Let’s unplug the machine metaphor once and for all

I love a metaphor, but this one’s really got to go.

It’s 2024 and yet a stark and brutal metaphor has remained with us since the industrial revolution: the transformation of vibrant humans into mere cogs in a machine.

This dehumanisation is not just a failure of empathy but a deeply ingrained cultural malaise.

Reflecting on my interactions with countless clients and friends, not to mention my own experience, the evidence is overwhelming:

  • Talented individuals stifled and exhausted by the unrealistic expectation to work tirelessly, as if they possess an off switch for their human needs and emotions, but no off switch for their capacity for labour

  • Creativity and innovation drowned out by the relentless demand for “efficiency”, reducing the richness of human potential to mere output metrics

  • The resultant lack of trust in those resources to act as mature adult humans – leading to oppressive, soul-crushing oversight and monitoring

  • The pervasive, pernicious and patriarchal expectation that personal life must always take a back seat to work commitments, and that if you can’t be available 24/7 you’re not really committed - a notion as stupid and outdated as it is damaging

  • A culture that prizes relentless productivity over well-being, ignoring the truth that a machine can be replaced, but your existence as a human being is uniquely invaluable

And amid this, still, the quiet resilience of those who refuse to be defined by such constraints, championing the idea that to be truly effective, you must be seen and valued as a whole person, not just an output creation machine, and do the same as you relate to others.

Image of a machine

Overwork is not cool.

This humans as machines thing has got to go.

It's time to shift the paradigm, from valuing human beings for what they do, to valuing them for who they are. Seriously, I am so very over it. Who’s with me?

Until next week,

Take care of yourself and others

Madeleine

PS: Need some help being a human at work? Talking to a coach who is outside your systems can be incredibly helpful. Let me know if you’d like to talk and please share with anyone you think may benefit.

I help accomplished professionals untangle difficult career questions so they can thrive in work and life.

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Madeleine Shawleadership, humanity, resistance, priorities