On Dystopian Cinema, Religious Wars, and Pursuit of the “Perfect” Process

A few weeks back I had the extraordinary pleasure of experiencing the Seattle Symphony perform the complete score for Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece, Metropolis, while the visually stunning Art Deco-inspired film was projected above the orchestra.?

For those of you who have not yet seen this ground-breaking piece of silent cinema, which nearly a century after its release remains a pioneer in science fiction (its influence obvious in the likes of Alphaville, Star Wars, Blade Runner, and The Fifth Element), it’s set in a dystopian future that visually suggests a “metropolis” much like my hometown of NYC.?

The story presents in stark contrast powerful industrialists ruling from their opulent towers in the sky, while their woefully oppressed workers are relegated to an existence in the bowels of their burg. Both literal and figurative sub-humans, it is there beneath the Earth’s surface that they operate the machinery that powers this ostensibly efficient - “perfect” if you will - city of the future.

There’s fascism, communism, a harem of scantily clad women frolicking in a garden idyll, a mad Dr. Frankensteinian scientist and his evil, droopy-lidded female robot, a burning-at-the-stake, and even the near destruction of humanity by artificial intelligence (did I mention it takes place in…2026?). And at the core of this admittedly heavy-handed albeit wonderfully allegorical and yet eerily prescient film is my favorite (non-Godfather) movie quote:?

The mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart!

Now if there was ever a quote that perfectly represented our response to Simon Sinek’s exhortation to “Start with why,” it’s this one, as it is very much at the heart of the “modus” that Jim Benson and I write about, consult on, teach, and strive to model at Modus Institute.

To this point, Jim recently posted the following:

Now as a former historian whose career transition to management consulting provided a front-seat view of the process wars Jim alludes to, I have some thoughts to add. Because much like the beginning of that iconic soliloquy delivered by replicant Roy Batty, when it comes to seeing frameworks used as blunt objects on the individuals doing the work (What do you mean x failed? Clearly you’re doing it wrong!), well, I too have seen things you people wouldn’t believe…

Reconciling Blade Runner, Agile, and Lean: On the Primacy of Tools and Tech

The quixotic pursuit of process “perfection” - especially in the world of project management and software development - has spawned a series of ideological clashes that bear a striking resemblance to the religious wars punctuating human history. Much as different faiths have fought bitterly over the "true" path to salvation, devotees to Agile, Lean, Scrum, and other methodologies (yes, even Kanban) have engaged in fierce debates, each claiming their approach, their tool, their tech is the one "true" way to achieve optimal efficiency and productivity.

So they put that front and center.?

However, in the relentless pursuit of the "perfect" process, a crucial casualty is often overlooked: the human element. For there is never a failure of process, it’s always a failure of the people doing the work, right?

Umm…?

Like religious dogmatism that loses sight of the fundamental values of compassion and humanity, these process wars have a tendency to prioritize rigid adherence to prescribed workflows over the agency, respect, psychological safety, and emotional / physical well-being of the individuals doing the work. As a result, the very people whose talent, creativity, and ingenuity are essential to project success become proverbial cogs in a machine, sacrificed at the altar of process optimization, leading to demoralization, burnout, and a loss of intrinsic motivation that fuels exceptional work, innovation, and the preservation of the individual’s humanity.

Much in the way the world has seen enough static, binary us-versus-them thinking, so too has the world of process suffered enough at the hands of ours-versus-theirs process wars.

And whether the war be religious or process, the first casualty is always the same: people.

Jim’s insistence that we pivot our focus and loyalty towards the people doing the work - on the co-creation of humanistic systems and solutions - rather than perpetuate fealty towards the methodology or tool or tech undergirding the work, could not be more vital.?

As Fritz Lang prompted his viewers to consider a near century ago, humanity should be the measure of our methods - not the other way around.?

So long as the humanity of the professionals doing the work is what we fight for, the tools, process, and technology that result can serve to uplift, rather than devalue. At Modus Institute, this is what drives us to focus on the creation of humane work systems rather than the promotion of rigid, mechanistic processes.

Because it is only through truly humane work systems that we can provide for the harmony between the head, the hands, and the heart. Rather than battle endlessly over frameworks, we should be creating and championing work environments that respect people’s intellectual capabilities, physical efforts, and intrinsic humanity. It is only when these three are in harmony can we create conditions under which both the individual worker and their organizations can truly thrive.

#agile #lean #softwaredev #humanizationofwork #LAVM Modus Institute