Skyhooks Wanted

"Certainly no people have ever had so much, and enjoyed so little real satisfaction . . . Can it be that our god of production has feet of clay? Does industry need a new religion--or at least a better one than it has had?"

These words came from no Sunday pulpiteer, but from the assistant to the president of the Standard Oil Co. of Ohio. Oliver Arthur Ohmann, 55, writing in the current Harvard Business Review. Says Oilman Ohmann. who used to head the Department of Psychology at Western Reserve University's Cleveland College: U.S. wage earners are uneasy, and the problem is not one of wages and hours, "as organized labor would have us believe. Raising the price of prostitution does not make it the equivalent of love. Is our industrial discontent not in fact the expression of a hunger for a work life that has meaning in terms of higher and more enduring spiritual values?" What the modern worker needs, according to Presbyterian Ohmann, is "skyhooks" to lift up his work--"something to believe in ... that will give meaning to his job."

The idea that a man should work hard and efficiently so that he can have more time and money to cultivate his soul is out-of-date. Now, "the job is the life. This is what must be made meaningful . . . What happens to people in the course of producing may be far more important than the end product. Materialism is not a satisfactory 'skyhook.' "

How does the modern executive buckle up to his new responsibilities? "He interprets or crystallizes the values and objectives for his group ... He integrates the smaller, selfish goals of individuals into larger, more social and spiritual objectives for the group . . . Conflicts are resolved by relating the immediate to the long-range and more enduring values." Faced with this assignment of relating his product to his God, many a chewing gum manufacturer, comic-book publisher, movie distributor or banker might well fall to his knees. But, says Ohmann, this would all be to the good.

Standard Oil's founder, a good capitalist and good Baptist who took the long-range values for granted, might be somewhat puzzled by all the skyhook talk. John D. Rockefeller Sr. had put the matter more simply when he wrote: I was early taught to work as well as play;

My life has been one long, happy holiday--

Full of work, and full of play--

I dropped the worry on the way--

And God was good to me every day.

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