The danger of the machine

The danger of the machine

The danger of the machine metaphor is that it promotes ‘mechanistic dehumanization’ or, in other words, ‘an indifferent, instrumental, distancing and objectifying orientation toward’ (Haslam, 2006:261) others. Discuss why this is problematic both for organizations and those who work in them.

The danger of the machine metaphor and the Mechanistic dehumanization

Introduction

It is common for most organizations to operate like machines following the machine metaphor. In any type of a device, every part is responsible for a specific. In an organization, different departments are responsible for particular duties. In the performance of these duties, people perform their tasks like a machine following specific standards, specialization, and predictability. Once these systems fall into place, workers behave like robots or objects like machines and hence the machine metaphor. The machine metaphor has the disadvantage of promoting “mechanistic dehumanization” that interferes with the effectiveness of the workers, thus hurting them and the institution.

The Machine Metaphor

The machine metaphor refers to the operation of an organization through standardizing means, specialization, and predictability. Specialty is an essential aspect of the modern workforce because it is similar to the division of labor in current institutions. For example, a computer has a keyboard, a mouse, hardware, software, operating system, the central processing unit (CPU), among others. Each part plays a particular role that makes it easy for the computer to operative effectively. In relation to how people work, specialization is similar to the division of labor. For example, the government has three branches, namely the executive, judiciary, and parliament, each playing specific roles. Although they are independent, they work in an interdependent manner. The judiciary employees’ specialized workers while the other arms of government elect the people that the citizens think are most qualified.

The second aspect of the machine metaphor is the standardization that makes it easy for users to replace the whole machine or some of its parts when they fail. For example, if one part of an electric fan overheats, it is easy to buy a replacement in a store. In most organizations, workers are considered as machine cogs. A firm can easily replace a worker with another one because they have similar skills and are replaceable. Consequently, it is possible for organizations to replace non-performing workers without incurring additional expenses. At the same time, workers specializing in a particular discipline learn a standardized syllabus is making it easy for them to fit in any organization that needs their services.

Another aspect of the machine metaphor is replaceability, which is closely associated with standardization. The standardization of machines makes it possible to replace one device with a similar one without interfering with the operations of the firm. Applying the principle to humans implies that organizations can replace workers if they resign or are fired. Finally, predictability refers to how the machine operates to ensure that the user can predict its future use. If a machine breaks down, it does so for several reasons that a technician can address. Applying this concept in organizations means that it can predict the performance of the workers because they specific targets to meet regularly. Failure to meet the goals must be a source of concern, and it must work to address the challenges. Therefore, the machine metaphor applies to workers in an organization following the attributes above. As a result, workers perform specialized functions, making it easy for any person to train for any job.

In the advent of the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century, most European societies began to change. As a result, scientists began to explore the best way to organize firms to achieve the best results. Early scholars such as Max Weber, Fredrick Taylor, and Henril Fayol, among others, thought that they could explain how organizations could function in an ideal situation. During the era, firms wanted to understand how to could maximize profit-making by improving the productivity of workers. Productivity is one of the tools that most organizations adopt to ensure that it achieves its objectives. However, the system comes with inherent risks to the organization. The management of most institutions seeks to ensure that workers train to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities. As a person specializes in a particular field and reports to work daily to do the same chores, the work becomes monotonous. Most jobs become controlled and non-motivational. It becomes more mechanistic and dehumanizing.

Taylor’s theory of scientific management sought to explain the importance of maximizing efficiency by organizations and workers. These pioneer theorists did not comprehend the possibility of having workers in an institution who did not give their best to their employers. According to Taylor, employees who did not provide their best were not righteous and did not deserve the position. Although business owners and theorists were enthusiastic about working to perfection, members of staff did not have the same passion because of the significant difference in pay structure between factory workers and their managers. However, the machine metaphor promotes “mechanic dehumanization” with others, which is problematic for both the organization and the workers.

During the same era philosopher, Max Weber was considering the role of bureaucracies in the management of institutions. In his opinion, organizations that develop some administrations can be more effective than the ones that do not. For example, the formulation of precise rules, a division of labor, centralization of authorities, and adequately constituted authorities can assist an organization to perform well. However, the development of the hierarchies must be through a rational process that is devoid of emotional and external influence. The development of such a system seeks to allow organizations to operate in a predictable manner. Workers are expected to know what to charge, and management makes evidence-based decisions and not through irrational feelings.

