Working world's obsolescence

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32701, 2 September 1971, Page 15

Working world's obsolescence

(By

CAROLE FORYST,

of the. "Chicago Sun-Times," through N.Z.P.A.)

CHICAGO. People rise to their level of incompetence. Sound familiar? Of course, it’s the Peter Principle and now try the new one. People can become as obsolete as machines. Unless you hastened over to the Illinois Institute of Technology and got an earful of Elmer Burack, you probably didn’t recognise the Burack barricade. Just like the Peter Principle, it has to do with an employee’s level of performance on the job. But where the Peter Principle applies mainly to the supervisory and management levels, the Burack barricade faces the whole working world. Basically Burack is saying people lose their worth on the job. They grow from highfliers to fizzlers where the company is concerned, and more often than not go through it like Rip Van Winkle. The Burack barricade stands in everyone’s path. It’s built by swift, profound technological changes in every field. Each innovation whacks a block on the barricade, beyond which beckons success.

Burack, acting chairman of the Business and Economics Department at the Harold Leonard Stuart School of Management and Finance, illustrates his theory by borrowing from an engineering researcher’s Ph.D. thesis.

An engineer who burst into industry fresh out of school in 1960 probably is only one year away from being obsolete, the theory says.

His age, 34, has no bearing on the fact that he went from whiz kid to wash-out in a mere 12 years.

What got him also gets the majority of workers: failure to keep up with the innovations mushrooming daily in any occupational field. Using radioactive terminology, a person leaves school equipped with an education that has a “half life.”

In occupations where change is rampant—say engineering—the half life for a . 1960 graduate ranges from • four to seven years. His work . life lasts eight to 14 years before his knowledge and approaches become obsolete. i In other occupations where change sneaks up say accounting—the half life is longer. i The person who meets the f challenge that change repre-

sents in his field lengthens his “half life” and increases his worth to his company. His colleagues, on the other hand, relentlessly approach obsolescence, says Burack. Hurdling the barricade requires effort by management and employees alike, he stresses, but the prize on the other side is higher company profits and personal success. Burack, who advises many corporations on how to detect and combat employee obsolescence, recommends “cures” for individuals as well as entire companies. Any success - orientated person should first wake up to that fact that “Yes, it can happen to me.” Rather than trying to scale a barricade, he suggests a continuous programme:

Going back to school —taking a job-related course every year or two. Participating in professional conventions and seminars on a regular basis. Defining the steps to reach the goal of any career in light of personal traits, abilities, shortcomings, and so on.' Initiate and accept job moves to force important, new learning experience.

Seek relationships with peers or experts outside the sphere of activity of one’s own company. Aand above all, don’t think that nothing new has happened in your field because you have not. heard of it.

It will take effort to extend a half life but until technology stops running full blast, it is the only way to retain success potential throughout a work life, Burack says.

Those days of the 1940 s when a man left school with enough knowledge to see him through a 35-year career are gone on the management side, Burack tells his client? that the environment within a company is important to an employee’s motivation and progress. He advises firms: Offer career-planning help using non-threatening techniques. Fashion a tuition programme and encourage employees to us? it by allowing some flexibility in work hours. Cross-fertilise departments by moving staff from job to job every few years.

And encourage employees to set high goals.