Buried in a Wall

You don’t appreciate things until you experience them. For years, I’ve been watching that Chinese wall on TV. Yet, it’s when I actually stood on top of it that I truly conceived how GREAT it is. The wall itself is made of the simplest bricks imaginable. Nothing impressive. It's when you mull over its sheer size that it truly mesmerizes you. Trailing over the highest of mountains, sprawling down the lowest of valleys. Hugging the riversides, as well as penetrating the deserts. It just goes on and on. Ever lasting and enduring to the horizons. Quite mind boggling to think it all started with a single worker laying that first brick.

In any case, from budget control to transportation logistics, the massive construction had quite the supply chain. A project manager’s nightmare even in today’s standards. As a cost cutting measure, the Emperor’s material supply department (yes they actually did have one back then!) had a strict mandate: To utilize as much local raw material as possible. Hence depending on the terrain, bricks were aligned using lime, soil, sand, rice, wood (wait it doesn’t end there!). The last raw material used was crushed bones of workers that died during construction. Yes! back in Ming Dynasty China, that was HR’s idea of a motivation strategy!

Just imagine today an organization telling its resources you’re dead bones would make good grouting for our office extension! What impact would it have on employee psyche? What kind of employee engagement level would be expected?

Of course, the wall was used as a defensive shield from Mogul raids. So probably, it would have been a mindset of instinctive survival. Or maybe it could have been a ‘circle of life’ outlook: The same way I lay my dead friend’s bones, it's just fair that someday someone does the same to me. Whatever the reason, this bone ritual was no hindrance to performance. Day in day out, no vacation, no sick leave, no riots, no unions. Just infinite efficiency of endless laying of bricks.

Trying to derive my own answers , I imagined how it would have felt to be a villager standing in these exact same spots centuries ago. Working the same field for you're entire life, you wake up one morning to see a gigantic wall constructed across you're backyard. Think of the impact that such a construction would have:

1. Psychologically: The Emperor’s PR officers really did have a behemoth of a task. Not only do they need to persistently convince a farmer the logic behind the wall. They also need to convince a farmer to dedicate his entire livelihood towards building that wall.

2. Socially: Being on which side of the wall could essentially mean the difference between a life of peace or war. Ancestral homes a couple of meters away are now virtually unreachable. Close-knit families split apart.

3. Geographically: the wall will deface the natural landscape. With farms divided, resources that were readily available could suddenly be considered scarce.

4. Economically: Higher rates of employment within the village. In addition, with excess expat workforce, farmers could sell more produce. Local GDP levels would skyrocket until construction responsibility shifts to subsequent villages.

5. Business initiatives: With a shift in resource availability, industries would fall apart. On the other hand, new SME's with new business models would sprout up.

And the list goes on....

In all circumstances, the wall changed the lives of villagers forever. We never forget moments or experiences that alter our lives. These moments of serendipity define who we are. As I gazed at the wall through the distance, each brick slowly starts speaking a story. A story of a villager that hoped one day his life would transcend the limits of his farm. The wall was that perfect chance! Although the wall physically split the country in half, I think in reality it unified a nation through an immense mental spirit of devoted teamwork.

A villager probably knew that thousands of workers sacrificed so much for the wall to reach his door step. In turn, he feels a moral responsibility to carry the torch, and continue laying bricks until the next village takes over. A wall built by the entire breadth of the population, whilst also the entire breadth of the wall built by every citizen. A generic and genetic sense of pride that overshadows any tribal, geographical, social, economical dissection.

The same employee engagement simply couldn't exist today. The proliferated sentiment of 'I am a resource serving corporation X' is principally wrong. Yet, this philosophy is so extremely pervasive in today's society. Instead, the mentality needs to be oriented to 'All resources of corporation X serve me, and all resources of corporation X rely on me to serve them'.

Today, corporations are mainly viewed as multiple projects, where each sub-team is scoped within silo sets of tasks(i.e. Finance, Operations, HR, etc). In pre-15th century China, a corporation would probably have been viewed as single unified project , where each sub-task is scoped within a silo set of sub-teams. A project for everyone, and everyone for the project.

Here is to building great things WITHOUT being buried in a wall!