A Parable of Change

The industrial revolution was a horrific time to be a working class child. 

In the 1830s, on average, children would start work at the age of 10. 

They’d expect to work twelve hour shifts, six days a week. 

And the working conditions were horrific. 

E. P. Thompson, author of The Making of the English Working Class, described them as “places of sexual license, foul language, cruelty, violent accidents, and alien manners.”

The booming industries were built on child labour.

Over 25% of mining workers and between 10-20% of textile workers were children under the age of 13. 

Children were the core of the workforce because using children was cheap. 

And at a time with almost no regulations, the competitive race to reduce costs was everything.

A child worker was about 80% cheaper than a man and 50% cheaper than a woman.

They were often hired as ‘apprentices’, effectively child slaves, working unpaid in return for basic food and shelter. 

Malthusian Society

The early Victorian era was heavily influenced by the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus.

The Reverend Malthus was an economist who in 1798 wrote a book called An Essay on the Principle of Population. 

The book outlined his fears that the population would soon outstrip the resources resulting in catastrophe unless it was actively checked.

He saw the working class as an inferior breed of humans whose poverty and the inability to escape it was a result of moral failure.

The only way to save society was to cut out charity and force the poor to either work their way out of poverty, or let them fail and reduce their burden on the resources

He argued that, “any great interference with the affairs of other people is a species of tyranny.”

The ruling class shared these fears.

So anyone that found themselves destitute was punished by sending them to workhouses.

And without any support poor children had no choice but to work, no matter how horrific that work was.  

How to Drive Change?

In 1841 there was a change of government and The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Children's Employment was established. 

A year later their first report exposed the terrible situation with child labour in mines.

A second report followed in 1843, investigating the situation in the manufacturing industries.

To support the findings of this new report and encourage change, one of the most popular novelists of the day was asked to write a supporting pamphlet. 

It was going to be called 'An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child'.

It was a very personal cause for the writer. 

At the age of twelve he’d been forced to work in a shoe-blacking factory after his father was sent to debtor’s prison.

He’d also recently been shocked by the conditions he’d found when he visited a tin mine in Cornwall and the Ragged School for destitute children near Saffron Hill.

“I have very seldom seen, in all the strange and dreadful things I have seen … anything so shocking,” he wrote.

He began to fear that a throwaway pamphlet would not be enough to overturn the status quo.

He realised if he was able to write a powerful and popular story he had a much better chance of revolutionising the way people thought about these children.

People had to see them as the same as them, not as ‘others’.

Change would only come on a popular wave of empathy. 

He wrote to the head of the commission, Dr Southwood Smith: “You will certainly feel that a sledgehammer has come down with 20 times the force of the first idea.”

A Christmas Parable

On the 19th December 1893 Charles Dickens self-published A Christmas Carol. 

The main character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is an old rich businessman who views the world with a Malthusian mindset.

A succession of ghosts open his eyes to what his employees (Bob Cratchit), and their children (Tiny Tim), are really experiencing. 

And as he begins to empathise with their plight, his mindset completely changes.

He becomes kind and benevolent, actively looking to improve the lives of those around him.

The story moved people emotionally, at scale.

The first 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve and within a year A Christmas Carol had been reprinted 11 times. 

Just like Scrooge, people's mindsets changed. 

And in 1844 a new Factories Act was passed, to improve working conditions for children.

Inward Mindset

Ebenezer Scrooge (and the Malthusian’s) had an inward mindset.

The inward mindset is when you see other people as obstacles, tools, threats, or just irrelevancies.

As they focus on achieving their goals, every interaction is calculated to benefit themselves, with no consideration of the aims of those around them.

If they fail to achieve their goals, others are to blame. 

They are only accountable to their own actions and performance. 

By reducing people to tools and being entirely self-focused, the teams that they are part of lose morale and innovation suffers.

Inward mindset = self‑focus

Scrooge saw Bob Cratchit as just a source of cheap labour to keep his profits high.

He saw the poor as amoral people that should be locked away and punished.

His inward mindset isolated him. 

He was wealthy but miserable, disconnected, and feared rather than respected.

Like all mindsets there is a spectrum, you're unlikely to run across people who go full Scrooge. 

And at the positive end of the scale there is:

Outward Mindset

After the visitations Scrooge switched to an outward mindset.

The outward mindset is about seeing others as people whose needs, challenges, and goals matter as much as our own. 

People with an outward mindset look for ways that deliver collective results and benefit others.

At work they will hold themselves accountable and achieve the objectives while making it easier for their colleagues to succeed too. 

Teams working with an outward mindset have higher employee satisfaction, stronger team cohesion, are more resilient and have increased innovation.

Outward mindset = prosocial motivation 

After the switch Scrooge saw others as people whose needs, challenges, and goals mattered as much as his own.

He saw Bob Cratchit as a person, raising his salary and supporting his family.

He saw the poor as people deserving dignity, so he began giving generously and engaging with his community.

And he now sees himself as part of a larger whole, finding joy in relationships and service.

The outward mindset is key to being a good leader, colleague, parent or neighbour. 

People chose to follow outward mindset leaders. 

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The Arbinger Institute, “The Outward Mindset”, Berrett-Koehler (2016) 

Tuttle, C., “Child Labor during the British Industrial Revolution”, EH.Net Encyclopedia, (2001)

Humphries, J., “Childhood and child labour in the British industrial revolution”, Economic History Review (2012)