these uniformities to the central issue of individualism? We must not let the outward forms deceive us. If individualism involve following one's destiny as one's own conscience directs, it must for most of us be a realizable destiny, and a sensible awareness of the rules of the game can be a condition of individualism as well as a constraint upon it. The man who drives a Buick Special and lives in a ranch-type house just like hundreds of other ranch-type houses can assert himself as effectively and courageously against his particular society as the bohemian against his particular society. He usually does not, it is true, but if he does, the surface uniformities can serve quite well as protective coloration. The organization people who are best able to control their environment rather than be controlled by it are well aware that they are not too easily distinguishable from the others in the outward obeisances paid to the good opinion of others. And that is one of the reasons they do control. They disarm society."
"Every decision he faces on the problem of the individual versus authority is something of a dilemma. It is not a case of whether he should fight against black tyranny or blaze a new trail against patent stupidity. That would be easy - intellectually, at least. The real issue is far more subtle. For it is not the evils of organization life that puzzle him, but its very beneficence. He is imprisoned in brotherhood. Because his area of maneuver seems so small and because the trapping so mundane, his fight lacks the heroic cast, but it is for all this as tough a fight as ever his predecessors had to fight."
"There is always plenty of room at the top."
"Not for lack of ambition do the younger men dream so moderately; what they lack is the illusion that they will carry on in the great entrepreneurial spirit."
"Man might not be perfectible after all, but there was another dream and now at last it seemed practical: the perfectibility of society."
"If the techniques are faulty, and this they admit, that is a matter of unfinished detail and insufficient funds, not principles, and no one should criticize until he offers a counter-utopia himself."
"Many a contemporary prescription for utopia can be summarized if you cross out the name of one group and substitute another in the following charge: 'Society has broken down; the family, the church, the community, the schools, business - each has failed to give the individual the belongingness he needs and this it is now the task of ------ group to do the job."
"The hunch that wasn't followed up. The controversial point that didn't get debated. The idea that was suppressed. Were these acts of group co-operation or individual surrender? We are taking away from the individual the ability even to ask the question?"
"In further institutionalizing the great power of the majority, we are making the individual come to distrust himself. We are giving him a rationalization for the unconscious urging to find an authority that would resolve the burdens of free choice. We are tempting him to reinterpret the group pressures as a release, authority as freedom, and that this quest assumes a moral guise makes it only the more poignant."
"Small business is small because of nepotism and the roll-top desk outlook, the argument goes; big business, by contrast, has borrowed the tools of science and made them pay off. It has its great laboratories, its market-research departments, and the time and patience to use them."
"He didn't learn what business can't teach him because he was too busy learning what business could teach him, and teach him better." [on bschool]
"To be aware of one's conformity is to be aware that there is some antithesis between oneself and the demands of the system. This does not itself stimulate independence, but it is a necessary condition of it; and contrasted with the wishful vision of total harmony not being touted, it demonstrates a pretty tough-minded grasp of reality."
"To control one's destiny and not be controlled by it; to know which way the path will fork and to make the turning oneself; to have some index of achievement that no one can dispute - concrete and tangible for all to see, not dependent on the attitudes of others. It is an independence he will never have in full measure but me must forever seek it."
"I have argued that the dominant ideological drift in organization life is toward (1) idolatry of the system and (2) the misuse of science to achieve this...[Personality tests] are not science; only the illusion of it."
"The conclusions drawn from these aptitude and intelligence scores are, furthermore, limited to the relatively modest prediction of a man's capability of doing the same sort of thing he is asked to do on the tests."
"The mathematics is impeccable - and thus entrapping. Because "percentiles" and "coefficients" and "standard deviations" are of themselves neutral, the sheer methodology of using them can convince people that they are translating uncertainty into certainty, the subjective into the objective, and eliminating utterly the bugbear of value judgement. But the mathematics does not eliminate values; it only obscures them."
"No matter how many variables you add you cannot make a constant of them."
"The accuracy of the internal mathematics is confused with the accuracy of the premises."
"When tests are used as selection devices, they are not a neutral tool; they become a large factor in the very equation they purport to measure."
"If you want to get a high score you will do well to observe these two rules: (1) When asked for word associations or comments about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian answer possible. (2) When in doubt about the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: I loved my father and my mother, but my father a little bit more. I like things pretty much the way they are. I never worry much about anything. I don't care for books or music much. I love my wife and children. I don't let them get in the way of company work."
"The administrator cannot understand that a man can dislike a company - perhaps even leave in disgust after several years - and still have mad a net contribution to the company cash register infinitely greater than all of his better-adjusted colleagues put together."
"In any field, we all want to reassure ourselves that things are the way they are because that's the way they should be, and science is no exception."
"God likes regular people - people who play baseball, like movie nuns. He smiles on society, and his message is a relaxing one. He does not scold you; he does not demand of you. He is a gregarious God and he can be found in the smiling happy people of the society about you." [Love means never making demands.]
"Democracy under private capitalism has shaved off the edges of these plateaus, and the whole population moves, according to the ethos of our culture, endlessly and breathlessly up one long, unbroken sandy slope of acquisition...form every point on the unbroken incline one can look ahead and see others with more than one has oneself."
"In a continually expanding economy, they reason, future prosperity will retroactively pay for today, and there is, accordingly, no good sense to self-denial."
