The Big Whinge

The First Commandment of Organisational Politics: Thou Shalt Judge A Book By Its Cover

Remember when you were growing up and your parents taught you these little homilies:

• It's what's inside that counts
• Don't judge a book by its cover
• The cream always rises to the top
• Empty vessels make the most noise
• Don't blow your own trumpet
• Good things come to those who wait
• The meek shall inherit the earth

Maybe your parents thought they were doing the right thing imparting these values. It will come as a shock if you join the corporate world to discover that hanging onto your modesty will hinder your career progression.

Sadly, career progression has nothing to do with how good you are at your job. It's all about whether people perceive you to be good at your job.

Sometimes, great work is recognised. Unfortunately, not that often. When it does happen, it plays an important role in not only rewarding the worker in question, but also sets an example for the rest of organisation to appreciate great work and to inspire more of it.

More often than not, it is all about perception. Instead of promoting a culture that encourages great work, organisations today overtly foster the culture of "perception is reality".

This has spawned a cartel of people who get by knowing very little and doing even less, but who are adept at obfuscation and inveiglement. These are the ones who are the Olympic champions of brown nosing and politicking for their own ends, rather than adding any true value. How do these people sleep at night? (Actually, I suspect they sleep very well, in their 300 threadcount sheets and possibly with a key stakeholder.)

So, the rules of engagement are that "perception is reality". Are we all too lazy these days to dig a bit deeper to understand each other? Isn't this how world wars are created? Are we missing out on the fantastic skills of a person just because he / she refused to conform?

Oh, that's right. Conformity.

Large organisations reward conformity. If you express views that are different and challenge the complacent, God forbid we may miss this year's target but lay the groundwork for growing the organisation in the decades to come.

We talk about Innovation with a capital I, but do leaders of organisations understand that innovation is rarely borne of rigidly structured roles, group think, systemic sycophancy and work practices that discourage seeing daylight? Simply employing the cliches of "thinking outside the square" (alert: if you are still using this phrase, you are IN THE FUCKING SQUARE, to quote Kel Richards from ABC NewsRadio...except Kel doesn't swear...on air) and "thinking big" does not an innovative culture make.

So how long can these organisations exist with a culture of rewarding the wrong people? Politics will always exist as long as there are human beings, but hasn't anyone realised that SOMEONE, at SOME POINT has to do the work?

To paraphrase S Sammartino,

"Large organisations are too sluggish to be true innovators...they are trading on
the diminishing goodwill of plastic cheese created decades ago."

posted by Yarravillean @ 9:31 pm