Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Corporate Gaslighting, Diversity, Inclusion, Management, Politics
I’m old. So I’ve heard companies talk about their ‘culture’ a billion times.
And in all but 3 cases, what they actually meant was company complicity.
Where the expectation was never to challenge or question.
That doing that – even with the best of intentions – would result in you being labelled ‘a bad fit’ where you would then be sidelined or undermined. Destroying people’s potential and confidence while spouting contrived statements such as “our people are our greatest asset”.
What’s worse is that this behaviour often makes victim – and they are a victim – feel compelled to stay in a bid to prove they are worthy.
In essence, taking endless amounts of abuse to try and win over the very people trying to destroy them.
And what makes it even worse is that if they succeed, they’ve ultimately lost because they’ve had to deny who they are to be who they aren’t.
There’s loads of stories about this on Corporate Gaslighting … with many talking about how they felt paralysed to leave their toxic job because on top of everything else, they feared if they made a sideways move, they’d look like they’d failed to others in their community and profession. [Which is why I loved the picture at the top of this post]
That’s how messed up a lot of ‘company culture’ really is.
Which is why the older I get, the more some words my Dad once told me ring true.
“A company with a positive culture is one where their beliefs are expressed by their people in a million different ways. It’s never rules where everyone expresses them in exactly the same way”.
You may be asking how a Human Rights lawyer would have such insight about company culture. Well it was simple, a lot of his success came from working with the people who were once labelled the ‘bad fit’.
Culture is a salad never a smoothie – as someone I can’t remember once told me.