The Song of Significance: A New Manifesto for Teams

by Seth Godin

But when we start squeezing people, sometimes they speak up or walk away. The world has changed. Employees have more information about alternatives, respect, and wages. You can’t torture them in private as easily as you can push a machine to its breaking point. That information also highlights opportunities for individuals who are able to contribute more human insight and possibility somewhere else. Remote work makes this even easier, since the number of places to contribute without leaving home is close to infinite. And finally, as a result of scale and information exchange, nearly all the benefits of maximizing inputs from nonhumans have been exhausted. It’s easy to find parity with your competitors when you’re all outsourcing to the same producers. The result is a real shift in how we need the people we work with to act: like humans, not like obedient machines.