"But where is the boat going? No one seems to have the faintest idea; nor, for that matter, do they see much point in even raising the question. Once people liked to think, at least, that they were in control of their destinies, but few of the younger organization people cherish such notions. Most see themselves as objects more acted upon than acting - and their future, therefore, determined as much by the system as by themselves."
"It is easy to fight obvious tyranny; it is not easy to fight benevolence, and few things are more calculated to rob the individual of his defenses than the idea that his interests and those of society can be wholly compatible."
"He must fight The Organization. Not stupidly, or selfishly, for the defects of individual self-regard are no more to be venerated than the defects of co-operation. But fight he must, for the demands for his surrender are constant and powerful, and the more he has come to like the life of organization the more difficult does he find it to resist these demands, or even to recognize them. It is wretched, dispiriting advice to hold before him the dream that ideally there need be no conflict between him and society. There always is; there always must be. Ideology cannot wish it away; the peace of mind offered by organization remains a surrender, and no less so for being offered in benevolence. That is the problem."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2025
A ‘CLASSIC’ CHARACTERIZATION OF THE 1950s, BUT ALSO A REJECTION OF IT
William Hollingsworth Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) was an American urbanist, sociologist, organizational analyst, journalist and author. He worked for Fortune magazine for 12 years, and was sponsored by them to interview CEOs of major corporations, which was the basis for this 1956 best-selling book.
He begins the first chapter with the statement, “This book is about the organization man… They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only WORK for The Organization. The ones I am talking about BELONG to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vow of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions. Only a few are top managers… they are of the staff as much as the line, and most are destined to live poised in a middle area … But they are dominant members of our society nonetheless. They have not joined together into a recognizable elite… but it is from their ranks that are coming most of the first and second echelons of our leadership, and it is their values which will set the American temper. The corporation is the most conspicuous example, but he is only one, for the collectivization so visible in the corporation has affected almost every field of work.” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “they have no great sense of plight; between themselves and organization they believe they see an ultimate harmony and… they are building an ideology that will vouchsafe this trust. It is the growth of this ideology, and its practical effects, that is the thread I wish to follow in this book... Officially, we are a people who hold to the Protestant Ethic… there is almost always the thought that pursuit of individual salvation through hard work, thrift, and competitive struggle is the heart of the American achievement. But the harsh facts of organization life simply do not jibe with these precepts.” (Pg. 4-5)
He goes on, “The older generation may still convince themselves, the younger generation does not. When a young man says that to make a living these days you must do what somebody else wants you to do, he states it not only as a fact of life that must be accepted but as an inherently good proposition. If the American Dream deprecates this for him, it is the American Dream that is going to have to give, whatever its more elderly guardians may think… I am going to call it a Social Ethic… it rationalizes the organization’s demands for fealty and gives those who offer it wholeheartedly a sense of dedication in doing so… it converts what would seem in other times a bill of no rights into a restatement of individualism. But there is a real moral imperative behind it, and … [it is] this moral basis, not mere expediency, [that] is the source of its power.” (Pg. 6)
He adds, “The fault is not in organization… it is in our worship of it. It is in our vain quest for a utopian equilibrium… There are only a few times in organization life when he can wrench his destiny into his own hands… But when is that time? Will he know the time when he sees it?... If he goes against the group, is he being courageous---or just stubborn? Helpful---or selfish? Is he, as he so often wonders, right after all? It is in the resolution of a multitude of such dilemmas, I submit that the real issue of individualism lies today.” (Pg. 14-15)
He observes, “the real impact of scientism is upon our values. The danger… is not man being dominated but man surrendering. At the present writing there is not one section of American life that has not drunk deeply of the promise of scientism. It appears in many forms---pedagogy, aptitude tests, that monstrous nonentity called ‘mass communication’---and there are few readers who have not had a personal collision with it.” (Pg. 35)
He observes, “there is always the common thread that a man must belong and that he must be unhappy if he does not belong rather completely. The idea that conflicting allegiances safeguard him as well as abrade him is sloughed over, and for the people who must endure the tensions of independence there is no condolence; only the message that the tensions are sickness---either in themselves or in society. It does not make any difference whether the Good Society is to be represented by a union or by a corporation or by a church; it is to be a society unified and purged of conflict.” (Pg. 50-51) Later, he adds, “The organization man is not yet so indoctrinated that he does not chafe at the pressures on his independence, and sometimes he even suspects that the group may be as much a tyrant as the despot it has replaced. It is the burden of the new group doctrine that such misgivings… are simply a lack of knowledge, a lack of mastery of managerial techniques.” (Pg. 55)
He suggests, “The bureaucrat as hero is new to America, and older, conventional dreams of glory do linger on… But slowly the young man at the microscope is joined by other young men at microscopes; instead of one man dreaming, there are three or four young men. Year by year, our folklore is catching up with the needs of organization man.” (Pg. 83)
