I recently rewatched 9 to 5 (yes, the 1980 comedy with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin). It’s meant to be satire. A ridiculous story about three women getting revenge on a terrible boss. But somewhere in the middle of all the humor… something else happens.
They accidentally build a better company, and that’s the part we should be paying attention to.
We’ve Had 45 Years to Catch Up.
When the women take over the office, they don’t start by tightening controls or cracking down on performance. They do something far more radical. They redesign the system.
They introduce:
- Flexible work schedules
- Job sharing
- On-site childcare
- Open communication
- A workplace built on trust instead of fear
And what happens? Performance improves. Morale skyrockets. People actually care about their work. Not because they were forced to, but because the environment finally allowed them to.
We’ve had 45 years since that movie came out. And many organizations still aren’t operating at that level.
They Didn’t Fix People, They Fixed the System.
This is where most companies still get it wrong.
When performance dips, the instinct is to:
- Add more rules
- Increase oversight
- Tighten accountability
- Manage behavior
In other words, fix the people.
But 9 to 5 showed something different. The people didn’t need fixing. The system did.
When you remove fear…
When you eliminate unnecessary barriers…
When you treat people like capable adults…
Performance doesn’t have to be forced. It shows up.
The Villain Wasn’t Just the Boss
Franklin Hart was easy to hate. He was controlling, dismissive, and more concerned with power than performance.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most leaders today aren’t him.
They’re just operating inside systems built on the same assumptions.
- That people can’t be trusted
- That control drives results
- That consistency matters more than fairness
- That activity equals results
You don’t have to act like Franklin Hart to run a workplace designed around his beliefs and yet many organizations still do.
They Created Commitment, Not Compliance.
The biggest shift in the movie wasn’t policy. It was mindset.
The employees weren’t performing better because someone was watching them more closely.
They were performing better because:
- They were trusted
- They were valued and respected
- They had a say
- Their work actually fit their lives
That’s the difference between compliance and commitment. Compliance gets you the minimum. Commitment gets you performance.
We Don’t Have a People Problem
For decades, we’ve designed workplaces around the 5%, that small number of people who might take advantage. And in the process, we’ve created systems that limit the other 95%.
More policies. More controls. More layers of approval. All in the name of managing risk.
But what if the real risk is designing a workplace that suppresses the very performance we’re trying to create?
The Question Leaders Should Be Asking
What would happen if we actually ran companies this way?
Not as a perk.
Not as an experiment.
Not as a temporary response to a talent shortage.
But as a fundamental belief:
That people are capable.
That trust drives performance.
That the role of leadership is to create the environment, not control it.
Because here’s the reality:
We don’t have a people problem.
We have a courage problem.
The courage to let go of outdated assumptions.
The courage to trust more than we control.
The courage to design workplaces that actually work.
A 1980 Comedy Shouldn’t Be Ahead of Us
And yet… here we are. Still debating flexibility. Still struggling with trust. Still managing activity instead of results.
Forty-five years later, we still haven’t caught up to a fictional company run by three women who simply chose to believe in people. It’s a glimpse of what’s possible when leadership finally gets out of the way.
At HPWP Group, we’ve spent decades helping organizations create the kind of workplace that 9 to 5 imagined.
Not through perks or gimmicks, but through a fundamental shift in leadership philosophy. It starts with believing that most people come to work wanting to do a good job. When leaders operate from that belief, they stop designing systems to control the few and start creating environments where the many can thrive.
