Part 6
Welcome to Human Work. A series about the changing nature of work today.

René Girard (1923-2015) was a French-American philosopher and social scientist, his ideas now beloved of JD Vance and Peter Thiel.

Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, crudely, is that we desire things mainly because other people desire them. We are slaves to mimesis. As rivalry and covetousness are so fundamental to our culture and society, human conflict is inevitable.

Girard at work

Was (and is) Girard right? And if mimetic desire is a thing, or even “the” thing, how does it play out in the workplace?

We can all recognise these Girardian scenarios, both positive and negative:

• An employee sees a colleague promoted and begins to emulate their (good) habits.
• A team member starts using a new tool which makes work more efficient and collaborative. Other team members start using the tool, too.
• Salespeople healthily compete to be top performers.
• An employee sees a colleague promoted and begins to emulate their (bad) habits.
• Somebody goes for a promotion they don’t want, simply because one of their peers is doing the same.
• A talented and promising person switches away from their own interests because they see their colleagues chasing particular goals.

If we are all “Girardian”, then our organisations are, too. Rivalry can be the engine which drives performance, but also the strings which supervisors and managers can pull to get people to do things.

Girard and the distributed workforce

Life has become more difficult for fully Girardian managers in the hybrid-flexible-remote work era. It’s harder to manipulate someone when they’re not in the same room. A crucial question here, though, is whether this breaking up in the Girardian connection is a brake on productivity, too.

Of course, some organisations and sectors are a lot more Girardian than others. It will help workers at all levels to recognise those differences when making job and career choices. As will exercising free will – choosing whether they want to work fully in Girard’s world, or not.

After all, a theory – even a compelling one – is only just that.