The Pretence Is Over
They’re saying the quiet bit out loud
The Great Pretender
I am sometimes accused of being too cynical (I know, you’re in shock, aren’t you?)
I am sometimes told I am to unfair on CEOs, that they are trying to do their best.
Sometimes I think that I can’t keep writing about how toxic, uncaring and exploitative organisations are by default, that it’s all a bit too bleak.
And then, in a matter of days, several large corporations drop their DEI programmes like they are paper cups full of McDonald’s coffee.
We know why, they wanted to suck up to Trump’s administration and get some nice juicy government contracts or other favours.
Having trumpeted their DEI policies for years as evidence that they were good employers and making a big song and dance about how decent they were, as soon as it became more advantageous to dump them, they moved faster than a rat up drainpipe.
They might as well have taken out full page ads in what’s left of the press and declared “We are value-free, opportunistic, money-grabbing, exploitative bastards that don’t give a monkeys how we treat the saps who come and work for us, who we will force to do our will and them kick out to puff up our bonuses.”
Like Maya Angelou said,
'When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’
Well, this is not the first time but I hope we’re all listening now. The mask is off, the pretence is over.
Everybody Wants To Rule The World
OK, OK, it’s not all employers and it’s not all CEOs.
There are some good ones and a number of big companies have stated that they are sticking with their DEI policies and see them as providing competitive advantage. These include Goldman Sachs and J P Morgan Chase, who have often featured in these missives for what they are doing wrong, so kudos to them for sticking with this. That doesn’t mean they are not exploitative money-grabbing bastards, btw, it just shows it’s all a bit complicated.
There are also many who are pursuing progressive policies and creating future fit, people-centric organisations. There are CEOs who are not just looking out for themselves and how much cash they can grab during their brief period in charge but actually care about the organisation and its employees.
However, it’s clear that they are now facing considerable headwinds. Even if their intent is good, they are operating in an environment that is pushing the other way. The system they are in prioritises profit maximisation, short-term returns and constant growth. It does not value or particularly protect employees. The mood music is not good. Can they hold to their path in the face of all this?
The mad thing is, we know progressive approaches work. We know diversity brings better decision making and more innovation. We know equity builds a sense of belonging, high trust and psychological safety, which all lead to better outcomes. We know inclusion means a wider pool of talent and a greater realisation of potential. We know this stuff makes companies more profitable, more resilient and adaptable, and makes people happier.
But who cares about data and reality when dogma, delusion and opinion are all those at the top are interested in.
As with Return To Office, this is just about power and control. That’s what organisations are built around, it’s what the bullies understand and it’s how you get your hands on the loot.
These Words
The Trump administration has issued a list of words that are to be removed from anything to do with, or funded by, the government of the USA.
I’d reprint the list here but there’s getting on for 150 of them. Some of these are different versions of the same term (advocacy, advocate, advocates, for example) but they contain all the ones you’d expect from the dogma dogs of the right wing, such as:
black and latinx
gender diversity
multicultural
implicit bias
LGBT
racial inequality
It’s causing absolute chaos because some of the words have completely neutral uses and removing or replacing them just renders the documents insensible.
But the instigators of this don’t care. Their aim is to control and restrict the language so that some concepts are simply inexpressible. How do you talk about inequality if you’re not allowed to use the words, or any of the terms relating to the concept?
Language matters. It is the means by which we shape and express our thoughts.
I won’t dwell on the political aspects here, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. What I want to do is reflect on how language is controlled in an organisational context.
There is, of course, the proliferation of jargon and TLAs, a sure way of signalling the in-group and the out-group and to create a barrier between the two. However, there are also lists of banned terms and phrases, often informal and unstated. Sometimes, there will be ‘style guides’ or a ‘glossary of terms’ that define more clearly how things are to be expressed.
But it’s mostly informal. We all know there are certain words or phrases that will cause our colleagues to give us the side-eye should we utter them, sometime even provoke a sharp intake of breath. There are things that cannot be said, matters that cannot be mentioned.
