Life in Organizations LO9130

Richard Karash (rkarash@karash.com)
Thu, 15 Aug 1996 00:46:40 -0400 (EDT)

Recently, a colleague with my utmost respect said, "We have to speak up,
to tell the world what we are seeing in organizations."

That's been sticking in my mind continuously. In our client organizations,
at the mid levels, we see a lot of sickness, organizational ill-health,
mistrust, a break in the bond between the organization and the individual.
And, much of this is unseen and under-appreciated. My friend says, "We
must speak up." This feels awkward, a breach of the "can-do," positive
expectations energy that enables much of our work.

In the past week, I've listened with different sensitivity to the stories
of people at work, and revisited some of my own stories. I realized that
I'd been putting these stories aside, forgetting (losing sight of) a part
of reality... I feel sort of jerked awake by my colleague's imperative.

Just a little nudging produced a flood of stories from lots of friends.
Some of the themes:
- "They fired me so they wouldn't have to pay the commissions I'd earned.
I was getting married the next week and to scared to fight it."
- "My uncle in 1947 was denied the bonus he'd earned; they said it was
'just his job'"
- "Then they fired the whole crew of new MBAs they'd just hired six
months before."
- "Sorry I left you an orphan email address on Learning-org. They
shut-off our e-mail accounts before they fired us. I'm still trying to
find all the addresses of friends and family."
- And, of course, the really ugly stuff -- sexual abuse, harassment, etc.

I'm thinking that for the people within, the real corporate world may look
more like Dilbert's world.

I'm struck that corporations (and other organizations) have broken the
contract of trust often enough to leave serious damage in the bond.

I'll just share a brief story of my own: As a just-out-of-college new
employee at Digital Equip Corp, there were the usual papers to sign. My
case required some special items, and I was told, "Just write us a short
letter." I did so. The company inside lawyer called, "We've retyped your
letter to correct a couple of typos, would you come down and sign it, just
a formality." Across the desk from him, I was just finishing off my
signature when he said, "Oh, we changed the wording a little...," and I
noticed he'd changed the wording enough that I cared. I handed him the
signed document, it didn't matter that much, OK he won, but I was furious.
It wasn't a big thing. At a low cost, I learned a durable lesson, to watch
out for myself, that the corporation would bend the edges on ethics. That
the corporation was -way- different from the family; it wouldn't care
about you when the chips were down. How many others have learned this
"lesson?"

Running through my mind the stories I've heard, the theme that emerges for
me is that younger, new employees are pushed around by the corporate
system. These people are resiliant, they usually rise above it and, from
one perspective, things look pretty good. But, I suspect that the damages
from our youth makes us part of an unhealthy individual-corporate system
20 years later. Many good people in my field would detest the idea of
working in a large organization.

Sure, lots of good things happen for young people on the way up (I had my
share), but I fear that the stings and scars last longer.

So, for those of us working in the OD/Org Learning field, what's our
special responsibility regarding this? To speak the truth that others
might have a harder time seeing? This doesn't feel right.

In our work, we use Martin Luther King as an example. He's well known for
articulating the vision of racial harmony. He also, as you can see by
actually reading his words, that he's a remarkably clear and unbaised
reporter of the actual conditions of Blacks' life in America of the 50's.
Where is our MLK of the corporate world?I think our special role is to
insure that everyone is able to have a vision for the organization they
want and that everyone is able to speak with insight and honesty about the
way things are today.

-- Rick

-- 
      Richard Karash ("Rick")    |  <http://world.std.com/~rkarash>
  Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer  |     email: rkarash@karash.com
"Towards learning organizations" | Host for Learning-Org Mailing List
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