Scott Adams’ “Dilbert” might be the most popular comic strip around. It’s certainly the most popular one set in a business. Since the strip debuted on April 16, 1989 it’s won a bevy of awards.
And there are Dilbert coffee mugs, mouse pads, a card game, a board game, calendars. There have been several Dilbert books, an animated television series, and even a vegetarian burrito to attest to the popularity of the strip.
Corporate pashas are telling us that “their” people are their most important asset. The war for talent seems to be up there toward the top of concerns in most surveys of senior executives.
If all that’s true, why is Dilbert so popular? Could it be that, despite the rhetoric, we still think of humans as interchangeable parts? Are we more concerned with disembodied “talent” than with the complex human beings that carry it?
Consider this quote from an article about the views of Wharton professor Peter Cappelli. It’s from an article titled: “Applying Supply Chain Management to People.”
“Supply chain managers “ask questions like, ‘Do we have the right parts in stock?’ ‘Do we know where to get these parts when we need them?’ and ‘Does it cost a lot of money to carry inventory?’ These questions are just as relevant to companies that are trying to manage their talent needs,” he says. In other words, the principles of supply chain management, with its emphasis on just-in-time manufacturing, can be applied to talent management.”
There are two things wrong with this. First, it’s just an academic form of the “people as interchangeable parts” approach. In an age where knowledge and relationships matter and where both only come wrapped in people, this kind of thinking is not only repulsive, it’s dumb.
According to Peter Cappelli, “This is a fundamentally different paradigm in terms of thinking about talent.” It’s not. It’s the same old way, but in a new wrapper.
Not only that, it’s absolutely the wrong way for the world we’re just heading into. Success strategies over the next century will increasingly be more organic than engineered. They will rely less on planning and more on adaptation.
No matter how you think of it, this kind of thing is wrong. But, that hasn’t kept Amazon reviewers from giving Cappelli’s book on the subject a rating of 4.5 stars. Looks like Dilbert may be popular for a while
Wally, excellent point. I believe this has to do with the limitations of the underlying philosophical / anthropological assumptions of what a human being is. Dan Pink is on to it . . . if only scratching the surface.