He predicts, “I return to my pessimistic forecast. Look ahead to 1985. Those who will control a good part of the educational plant will be products themselves of the most stringently anti-intellectual training in the country… to judge by the new suburbia the bulk of middle-class parents of 1985 will know no other standards to evaluate education of their children than those of the social-adjustment type of schooling. And who will be picking the schools to endow and sitting on the boards of trustee? More and more it will be the man of The Organization… the ‘modern man’ in sum, that his education was so effectively designed to bring about.” (Pg. 110)
He summarizes, “trainees express the same impatience. All the great ideas, they explain, have already been discovered and not only in physics and chemistry but in practical fields like engineering. The basic creative work is won, so the man you need… is a practical, team-player fellow who will do a good shirtsleeves job. ‘I would sacrifice brilliance,’ one trainee said, ‘for human understanding every time.’ And they do, too.” (Pg. 152)
He says, “In this absorption in work, many people believe, lies the seat of the executive neurosis… But this is not the nub of his problem. His long absorption in work to the exclusion of everything else may hit him very hard when he retires and finds himself illiterate in the other kinds of life. But if work is a tyranny, it is a self-imposed tyranny. He sees the disparity between work and leisure only as a minor conflict. It is something he feels he SHOULD worry about. And he hasn’t the time.” (Pg. 166)
He criticizes ‘Aptitude Tests,’ and similar measures: “In return for the salary that The Organization gives the individual, it can ask for superlative work from him, but it should not ask for his psyche as well. If it does, he must withhold. Sensibly---the bureaucratic way is too much with most of us that he can flatly refuse to take tests without hurt to himself. But he can cheat. He must. Let him respect himself.” (Pg. 222)
He explains, “I now turn to the organization man at home… I am going to examine him in the communities that have become his dormitories… They are communities made in his image. There are other kinds of people there too… But it is the young organization man who is dominant. More than others, it is he who organizes the committees, runs the schools, selects the ministers, fights the developers, makes the speeches, and sets the styles.” (Pg. 295)
He asserts, “Openly stated, the reasoning would go something like this: Most of us are at a pretty critical stage in our careers; it is just about now that we will realize that some of us are really going to go ahead and some of us aren’t. If you find you are going ahead, it’s rubbing it in unfairly to make it obvious to the others who aren’t. You have broken the truce. The job, then, is not to keep up with the Joneses. It’s to keep DOWN with them.” (Pg. 346)
He states, “For ultimately his tyranny is self-imposed… the increasing benevolence of human relations, the more democratic atmosphere, has in one way made the individual’s path more difficult. He is intimidated by normalcy. He too has become more adept at concealing hostilities and ambitions, more skillfully ‘normal,’ but he knows HE is different and he is not sure about the others. In his own peculiarities, he can feel isolated, a fraud who is not what he seems.” (Pg. 401)
He concludes, “Here, finally, is the apotheosis of the Social Ethic… the dominant motif is unmistakable. Not just as something expedient, but as something right, the organization transients have put social usefulness at the core of their beliefs. Adaptation has become more than a necessity; in a life in which everything changes, it has become almost a constant.” (Pg. 435) “he must FIGHT the Organization… for the demands for his surrender are constant and powerful, and the more he has come to like the life of organization the more difficult does he find it to resist these demands, or even to recognize them. It is wretched, dispiriting advice to hold before him the dream that ideally there need be no conflict between him and society…The peace of mind offered by organization remains a surrender, and no less for being offered in benevolence. That is the problem.” (Pg. 448)
This book was very influential when it was first published, but it still has much to offer the modern reader.
William Hollingsworth Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) was an American urbanist, sociologist, organizational analyst, journalist and author. He worked for Fortune magazine for 12 years, and was sponsored by them to interview CEOs of major corporations, which was the basis for this 1956 best-selling book.
He begins the first chapter with the statement, “This book is about the organization man… They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only WORK for The Organization. The ones I am talking about BELONG to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vow of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions. Only a few are top managers… they are of the staff as much as the line, and most are destined to live poised in a middle area … But they are dominant members of our society nonetheless. They have not joined together into a recognizable elite… but it is from their ranks that are coming most of the first and second echelons of our leadership, and it is their values which will set the American temper. The corporation is the most conspicuous example, but he is only one, for the collectivization so visible in the corporation has affected almost every field of work.” (Pg. 3)
He continues, “they have no great sense of plight; between themselves and organization they believe they see an ultimate harmony and… they are building an ideology that will vouchsafe this trust. It is the growth of this ideology, and its practical effects, that is the thread I wish to follow in this book... Officially, we are a people who hold to the Protestant Ethic… there is almost always the thought that pursuit of individual salvation through hard work, thrift, and competitive struggle is the heart of the American achievement. But the harsh facts of organization life simply do not jibe with these precepts.” (Pg. 4-5)
He goes on, “The older generation may still convince themselves, the younger generation does not. When a young man says that to make a living these days you must do what somebody else wants you to do, he states it not only as a fact of life that must be accepted but as an inherently good proposition. If the American Dream deprecates this for him, it is the American Dream that is going to have to give, whatever its more elderly guardians may think… I am going to call it a Social Ethic… it rationalizes the organization’s demands for fealty and gives those who offer it wholeheartedly a sense of dedication in doing so… it converts what would seem in other times a bill of no rights into a restatement of individualism. But there is a real moral imperative behind it, and … [it is] this moral basis, not mere expediency, [that] is the source of its power.” (Pg. 6)
