Dimensions Of American Workers By Marilyn Linddblad

Dimensions of American Workers

Out of the three readings, the readings I related to the most were those of Marilyn Lindblad. The reasons I related to her the most was her views of how culture really affects Americans in the workplace. Being a 45 year old man that has worked in a corporate environment for the past 20 years, I believe her views conveyed what many of the employees that do work in a very deep corporate culture can relate to on a daily basis. Recently having gone through an exercise a work that was labeled as a “span and layer” exercise, each organization needed to ensure that all management level employees had a minimum of five (5) direct reports to ensure that the layers between management and the front line employees were no more than eight (8) to one (1). The purpose of this initiative was to flatten the layers between the lowest levels in the corporation and senior management. I related this exercise to Lindblad’s “power distance” segment of her article.

The reason I feel this way is that these article describe various aspects such as power distance, highly territorial, individual vs. communitarianism, and masculinity . . . all of which I feel are the underlying views that Americans in the workforce could all understand. I feel as though these articles portray more of the feelings (inner feelings) about where individuals fit into their workplace environment more so than they actually understand. Many people go to work each day and complain about how they are treated, they vocalize that they are not recognized or valued, and feel as though management does not see the true person behind the results of an individual’s