The workplace is transforming in the era of liquid modernity, and Sennett analyzes the workings of the corporate workplace. Remember that manufacturing is dead, so every workplace is a corporate workplace today.
The qualities of company loyalty, steadfastness, experience, focused expertise, rootedness, orderliness are no longer wanted in the workplace. They are actually a drag on you, so drop them now if you haven’t yet.
The qualities that are in demand are the capacity to change, the adaptability, the love of newness, the ability to generate new ideas, rootlessness, ease of movement. A person who stayed at the same company for 20 years is viewed with suspicion. Reliability is out of vogue, it’s boring.
More than skill and experience, the workplace values talent and potential. Employees and employers are so invested into the hunt for talent that they bring the same attitude to politics. Voters don’t give a hoot about a candidate’s knowledge, experience, record, and expertise. They only care about potential. And potential is obviously all in the eye of the beholder.
Sennett wrote all this in 2006, by the way.
Clarissa's Blog 
human capital
LikeLike
My problem with all of this is that it sounds an awful lot like a newspaper horoscope (or psychic cold readings).
Shorn of context the whole list: capacity to change, adaptability, love of newness, ability to generate new ideas, rootlessness, ease of movement, talent and potential are essentially meaningless and/or mean whatever a person wants them to.
For that matter company “loyalty, steadfastness, experience, focused expertise, rootedness, orderliness and reliability” aren’t much better but are arguably slightly more easy to qualify.
And I’ll that a lot of the supposed positive list looks like they’re looking for people who are not inclined to stand up for themselves.
LikeLike
“Shorn of context the whole list: capacity to change, adaptability, love of newness, ability to generate new ideas, rootlessness, ease of movement, talent and potential are essentially meaningless and/or mean whatever a person wants them to.”
Exactly!! That’s exactly the point. Experience can easily be measured. So can expertise. But “potential” and “talent”? They specifically refer to things that haven’t been manifested yet. They are projections about the future. Which makes them pretty useless given that nobody wants a person who will work at the same company in several years.
LikeLike
This book follows from one of Sennett’s earlier books, “The Corrosion of Character”, which you may also want to read …
LikeLike