He adds, “The fault is not in organization… it is in our worship of it. It is in our vain quest for a utopian equilibrium… There are only a few times in organization life when he can wrench his destiny into his own hands… But when is that time? Will he know the time when he sees it?... If he goes against the group, is he being courageous---or just stubborn? Helpful---or selfish? Is he, as he so often wonders, right after all? It is in the resolution of a multitude of such dilemmas, I submit that the real issue of individualism lies today.” (Pg. 14-15)
He observes, “the real impact of scientism is upon our values. The danger… is not man being dominated but man surrendering. At the present writing there is not one section of American life that has not drunk deeply of the promise of scientism. It appears in many forms---pedagogy, aptitude tests, that monstrous nonentity called ‘mass communication’---and there are few readers who have not had a personal collision with it.” (Pg. 35)
He observes, “there is always the common thread that a man must belong and that he must be unhappy if he does not belong rather completely. The idea that conflicting allegiances safeguard him as well as abrade him is sloughed over, and for the people who must endure the tensions of independence there is no condolence; only the message that the tensions are sickness---either in themselves or in society. It does not make any difference whether the Good Society is to be represented by a union or by a corporation or by a church; it is to be a society unified and purged of conflict.” (Pg. 50-51) Later, he adds, “The organization man is not yet so indoctrinated that he does not chafe at the pressures on his independence, and sometimes he even suspects that the group may be as much a tyrant as the despot it has replaced. It is the burden of the new group doctrine that such misgivings… are simply a lack of knowledge, a lack of mastery of managerial techniques.” (Pg. 55)
He suggests, “The bureaucrat as hero is new to America, and older, conventional dreams of glory do linger on… But slowly the young man at the microscope is joined by other young men at microscopes; instead of one man dreaming, there are three or four young men. Year by year, our folklore is catching up with the needs of organization man.” (Pg. 83)
He predicts, “I return to my pessimistic forecast. Look ahead to 1985. Those who will control a good part of the educational plant will be products themselves of the most stringently anti-intellectual training in the country… to judge by the new suburbia the bulk of middle-class parents of 1985 will know no other standards to evaluate education of their children than those of the social-adjustment type of schooling. And who will be picking the schools to endow and sitting on the boards of trustee? More and more it will be the man of The Organization… the ‘modern man’ in sum, that his education was so effectively designed to bring about.” (Pg. 110)
He summarizes, “trainees express the same impatience. All the great ideas, they explain, have already been discovered and not only in physics and chemistry but in practical fields like engineering. The basic creative work is won, so the man you need… is a practical, team-player fellow who will do a good shirtsleeves job. ‘I would sacrifice brilliance,’ one trainee said, ‘for human understanding every time.’ And they do, too.” (Pg. 152)
He says, “In this absorption in work, many people believe, lies the seat of the executive neurosis… But this is not the nub of his problem. His long absorption in work to the exclusion of everything else may hit him very hard when he retires and finds himself illiterate in the other kinds of life. But if work is a tyranny, it is a self-imposed tyranny. He sees the disparity between work and leisure only as a minor conflict. It is something he feels he SHOULD worry about. And he hasn’t the time.” (Pg. 166)
He criticizes ‘Aptitude Tests,’ and similar measures: “In return for the salary that The Organization gives the individual, it can ask for superlative work from him, but it should not ask for his psyche as well. If it does, he must withhold. Sensibly---the bureaucratic way is too much with most of us that he can flatly refuse to take tests without hurt to himself. But he can cheat. He must. Let him respect himself.” (Pg. 222)
He explains, “I now turn to the organization man at home… I am going to examine him in the communities that have become his dormitories… They are communities made in his image. There are other kinds of people there too… But it is the young organization man who is dominant. More than others, it is he who organizes the committees, runs the schools, selects the ministers, fights the developers, makes the speeches, and sets the styles.” (Pg. 295)
He asserts, “Openly stated, the reasoning would go something like this: Most of us are at a pretty critical stage in our careers; it is just about now that we will realize that some of us are really going to go ahead and some of us aren’t. If you find you are going ahead, it’s rubbing it in unfairly to make it obvious to the others who aren’t. You have broken the truce. The job, then, is not to keep up with the Joneses. It’s to keep DOWN with them.” (Pg. 346)
He states, “For ultimately his tyranny is self-imposed… the increasing benevolence of human relations, the more democratic atmosphere, has in one way made the individual’s path more difficult. He is intimidated by normalcy. He too has become more adept at concealing hostilities and ambitions, more skillfully ‘normal,’ but he knows HE is different and he is not sure about the others. In his own peculiarities, he can feel isolated, a fraud who is not what he seems.” (Pg. 401)
He concludes, “Here, finally, is the apotheosis of the Social Ethic… the dominant motif is unmistakable. Not just as something expedient, but as something right, the organization transients have put social usefulness at the core of their beliefs. Adaptation has become more than a necessity; in a life in which everything changes, it has become almost a constant.” (Pg. 435) “he must FIGHT the Organization… for the demands for his surrender are constant and powerful, and the more he has come to like the life of organization the more difficult does he find it to resist these demands, or even to recognize them. It is wretched, dispiriting advice to hold before him the dream that ideally there need be no conflict between him and society…The peace of mind offered by organization remains a surrender, and no less for being offered in benevolence. That is the problem.” (Pg. 448)
This book was very influential when it was first published, but it still has much to offer the modern reader.
