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Autonomy, Beliefs, and Intangible Amenities

Autonomy, Beliefs, and Intangible Amenities

Our careers are a slow-motion collapse of autonomy. Our decision to even participate in the workforce is haunted by the economic ghosts of our youth. And the gap between a good job and a bad one is a chasm of inequality far deeper than any paystub reveals.

A reasonable person might look at this and suggest policy tweaks: better management training, targeted wage subsidies, maybe some mandatory free kombucha.

What would a mad scientist do?

These are not three separate problems; they are symptoms of a single, systemic illness. We have built organizations that are profoundly ignorant of the true, dynamic, deeply human nature of work.

Let’s build a Matchmaker—not for dates or even for jobs, but for lives.

The Matchmaker’s purpose isn’t just finding the right person for a role based on their skills. Its purpose is to architect a career trajectory that maximizes an individual's potential for autonomy, meaning, and eudaimonic happiness across an entire lifetime. The Matchmaker never treats people as static assets; it models them as dynamical agents for and products of creation.

Step 1: We Model the Full Human. The Matchmaker starts by building a deep, longitudinal model of every individual; let’s call it Employee Lifetime Value (ELV). This model looks far beyond their résumé, incorporating their meta-learning profile—resilience, creativity, purpose, and much more. Crucially, it also models their subjective utility for myriad choices, as influenced by factors such as "lifetime wage experience" (see “Managed to Death”) or academic peer role models  These bring understanding of the deep-seated beliefs they bring to their work.

Step 2: We Map the Amenity Landscape. Using advanced NLP to map workplace amenities (see “Show Me the Non-Wage Amenities!”), the Matchmaker creates a real-time, high-dimensional map of the entire work experience at every company. It doesn't just see salaries; it sees the value of autonomy, the quality of management, the opportunities for growth, the expression of purpose. The Matchmaker makes the intangible, tangible.

Step 3: The Matchmaker Engineers Opportunity. Now, the Matchmaker goes to work. Its goal is not to fill an open job req. Its goal is to solve for exceptional career paths for individuals to explore.

  • For the 45-year-old expert experiencing the autonomy collapse, the Matchmaker identifies a role at a smaller, more agile firm where their expertise will be granted more freedom, even if the title is less prestigious. It predicts that the long-term gain in satisfaction and productivity (the "amenity value") will far outweigh any short-term pay cut.
  • For the young person whose lifetime wage experience has taught them that work doesn't pay off (see “Work Works When Work Has Worked”), the Matchmaker doesn't find them another dead-end job. It architects a sequence of "work as lift" opportunities—a series of stretch roles and high-growth projects designed to provide rapid, tangible evidence that their effort does create value, actively rewriting their internal map of subjective utility.

This isn't a utopian fantasy or an engineering optimization problem. The data exists. Prototype Matchmakers can be built. We have the opportunity to move beyond the brutish, inefficient system of risk-averse job markets toward tools that guide each unique person toward the work that will lift them, not just their productivity.

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Research Roundup

Managed to Death

Nearing 40? Looking forward to that next promotion? The autonomy that comes with finally being a leader? Well, I have some terrible new research to share with you.

A massive “longitudinal study” tracking “>400,000” workers in “3 rich countries” found a shocking pattern: job autonomy doesn't rise with age; it collapses. Both workers' feelings of autonomy and objective measures trace a grim parabola: they peak surprisingly early—around age 40—and then enter a decades-long decline.

My snap impression: in traditionally hierarchical organizations, managers have less discretion in their work goals and autonomy than do the senior level “doers” just below them. No one tells experienced coders or sales people how to do their job (because they can’t), but boards, CEOs, and higher-level managers loathe uncertainty and too often treat mid-managers simply as extension of their will.

This low autonomy, high hierarchy approach—supposedly dead with GE and 6 sigma—seems to be alive and “well”. You can also see it in the assumption that the value of AI is in firing as many lazy workers as possible and automating it all.

There aren’t enough elite creatives around to fill our current workforce, much less an AI-rich world of the near future. Teach humans how to live “comfortably” in uncertainty and to wield AI for the “certain”. Do it because it's right or do it because those that do will bury their Crotonville competition.

Work Works When Work Has Worked

Why do people leave the workforce? A bad boss? Low wages? Those are reasons to switch jobs; leaving the workforce entirely…it’s a decision haunted by the ghosts of paychecks past.

A man's probability of being in the labor force today is powerfully predicted by the average aggregate male wage he experienced in his state of birth over his entire lifetime. “A 1-standard deviation increase in the average experienced aggregate lifetime hourly wage…raises the probability of labor force participation by 10 percentage points.”

The economic conditions a person grew up with—the wages their father, uncles, and neighbors earned—shape a deep, lasting belief about the returns to work.

This is the same subjective utility I’ve modelled in women's work hours and brilliant, poor students’ decisions to attend university. It affects decisions for decades, even if they move to a completely different economic environment, even if they can “know” it’s wrong.

Labor supply isn't just a rational response to today's market. It's a cultural and psychological inheritance. "Revitalizing the workforce" can't just focus on current wages. We must fundamentally shift worker’s belief that their hard work will pay off.

Show me the non-wage amenities!

High-paying firms are also high-work satisfaction firms. So, to increase work satisfaction pay more…right? Say it with me now, “Show me the amenities!”

Yes, “high-paying firms are high-satisfaction firms”, but “81-92% of the rise in job satisfaction from moving to a higher-paying firm reflects improved non-wage aspects”. People are moving to a better job, not simply a better paycheck.

This isn't just free Cheese-Its and gummy bears. Elite amenities have real economic value—workers are willing to "pay" for them, with the total amenity value gained when moving from the worst to the best firms being worth “54-101% of the average wage”.

These findings imply that wages dramatically understate firm-level inequality. The gap between a "good" job and a "bad" job is nearly double what we see on a paystub. The best firms aren't just winning the war for talent with money; they're winning it by creating environments

Want more on this subject? See my TED talk, “The Paradox of Incentive Insensitivity”. (preview: the best salespeople cared the least about the bonuses.) "Elite" creatives want to be special.

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SciFi, Fantasy, & Me

Here’s what’s waiting for me this month on Audible and Libro.fm:

Stage & Screen

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If your company, university, or conference just happen to be in one of the above locations and want the "best keynote I've ever heard" (shockingly spoken by multiple audiences last year)?

Vivienne L'Ecuyer Ming

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