When we do talk, we use complicated constructs, arcane phrases and jargon to express ourselves - what Jackall called ‘an extraordinary and indirect linguistic framework’, as I covered in last week’s missive. Whilst we may deliberately employ this language to obliquely refer to things we’re not allowed to say, often we just slip into it in our desire to fit in. We don’t even realise we’re adopting this impenetrable and baroque way of expressing ourselves. We become so well-versed in it, we don’t even notice others saying it because we effortlessly translate it into normal English.
What suffers here is meaning and clarity. We find ourselves swimming an a viscous soup of ambiguity, obfuscation, misdirection and misunderstanding that slows us down, so we end up expending enormous amounts of energy to make almost no progress.
We either accept that this is how it is and succumb to the sclerotic workings of the organisation, or we rebel. Speaking with clarity is an act of resistance. Saying the unsayable is an act of rebellion. It won’t get you promoted but it will help you retain your sanity, because the words we speak, the language we use, shapes our thoughts. That’s why those at the top want to control it.
If you are wondering how much your language is controlled, try explaining what’s going on at work to your family. If they look at you with complete incomprehension, as if you are speaking a foreign language (which, to them, you are), then you have a problem.
If you want freedom, speak plainly. Use language thoughtfully and deliberately.
As George Orwell put it:
‘There is no swifter route to the corruption of thought than through the corruption of language’.
Mask Off
Although the mask is off, we sort of knew all along that they didn’t really mean all that stuff, they didn’t really care and they were just interested in squeezing the most out of us as they possibly could, didn’t we?
In which case, why did we fall for their schtick? Why did we get sucked in, when we knew we’d get chewed up and spat out eventually?
Well, it’s complex.
Part of it is not wanting to admit the reality. I mean, like I said at the start, it’s bleak. It’s too depressing to acknowledge you’re just being used, that no-one cares about you, that you’re just a cog in the machine. You just can’t walk around with that all day, so you kid yourself it’s better than it is, that they do care and you have a unique contribution to make.
They also put a huge amount of effort into getting you to believe that. Look at all the energy that went into DEI, the fine words, the emotive messages. And that’s just a little bit of it. You are encouraged to believe what you want to believe.
And we want to see the best in people. We want to believe they’re a bit like us, that they share our values and beliefs. Even when their behaviour shows what they are really like, we dismiss it. Even when they say something terrible, we convince ourselves they don’t really mean it.
Yes, they gaslight us but we’re susceptible to it. We want to believe the story we’re being spun.
So when the penny drops, we feel a real mix of emotions.
We feel we are partly to blame for getting deceived, which means we feel ashamed that we got fooled (this is why people often don’t report internet scams, they just can’t bear the shame). We feel angry, with the organisations but also with ourselves and maybe others who we feel should have warned us. We feel guilty that we didn’t do more to protect ourselves and that we’ve let down others who depend on us. We might even feel guilty that we used to defend, or even advocate for, the organisation.
And we feel betrayed, because we were. And they are laughing at us now.
We are the victims here but that’s a hard one too. We don’t want to think of ourselves as victims, we thought we were smarter than that, tougher than that, had more agency than that. So we blame ourselves a little more.
What’s actually happened is our strengths have been used against us. Our good nature, our positive outlook, our commitment, our desire to give people the benefit of doubt, to be the first to extend trust, to step up.
The danger is that you just become bitter and cynical and trust no-one. But that’s not who we are. So we have to find a way to remain true to ourselves whilst protecting ourselves at the same time.
Many would advise us to ‘just leave’ but that’s not always an option, particularly in the short term. It actually makes me a bit angry the way this advice is flippantly handed out by those who are not caught in this particular and pernicious trap. We’re not the sort of people who walk away from our commitments and they may require us to stay in the job, even though we realise it’s bad for us.
So we have to find a balance, a way to do what we have to without exposing ourselves to more harm. It’s not an easy thing to do but the starting point is to realise the situation that you find yourself in, the dangers that you face and harms that surround you.
But now that they’ve stopped pretending, we can stop fooling ourselves. And start doing the work to make ourselves safe.