Every generation since the war has discovered the human cost of the standard bureaucratic hierarchy for the people at the bottom of it, and tried to fix it. The pattern starts with the Tavistock Institute's work in the British coal mines in the 1950s. It continues through the Norwegian Industrial Democracy Project, led by Einar Thorsrud and Fred Emery in the 1960s, the sociotechnical movement that followed, quality circles in the 1970s and 80s, lean in the 1990s, and agile and self-organising teams from the 2000s on. Each wave brought real insight and good intentions. Each humanised the bottom of the hierarchy without changing the design principle that produced the problem in the first place. The structural logic reasserted itself, and a new generation rediscovered the same issue under a new name.
Herbst described the pattern as it was already unfolding by the 1970s: working conditions at the bottom of the hierarchy had become increasingly unbearable, alternatives were investigated, and transforming the lowest levels of the organisation was expected to pave the way for changes further up. The expectation was reasonable. It has also, repeatedly, not happened. Emery's own explanation was structural: fixing the shop floor does not on its own touch the levels above it, because the design principle that shapes the hierarchy is the same at every level, and nobody above the shop floor is required to change anything.
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