Dumidu Handakumbura: What’s wrong with this month's Harvard Business Review magazine's cover? Hint, Jimny Cricket.

I’ve been following HBR for sometime now because in my opinion they have been pushing out meaningful, and valuable content. Naturally, as the magazine is affiliated to one of the best universities in the world we should expect as much. But when I saw this month's cover art it made me stop and wonder how many of these writers and editors really stopped to think about the symbolic meaning of their creative choices.

Well, the cover[1] title implies the issue is about managing talent but what’s that puppet doing there in the corner? Are they implying that the relationship between employer and employee is similar to the relationship between a puppet and its master? Or maybe they’re implying you should give the puppet more string? Throw universal declaration of human rights out the window everyone, HBR seems to be pushing us back to slavery in between their lines.

Now, I’m not saying capitalism is not the best vehicle to change the world for the good. Capitalism works, and money is something all of us agree on. To participate in Capitalism we have to allow others to use us to an extent and in an idealistic world the world would treat us as ends and dignify us with fair compensation. Win, win.

As a seasoned tech worker, through experience and observation I can write that this translates to at times allowing some of your liberties and rights to be encroached upon by your employer in a manner that is fair to the employer. The employee gives up these liberties because he is satisfied with the compensation that he or she gets in return. But the problem, especially in the developing world is that there’s less to go around and this assessment of what’s fair compensation is one increasingly made by corporations and private entities and normalized by media. Jimny Cricket of Harvard Business Reviews Pinocchio. What most people may not have noticed when they watched 1940's Pinocchio is that Jimny Cricket was a bum with torn socks and raggedy cloths before he got the job to be Pinocchios conscience, A metaphor 82 years old and some of us get for its implication.

So how can we skew the needle of fairness to be well, fare. In my humble opinion, by educating corporate decision makers in ethics, demanding fare compensation, and stop normalizing abuse of individuals in the capitalistic system. This is where influential entities like the Harvard Business Review need to send out the right message.