May 15, 2023
This book is a glimpse into the mindset of that generation which raised the generation who are currently in power. What were their ideals, their culture? What did the white middle to upper class Baby Boomers look to as the ideal lifestyle and the set of principles in how to conduct themselves, manage their resources and their household, and expect from the world at large? This book shows us what they grew up around, and it is very telling about how America came to be the way it is.
Whyte could not possibly know how important and unusual a time he was living in. The post-war economic boom was still in full force. There was still scant competition from any other nation in any meaningful enterprise; they were all still recovering from the war, or having their own political upheavals and re-adjustments in response to the new post-empire status quo. The Eisenhauer administration had set a huge corporate tax rate, and they were subsidizing everything in public works. Everything was building bigger and nicer, and the GI bill was sending everyone to college. Life could not be better or more comfortable, as long as you were white.
What sort of mindset comes about from living in such a world? The Organization Man tells us. Without spoiling the whole book, I can tell you that the mindset is one in which you come to believe that the world is a certain way, and that as long as you follow the rules you will be rewarded with a stable and comfortable life. The message is thus: "If you give yourself over to a corporate job, you too can live splendidly. It does not matter if the job or even if the company has any tangible positive effect on society. You don't even need to argue for a high salary; with a modest income, you can afford a house, a new car, and all of the amenities needed to support a family of 4. The job doesn't even need to make any sense, as long as you keep the companies humming and making a profit. There is no need to worry about such things; the world is great! And you made it great. As long as you work and participate in the economy as we have been doing, things will stay great."
Of course, we know that the world didn't remain in the bubble of the 1950's. But the generation that thrived there kept believing that the world was supposed to work that way. For instance, the common that there is always a job out there for you if you show initiative, and consequently, if you can't find a job, then it is obviously your own fault. I see the roots of many such beliefs coming about from the ideologies observed in this book.
One minor spoiler I will highlight. The very beginning of the book points out the natural transition from the Protestant work ethic into the ethic of the Organization Man. How the idea of the corporation and the greater economy supplants the higher power for which one supplicates to. I've never seen it put so astutely. Put your faith in the Church for salvation in heaven, and put your faith in the corporation for salvation on Earth. Later on in the book, it describes the daily life and lifestyle of the typical Organization Man, especially the so-called "Transients" who have committed themselves enough to the job to be willing to be transferred to another city or state for the good of company growth. These transients lay down new shallow roots and find themselves a new church at a convenient location that meshes with their chosen lifestyle. Not a church close to home, but one close to the shopping center so that they can engage in their consumerist rituals after worship. These factors I see as being connected to the gradual divorce of the ethic of the greater Evangelical community from historically accepted Christian values, becoming more focused on individual freedoms and less on love for one's fellow man.
One of the supposed advantages of capitalism is it's natural trend towards efficiency. Companies with burdensome expenses do not thrive and should naturally be weeded out of the competition, right? Then, how has it come to be that there is such a hugely bureaucratic culture that has developed in corporate America these past 70 years? How did this develop? What kind of ethos was powerful enough to get this to take root, overcoming capitalist natural selection? The Organization Man gives us the blueprint. The author is presciently worried about this very thing, and it may have been the motivation for writing the book in the first place.
Whyte mostly doesn't outright state his opinion on the situation, but the way that he words things betrays his worry of the coming ascent and prevalence in America of his Organization Man. Obviously, something is not right with this situation, and it certainly can't go on like this forever. Much of the political right ideology in this country is focused on looking back at a previous era and asking "why can't it be like that again?". They are looking at the era in which this book was written. When growth seemed like it would go on forever, and all you needed to succeed was the initiative. After reading this book, I better understand their delusion. They grew up in an absurd bubble, and things have been on a steady decline since then. They thought that this was the natural way of the world, and that deviations from it must be the result of some curable maladaptation. And they've been grasping at possible reasons for the decline ever since.
Whyte could not possibly know how important and unusual a time he was living in. The post-war economic boom was still in full force. There was still scant competition from any other nation in any meaningful enterprise; they were all still recovering from the war, or having their own political upheavals and re-adjustments in response to the new post-empire status quo. The Eisenhauer administration had set a huge corporate tax rate, and they were subsidizing everything in public works. Everything was building bigger and nicer, and the GI bill was sending everyone to college. Life could not be better or more comfortable, as long as you were white.
What sort of mindset comes about from living in such a world? The Organization Man tells us. Without spoiling the whole book, I can tell you that the mindset is one in which you come to believe that the world is a certain way, and that as long as you follow the rules you will be rewarded with a stable and comfortable life. The message is thus: "If you give yourself over to a corporate job, you too can live splendidly. It does not matter if the job or even if the company has any tangible positive effect on society. You don't even need to argue for a high salary; with a modest income, you can afford a house, a new car, and all of the amenities needed to support a family of 4. The job doesn't even need to make any sense, as long as you keep the companies humming and making a profit. There is no need to worry about such things; the world is great! And you made it great. As long as you work and participate in the economy as we have been doing, things will stay great."
Of course, we know that the world didn't remain in the bubble of the 1950's. But the generation that thrived there kept believing that the world was supposed to work that way. For instance, the common that there is always a job out there for you if you show initiative, and consequently, if you can't find a job, then it is obviously your own fault. I see the roots of many such beliefs coming about from the ideologies observed in this book.