Mechanistic Dehumanization

The machine metaphor is dangerous because it promotes the “mechanistic dehumanization” of workers. Dehumanizing attitudes take place in organizations and have become acceptable as regular practices. Therefore, perpetrators of the perception view them as legitimate strategies to pursue organizational and individual goals. According to Haslam (2006:261), these beliefs must be discarded because scientific and social psychological studies disapprove of them. Although most dehumanizing attitudes start as innocent strategies, they have severe consequences for the perpetrators, victims, and the organization. In most cases, dehumanizing opinions are culturally determined but do not have scientific evidence. Some of the dehumanizing views include disrespect, neglect, and condescending. In most cases, people believe that these behaviors are innocent and do not hurt any person.

Dehumanization is the denial of full humanness to others. Dehumanization is often mentioned in relation to ethnicity, race, and subjects, such as immigration and genocide. During intergroup conflicts, it is common to dehumanize others to make it easy to fight. The dehumanization can take the animalistic form that compares people with animals. The aim of the dehumanization is to degrade individuals and humiliate them. The mechanistic way has a different emotional signature. It involves emotive distancing and represents others as cold, robotic, passive, and lacking in depth. People who dehumanize others in a mechanistic fashion take an indifferent, instrumental, distancing, and objectifying others. As a result, they may not construct any form of social relations in the workplace.

Most dehumanizing behavior in the workplace takes place because of the need to deliver results. As a result, most supervisors and managers believe that showing empathy is a weakness in the decision-making process. As a result, organizations encourage their leaders to suppress empathy to be active managers. In most cases, managers concentrate on the need to achieve the best results for the firm forgetting the importance of upholding the dignity of coworkers. According to Haslam (2006:261), these beliefs have no scientific proof, and it is important to ignore them. However, perceptions are rampant in most organizations. Therefore, it is important for the top management of corporations to ensure that their workers understand the importance of treating colleagues, respectively.

Early psychological theories believed that dehumanizing behavior occurred in the context of racial or ethnic conflict. However, the concept is now expanding. Today, the idea of dehumanizing others occurs in interpersonal and intergroup contexts. It is an everyday social problem that society must address (Haslam, 2006). Dehumanization can take an “animalistic” or “mechanistic” form. Animistic form entails denying people the qualities of human beings such as rationality, intelligence, self-control, and refinement. The dehumanization that takes a “mechanistic” form likens people to objects that do not have specific human attributes such as warmth, individuality, or emotions (Haslam, 2006, p.261). Most of these types of dehumanization take place in organizational settings as well in interpersonal relationships. In some cases, people discuss it in other domains, such as for sexual objectification and during the genocide.

The negative consequences of everyday dehumanization

Dehumanizing behavior and attitudes have negative effects in the life of the victims, the perpetrators, and organizations. One of the main implications of the actionactionaction is an increase in antisocial activities towards the victims, including bullying, harassment, and social rejection. It also increases hostility and aggression towards the victim, which eventually leads to a reduction of the moral worth attributable to the person (Yemi and Lasun, 2015: 2). Consequently, it is easy for society to reduce the protection it offers such individuals. Although the persons who perpetuate the behavior may behave as if their actions are inconsequential, they experience negative emotions such as shame and guilt when they see their victims suffering. Therefore, they dehumanize their subjects further to escape from the consequences of negative emotions and to justify their behavior. They also hurt their victims to downplay their feelings and make it appear as a normala normala normal behavior. Their mechanistic dehumanization is a vicious cycle that hurts the victims and the perpetrators of vices.

The negative consequences of a dehumanizing behavior impact the victims more than any other person. If the maltreatment takes place regularly, they degrade, invalidate, and demoralize individuals. If they are members of staff of an organization, they experience betrayal, humiliation, social exclusion, and lack of recognition. Treating a person an object lacking the capacity to thinks causes them to enter into a state of “cognitive deconstruction.” The process leaves the person without clarity of thought and numbing (Yemi and Lasun, 2015: 2). As a result, they are ineffective workers that cannot produce the desired results in an organization. Moreover, the employee is continuously feeling sad and angry at the organization and its leadership. The final result makes the worker feel incompetent, unintelligent, unsophisticated, degraded, and embarrassed. At the same time, they felt guilt and shamed and unqualified to work for the institution. Such individuals would eventually leave the organization, believing that they are not adding value.

