The Problem with "Severance"

If the show is resonating with your employees, should you worry?

Image via Apple TV+

Everyone is currently raving about Severance.

I watched the first season and liked it OK. Thought it was an interesting premise. But it also bugged me a little. (It’s possible I’m just more of a Billions guy.) The more I considered why, I think it’s because the show reinforces an outdated way of thinking about the nature of work.

The core premise of Severance—establishing an impenetrable firewall between the work and personal selves—clearly resonates with lots of people. Terrifyingly, one survey found that 21% of people would consider the procedure.

I think that gives managers and leaders an opportunity to self-reflect a bit and ask why.

The Fantasy of Segmentation

In the industrial age, the days of the factory, you:

1. Flipped the switch to WORK when you clocked in.

2. Spent X number of hours putting widgets on the conveyor belt (or whatever execution-based set of tasks was put before you).

3. Toggled the switch back to LIFE after your shift.

Back then, that was what “work” was.

Now, fast-forward many decades, and we’re still working within the confines of that model… even though the actual nature of what we call “work” has shifted dramatically. We’re long past the rise of knowledge work, where the lines between the work mind and the personal mind grew hazier. We’re now in a brave new world of AI, where it’s the same dynamic on steroids. If a job isn’t using the creative, problem-solving part of the employee’s brain, it’s probably going to be done by AI soon, if it’s not already.

Critically, creativity isn’t like factory work. It occurs around the clock. It does not respect artificial boundaries.