One minor spoiler I will highlight. The very beginning of the book points out the natural transition from the Protestant work ethic into the ethic of the Organization Man. How the idea of the corporation and the greater economy supplants the higher power for which one supplicates to. I've never seen it put so astutely. Put your faith in the Church for salvation in heaven, and put your faith in the corporation for salvation on Earth. Later on in the book, it describes the daily life and lifestyle of the typical Organization Man, especially the so-called "Transients" who have committed themselves enough to the job to be willing to be transferred to another city or state for the good of company growth. These transients lay down new shallow roots and find themselves a new church at a convenient location that meshes with their chosen lifestyle. Not a church close to home, but one close to the shopping center so that they can engage in their consumerist rituals after worship. These factors I see as being connected to the gradual divorce of the ethic of the greater Evangelical community from historically accepted Christian values, becoming more focused on individual freedoms and less on love for one's fellow man.
One of the supposed advantages of capitalism is it's natural trend towards efficiency. Companies with burdensome expenses do not thrive and should naturally be weeded out of the competition, right? Then, how has it come to be that there is such a hugely bureaucratic culture that has developed in corporate America these past 70 years? How did this develop? What kind of ethos was powerful enough to get this to take root, overcoming capitalist natural selection? The Organization Man gives us the blueprint. The author is presciently worried about this very thing, and it may have been the motivation for writing the book in the first place.
Whyte mostly doesn't outright state his opinion on the situation, but the way that he words things betrays his worry of the coming ascent and prevalence in America of his Organization Man. Obviously, something is not right with this situation, and it certainly can't go on like this forever. Much of the political right ideology in this country is focused on looking back at a previous era and asking "why can't it be like that again?". They are looking at the era in which this book was written. When growth seemed like it would go on forever, and all you needed to succeed was the initiative. After reading this book, I better understand their delusion. They grew up in an absurd bubble, and things have been on a steady decline since then. They thought that this was the natural way of the world, and that deviations from it must be the result of some curable maladaptation. And they've been grasping at possible reasons for the decline ever since.
March 7, 2021
Como suele ocurrir con estos libros antiguos, es más valioso como testimonio de una época que por su objetivo inicial de reflexionar acerca del mundo del trabajo. Se observa una sociedad marcada por las dos guerras mundiales y el crack del 29: en un Estados Unidos pujante que necesitaba gente calificada para sus corporaciones, sólo un 5 por ciento de los universitarios aspiraba a emprender y la gran mayoría anhelaba la seguridad de entrar a una gran corporación para toda la vida.
Whyte habla de una evolución: de la ética protestante individualista que fue el sello de su país (y que se refleja en el sueño americano donde con esfuerzo se llega) se estaba en plena transición a una ética social. Y dedica este libro a repasar todos los aspectos: desde la formación académica, la capacitación, la vivienda y hasta los hijos de los empleados, quienes luego sucederían a sus padres. Si bien habla sólo de su país, siendo éste faro del mundo de los negocios y de buena parte de la cultura masiva es relevante para cualquier otro -por lo menos de Occidente-.
Hay partes muy lúcidas y también vigentes como su reflexión acerca del fenómeno de tomar una materia o una afición y convertirlas en carrera (hoy tenemos licenciados de lo que se nos ocurra, e hiperespecializaciones). Sorprende cuando habla de la publicidad que recién nacía como disciplina.
También es rico su repaso y crítica de las investigaciones clásicas de Mayo y de Hawthorne sobre la motivación y sobre cómo se pensó racionalizar y eficientizar el trabajo usando herramientas de la ciencia. Ya en ese momento había un rebote de personas que deseaban salir del paradigma de la cadena de montaje de Ford y empezar a hacer tareas más abarcativas, alineadas a su realización personal además de económica. A partir de la generación de 1980 esto se acentuó cada vez más y se hace impensable hoy este sometimiento voluntario de los recién recibidos a las reglas de la corporación. ¿Qué opinaría Whyte de los centennials? Yo creo que estaría orgulloso.
Se siente muy moderno su ataque a los test psicológicos. Hoy surgieron nuevos (Myer-Briggs y tantos otros que se usan religiosamente) pero les aplica de nuevo su escepticismo resaltando sus limitaciones. Cierra con un apéndice de cómo hacer trampa en esos tests donde da una pautas de sentido común para dar una imagen de persona promedio (alejada de los peligrosos extremos que desalientan al entrevistador).
A diferencia de otros libros de ensayo no sólo es descriptivo sino que prescribe también cursos de acción y hasta da herramientas para desafiar a la corporación. No es tanto culpa de ella según él, sino de nuestra adoración, de nuestro deseo de ser parte de ella e incluso de ser uno con ella. No recurre mucho a estudios sino que va argumentando para demostrar cada punto.
Hoy con virtualidad, trabajo remoto y tantas modificaciones en los casi setenta años desde la publicación de este libro estamos en otra era. Hoy se habla del management 3.0, de colaboradores que co-crean, de organigramas mucho más chatos, de células ágiles, de productos mínimos viables que luego se iteran, de carreras tradicionales desafiadas, de la gig economy y tantos otros fenómenos que vale la pena pensarlos como hizo él con los d e su tiempo.