Dehumanizing behaviors are common in the workplace leading to devastating psychological, health, and economic consequences to the worker and the organization. The mental wellbeing of a person is essential for them to perform well in the workplace. The welfare of a person depends on their autonomy and competence. A competent person can lose the confidence to work for a firm if the organization and its leadership alwaysalways remind them that their opinions do not count. Therefore, the psychological wellbeing of a worker is essential because it gives them the confidence to deliver results. The dehumanizing maltreatments cause an impairment to satisfy the needs and directly contribute to mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders that lower worker’s productivity. As such, a firm cannot succeed in tapping the potential of its workers if its supervisors and managers constantly dehumanize the employees.

Relationship between Abusive supervision and organizational dehumanization

Organizational dehumanization refers to subordinates’ perception that the employing organization treats them as less humans and as a resource or property. It takes place when an employee thinks that the organization makes them feel as a tool or an instrument for the organization to meet its objectives. Organizational dehumanization is a mechanistic type as it involves the mistreatment of workers by their superiors. Organizational dehumanization takes place because of perceptions of injustice, the negative characteristics of the job such as routine work, dependence on machines, and by supervisors’ emotional distance from the subordinates (Caesens, Stinglhamber, Demoulin, & De Wilde, M., 2017:527). As a result, the misdeeds of the supervisors and managers are always blamed on the organization, and it suffers the repercussions.

One of the methods of dehumanizing workers is through abusive supervision. In the case of abusive supervision, workers constantly suffer in the hands of the supervisors for an extended period (Tepper, Duffy, Henle, & Lambert 2006, p.118). It takes place through the use of abusive language towards workers by referring to them as incompetent, expressing anger, being rude, and yelling towards them. On the other hand, organization dehumanization refers to workplace mistreatments that are perpetuated by the institution. However, the behavior of supervisors may, at times, be interpreted to be that of the organization because it tolerates it. Subordinates may also accuse the organization of failing to protect them against abusers because abuses cannot take place without the knowledge of management (Einarsen, Aasland & Skogstad 2007, p.208). Therefore, a dehumanizing behavior by supervisors has negative consequences to the workers and the institution.

Organization dehumanizing behavior has negative consequences to the employees and the institutions. For example, workers experience low levels of job satisfaction and do not commit to the wellbeing of the firm, and there is an increase in turnover intentions. (Nathan Nguyen page 5). Therefore, it is important for organizations to increase awareness among their managers about their roles as representative of the institution at the grass root levels. It is important to implore them to be aware that their behavior makes the organization lose face and its best employees if the managers fail to develop good working relationships with their subordinates. Accordingly, a well-trained manager would appreciate their roles in creating both negative and positive perceptions of the organization.

It is also important for firms to find a formula to reduce abusive supervision to prevent the spread of negative views of the organization. According to Tepper, Moss, and Duffy (2011, p.282), indicate that individuals become targets of supervisor dehumanization because of dissimilar characters between them. Therefore, it is critical for institutions to have training programs to help supervisors and managers overcome the challenge of dealing with employees that are different from them. As a result, they can overcome the problem of dehumanizing poor performers and learn the appropriate time to let the workers leave the organization. Tepper, Moss, and Duffy (2011, p.283), further establish that concentrating on the supervisors is critical because it provides the firm with the opportunity to prevent the behavior from escalating. Therefore, it can stop the spread of dehumanizing behavior and perceptions in the organization.

Conclusion

Most organizations operate like machines and adhere to the machine metaphor. All machines are made up of several components, and each part has a specific duty to play to make the whole system operate efficiently. In a business or any other type of firm, different departments have specific duties. In the performance of these duties, individuals operate like machines following regular procedures such as standardization, specialization, and predictability. The concept of specialization is similar to the division of labor in modern organizations. All workers attend similar courses and have standard skills. Therefore, an organization can replace any worker it wishes to dismiss and still deliver services to its customers. At the same time, most organizations are predictable because they have structures that guide their operations. In these mechanic systems, workers feel dehumanized and unappreciated, appearing as objects and resources to the firms. Thus, although organizations work hard to develop a system to be continuing concern, they may hurt the workers who are supposed to actualize their vision and missions.