Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com

The notion of Blue work

Blue work is theorized by David Marquet in his book Leadership is Language: the hidden power of what we say—and what we don’t. It encompasses all aspects of thinking work, planning and decision making. As opposed to red work, blue work values and embraces variability, risk taking and creativity. Marquet posits when engaging in blue work it is a matter of adopting an “improve mindset” therefore taking the time to “broaden our perspective, challenge our assumptions and work to identify and try to deliberately sidestep any biases”(Marquet, 2020). It is important to note that although blue work isn’t constricted by the race against time it remains “cognitively taxing” because although it doesn’t aim for efficiency and productivity, it plans for better decision making and results in the longer term. In the industrial age blue workers were separated from red workers by class. Blue workers were categorized as the leaders, often giving orders for red workers to execute unquestionably. An article called “Separating thinking & doing time: Learnings from David Marquet’s “Blue & red work“” published by Agile organization development, invokes Marquet’s emphasis on the separation of leaders and managers as deciders and planners from the rest of the work force and calls it a “relic of Taylorism”(Agile, 2021) .

Blue Work and Taylorism in management

Taylorism refers to the notion of scientific management theorized by Fredrik Winslow Taylor in the late 1880s. The aim of Taylor’s research was to identify the sources of inefficiency in factories. As cited in an article published in Management weekly a recurrent source of inefficiency identified by Taylor was “a lack of communication between the managers (those who devised the plan of work) and the workers (those who executed the plan)” (Management Weekly, 2020). Blue work is defined as the work of managers and decision makers; however, this raises several questions in terms of efficiency. Taylorism has the merit of questioning work norms and emphasizing the cruciality of the inclusion of all workers in blue work. As the article posits “an open channel of communication between managers and workers is beneficial for all” because “cooperation is the key to better productivity” (Management weekly, 2020). Therefore, although blue work is necessary for planification and organization it can potentially get too theoretical and result in a disconnect between deciders and executioners or lead to an “analysis paralysis”.

References

Marquet, L. D. (2020). Leadership is language: The hidden power of what you say and what you don’t. Portfolio.

Separating thinking & doing time: Learnings from David Marquet’s “Blue & red work”. (2021, September 11). agile-od.com | Lifecycle. https://agile-od.com/lean-agile/separating-thinking-doing-time-blue-red-work

Taylorism management. (2020, May 14). Management Weekly. https://managementweekly.org/taylorism-management/