Whyte habla de una evolución: de la ética protestante individualista que fue el sello de su país (y que se refleja en el sueño americano donde con esfuerzo se llega) se estaba en plena transición a una ética social. Y dedica este libro a repasar todos los aspectos: desde la formación académica, la capacitación, la vivienda y hasta los hijos de los empleados, quienes luego sucederían a sus padres. Si bien habla sólo de su país, siendo éste faro del mundo de los negocios y de buena parte de la cultura masiva es relevante para cualquier otro -por lo menos de Occidente-.
Hay partes muy lúcidas y también vigentes como su reflexión acerca del fenómeno de tomar una materia o una afición y convertirlas en carrera (hoy tenemos licenciados de lo que se nos ocurra, e hiperespecializaciones). Sorprende cuando habla de la publicidad que recién nacía como disciplina.
También es rico su repaso y crítica de las investigaciones clásicas de Mayo y de Hawthorne sobre la motivación y sobre cómo se pensó racionalizar y eficientizar el trabajo usando herramientas de la ciencia. Ya en ese momento había un rebote de personas que deseaban salir del paradigma de la cadena de montaje de Ford y empezar a hacer tareas más abarcativas, alineadas a su realización personal además de económica. A partir de la generación de 1980 esto se acentuó cada vez más y se hace impensable hoy este sometimiento voluntario de los recién recibidos a las reglas de la corporación. ¿Qué opinaría Whyte de los centennials? Yo creo que estaría orgulloso.
Se siente muy moderno su ataque a los test psicológicos. Hoy surgieron nuevos (Myer-Briggs y tantos otros que se usan religiosamente) pero les aplica de nuevo su escepticismo resaltando sus limitaciones. Cierra con un apéndice de cómo hacer trampa en esos tests donde da una pautas de sentido común para dar una imagen de persona promedio (alejada de los peligrosos extremos que desalientan al entrevistador).
A diferencia de otros libros de ensayo no sólo es descriptivo sino que prescribe también cursos de acción y hasta da herramientas para desafiar a la corporación. No es tanto culpa de ella según él, sino de nuestra adoración, de nuestro deseo de ser parte de ella e incluso de ser uno con ella. No recurre mucho a estudios sino que va argumentando para demostrar cada punto.
Hoy con virtualidad, trabajo remoto y tantas modificaciones en los casi setenta años desde la publicación de este libro estamos en otra era. Hoy se habla del management 3.0, de colaboradores que co-crean, de organigramas mucho más chatos, de células ágiles, de productos mínimos viables que luego se iteran, de carreras tradicionales desafiadas, de la gig economy y tantos otros fenómenos que vale la pena pensarlos como hizo él con los d e su tiempo.
January 10, 2026
Man exists as a unit of society. Of himself, he is isolated, meaningless; only as he collaborates with others does he become worth while, for by sublimating himself in the group, he helps produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. There should be, then, no conflict between man and society. What we think are conflicts are misunderstandings, breakdowns in communication. By applying the methods of science to human relations we can eliminate these obstacles to consensus and create an equilibrium in which society's needs and the needs of the individual are one and the same.
Essentially, it is a utopian faith… But it is the long-range promise that animates its followers, for it relates techniques to the vision of a finite, achievable harmony. It is quite reminiscent of the beliefs of utopian communities of the 1840s.
I believe the emphasis of the Social Ethic is wrong for him. People do have to work with others, yes; the well-functioning team is a whole greater than the sum of its parts, yes—all this is indeed true. But is it the truth that now needs belaboring? Precisely because it is an age of organization, it is the other side of the coin that needs emphasis. We do need to know how to co-operate with The Organization but, more than ever, so do we need to know how to resist it. Out of context this would be an irresponsible statement. Time and place are critical, and history has taught us that a philosophical individualism can venerate conflict too much and co-operation too little. But what is the context today? The tide has swung far enough the other way, I submit, that we need not worry that a counteremphasis will stimulate people to an excess of individualism.
Essentially, it is a utopian faith… But it is the long-range promise that animates its followers, for it relates techniques to the vision of a finite, achievable harmony. It is quite reminiscent of the beliefs of utopian communities of the 1840s.
I believe the emphasis of the Social Ethic is wrong for him. People do have to work with others, yes; the well-functioning team is a whole greater than the sum of its parts, yes—all this is indeed true. But is it the truth that now needs belaboring? Precisely because it is an age of organization, it is the other side of the coin that needs emphasis. We do need to know how to co-operate with The Organization but, more than ever, so do we need to know how to resist it. Out of context this would be an irresponsible statement. Time and place are critical, and history has taught us that a philosophical individualism can venerate conflict too much and co-operation too little. But what is the context today? The tide has swung far enough the other way, I submit, that we need not worry that a counteremphasis will stimulate people to an excess of individualism.
January 1, 2018
Whyte's cultural analysis of the American corporation is an aging classic. While incredibly influential at the time, its content and structure don't necessarily hold up to contemporary standards.
There are still some great insights here, particularly about the tensions within the American ethos in general, as well as a prescient socio-spatial analysis of suburban neighborhoods near the end of the book that foreshadows Whyte's later work on public space. You can also see how his ideas, methodologies and style influenced the early work of the urbanist Jane Jacobs, particularly in his preference for observation and firsthand research, his belief in individuality and skepticism for the corporation, and his influential interpretation of the suburbs as homogenous, stifling places (though others like Herbert Gans would later challenge this assumption). However, The Organization Man can also be tedious at times, reminding a contemporary reader of the pop nonfiction of today but without the pithy brevity and candy-coated prose of a Malcolm Gladwell or Steven Johnson type.
In some ways, many of the foibles and myths Whyte explores in this book can still be seen today, particularly in Silicon Valley where Whyte's longing for the rugged individual genius and concern over the emerging organization society have strangely merged into a strange hybrid. But you'll have to do a fair bit of your own archaeology to understand what The Organization Man means for America today.
There are still some great insights here, particularly about the tensions within the American ethos in general, as well as a prescient socio-spatial analysis of suburban neighborhoods near the end of the book that foreshadows Whyte's later work on public space. You can also see how his ideas, methodologies and style influenced the early work of the urbanist Jane Jacobs, particularly in his preference for observation and firsthand research, his belief in individuality and skepticism for the corporation, and his influential interpretation of the suburbs as homogenous, stifling places (though others like Herbert Gans would later challenge this assumption). However, The Organization Man can also be tedious at times, reminding a contemporary reader of the pop nonfiction of today but without the pithy brevity and candy-coated prose of a Malcolm Gladwell or Steven Johnson type.
In some ways, many of the foibles and myths Whyte explores in this book can still be seen today, particularly in Silicon Valley where Whyte's longing for the rugged individual genius and concern over the emerging organization society have strangely merged into a strange hybrid. But you'll have to do a fair bit of your own archaeology to understand what The Organization Man means for America today.
August 24, 2025
Insightful!
William H. Whyte’s The Organization Man is a sharp and often witty examination of mid-20th century corporate culture in America. Drawing on research, interviews, and keen observation, Whyte explores how large organizations shaped the values, ambitions, and conformity of the people who worked within them. While some of the case studies feel dated, the core insights about groupthink, the trade-off between individuality and belonging, and the lure of security over risk still resonate today. It’s both a social critique and a cultural snapshot, making it a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of work, management, or the tension between personal freedom and organizational life.
William H. Whyte’s The Organization Man is a sharp and often witty examination of mid-20th century corporate culture in America. Drawing on research, interviews, and keen observation, Whyte explores how large organizations shaped the values, ambitions, and conformity of the people who worked within them. While some of the case studies feel dated, the core insights about groupthink, the trade-off between individuality and belonging, and the lure of security over risk still resonate today. It’s both a social critique and a cultural snapshot, making it a fascinating read for anyone interested in the history of work, management, or the tension between personal freedom and organizational life.
August 31, 2017
Abbastanza impressionante leggere oggi, nel 2016, questo libro scritto 60 anni fa (1956). La descrizione dell'etica sociale del lavoro, che ha sostituito quella protestante e ha generato gli "uomini dell'organizzazione" è assolutamente puntuale e del tutto capace di descrivere quel che è poi accaduto. A tratti, leggendo si ha la strana sensazione che qualcosa si sia congelato nel mondo del lavoro e che siamo ancora, soprattutto dal punto di vista di nesso fra burocrazia e scientismo, a 60 anni fa. Quando poi l'autore si inoltre nel descrivere e prevedere le sorti del sistema scolastico, la sensazione si fa raggelante. In sintesi: testo fondamentale per chiunque studi il mondo del lavoro.
February 6, 2020
This book, first published in 1956, captures the state of American society that I was born into. Anyone born before President Kennedy was assassinated (for me a mere 8 months) should read this book. It describes the corporation-dominated world that Kurt Vonnegut ominously foreshadowed in "Player Piano" and that Ronald Reagan enthusiastically pitched on behalf of General Electric. The author contrasts the expanding number of relatively convenient paths to the good life offered by "The Organization" with the more individualistic creativity required for true societal advancement to occur. Fascinating reading.
July 16, 2024
This is fantastic.
Written in the mid 1950s, Whyte tracks the sociological influence of large corporations in the Eisenhower era. As someone who is just dipping his feet into the idiosyncrasies of the corporate world, this was hugely enjoyable. Especially relevant were the chapters on the business schools, personality tests, and the “Unified Protestant Church.”
Some of the material doesn’t age great, but some of his predictions and diagnoses have come true to a comical degree (ex. Mays Business School is parody of the applied business schools Whyte describes). Whyte’s writing is witty and entertaining, but nuanced when needed.
Written in the mid 1950s, Whyte tracks the sociological influence of large corporations in the Eisenhower era. As someone who is just dipping his feet into the idiosyncrasies of the corporate world, this was hugely enjoyable. Especially relevant were the chapters on the business schools, personality tests, and the “Unified Protestant Church.”
Some of the material doesn’t age great, but some of his predictions and diagnoses have come true to a comical degree (ex. Mays Business School is parody of the applied business schools Whyte describes). Whyte’s writing is witty and entertaining, but nuanced when needed.
March 19, 2018
Will this book ever be non relevant? I would be really surprised if it were. The information is not just intetesting, but well organized and consistently written in a clear and complex manner.
December 21, 2020
I haven't finished it.
I really liked the ideas in the book. They brought a fresh perspective on the roots of corporate culture.
I really liked the ideas in the book. They brought a fresh perspective on the roots of corporate culture.
February 5, 2021
Excellent. A must read.
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