All Posts in Business Ethics

|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

That we’re living in a post-factual world isn’t in serious doubt. What remains to be resolved is the recursive question as to whether evidence that the world is post-factual should be allowed into debates as to whether the world is post-factual.

If you need evidence, (don’t worry — in spite of immense provocation I’m going to make no mention of Donald Trump, on the grounds that hitting the side of a barn does not demonstrate marksmanship) … I say, if you need evidence:

  • When “proving” the horrors of authoritarian government, which are you more likely to cite — a list of Joseph Stalin’s atrocities, or George Orwell’s 1984?
  • When attempting to demonstrate the nightmarish consequences of a social welfare state, do opponents find a social welfare hellhole to make their point, or do they bring up Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World?
  • The Republican party’s most influential economic policy wonk, Paul Ryan, has ideas so deeply rooted in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, that for years he gave copies to his interns to get them on board with his thinking.
  • While political liberals have no obvious equivalent work of fiction to cite, there is Harry Potter and the Millennials (Anthony Gierzynski and Kathryn Eddy, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Its authors persuasively demonstrate that J.K. Rowling’s series had a strong liberalizing influence: Her audience embraced her protagonists’ widely tolerant pluralism, skepticism of authority and the press, and aversion to violence and torture as acceptable means to even worthwhile ends … not because of any social theory, but because of how the good guys, bad guys, and bumblers in between behaved in the books.
  • Closer to home, it’s pretty clear that Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese has had far more impact on how business executives think about organizational change than any formulation that actually, for example, works.
  • And closer yet to home, Gene Kim’s and Kevin Behr’s The Phoenix Project did more to persuade most industry thinkers that DevOps is real, practical, and important than any real-world DevOps projects.

Not that this is a new phenomenon. If you think otherwise, a title: Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Fiction as proof has inestimable value for the persuader. As characters, events, and, in some fantasy and science fiction, the laws of physics must all bow down and behave according to the author’s whims, in fiction it’s possible to “prove” whatever the author wants to prove. As an example: in The Moral Hazard of Lime Daiquiris, Dave Kaiser and I proved that hiring only seriously ugly employees is a winning business strategy. Nothing to it. All we had to do was … oh, wait, maybe if I don’t tell you you’ll buy a copy.

It isn’t that fiction has no valid role to play in shaping opinion. Because of the way we humans go about the business of thinking, fiction is often the best way to illustrate an idea, especially in an era of limited attention spans. But illustration and demonstration are two very different matters. What makes fiction dangerous is how easily it can nudge an unwary reader across the line that separates the two.

Persuasion through fiction is, to be fair, nowhere near as nasty as persuasion through the utterly vicious disregard for decency shown by the trolls, fake news sites, unrepentant and repeated lies, and conspiracy theories amplified and bounced around the Twitter-verse by Tweet ‘bots.

But given what’s been published on the subject of post-factualism, you might think it’s limited to audiences that read this crap and accept it uncritically because, if its members have even heard the phrase “confirmation bias,” they think it’s something that only the idiots who disagree with them are afflicted with.

While that might be what we’re descending into, I don’t think it’s where post-factualism starts. I think it starts with conflating fact and fiction.

And if you think this is just one of Bob’s occasional social commentary rants, it’s worth pointing out that the world of business is far from immune. Google “Comet Ping Pong pizzeria” if you don’t believe me.

Consider: If a pizza joint with ping pong tables can be the target today, your company could just as easily be in the crosshairs tomorrow.

Which leads to a suggestion: If you don’t already have a social media listening post set up, set one up. Make sure it’s set to monitor darker sources and detect darker material than your average “Your product sucks!” Facebook post.

Meanwhile, don’t wait until a bunch of crazed conspiracy theorists start accusing your organization of violating the Don’t Be Creepy rule.

The time to plan is before you need to respond, not when you’re under attack.

Comments

|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

Stand-up comics have to be just about the bravest people around.

If you’re a singer and the audience doesn’t enjoy your performance, you can blame the composer, the arranger, or your backup band.

If you’re an actor you can blame the script, the director, or the other actors in your show.

But if you’re a stand-up comic, it’s just you and the audience. They either laugh or they don’t. If they don’t, you’re up there with your bare face hanging out, soaked in flop sweat and with nowhere to hide.

We’ve been talking about political correctness and its impact on the workplace the last couple of weeks (“Polite-ical correctness,” 4/4/2016 and “It’s my turn to be the victim!” 4/11/2016). But so far we’ve barely touched on the most important dimension of the issue: Humor.

As a leader and manager you aren’t paid to be a comedian. You are paid to, among other things, create a healthy work environment.

What makes a work environment healthy? First and foremost, nobody in the workforce should feel threatened or harassed.

The law (as I understand it; I did lead HR once upon a time but I’m not an attorney) makes allowances for reasonability. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate birthdays. That doesn’t mean your other employees can’t celebrate birthdays. It does mean no one should pressure their co-worker to join the festivities.

But being unthreatening and unharassing doesn’t make a workforce healthy, any more than not having a fever and rash means you’re feeling fine. A manager who considers this an achievement needs to set the bar a wee bit higher.

This is where humor comes in. In my experience, in healthy work environments employees kid around — something that’s awfully hard to do without humor being involved.

Humor being what it is, though, kidding doesn’t always turn out to be funny. But then, there are no level-of-humor benchmarks you can draw on to determine the absolute level of funniness of a given wisecrack.

If the worst that happens is that nobody laughs, you’ll have an employee with newfound empathy for what stand-up comics risk at a professional level, except that all your employee has to say is, “Well, I thought it was funny,” and everyone moves on.

But there’s precious little in the way of kidding around that doesn’t risk offending someone, for several reasons the kidder has no control over.

The first has to do with DNA: Some people just weren’t born with the sense of humor gene. Strangely, the Americans with Disabilities Act ignores this syndrome and big pharma has yet to develop a treatment. It’s too bad, because the afflicted sometimes take offense at a remark specifically because their understanding of humor is, at best, theoretical.

The second reason is obliviosity. Congenital wisecrackers can be oblivious, more focused on eliciting a smile, guffaw, or something in between than on how what they’re about to say might offend a listener.

The third is the legitimate piece of what those who complain about political correctness are griping about — as a society we’re encouraging people to feel victimized, causing everyone to tip-toe around everyone else.

But as Offense-O-Meters are no more commercially available than level-of-humor benchmarks, it isn’t up to you or anyone else to tell an employee who’s feeling offended that he or she is wrong.

So what, as a business leader, do you do?

HR “best practice” says you play it safe. If there’s kidding, banter, jibes, or repartee, discourage it.

This will keep you out of trouble and the company out of court. It will also kill team performance. Teamwork depends on trust. Stop the joking around and you’ll pretty much wipe out the interpersonal relationship-building that trust depends on.

Or, you can establish a more relaxed atmosphere, with give-and-take and all the good-humored wordplay that goes with it.

And if someone does take offense? At the risk of horrifying your average HR professional:

Meet privately with the offended party (call him “Jim”). Explain that he has four alternatives.

The first: File a complaint with Human Resources. That’s his right and he’ll get a fair hearing with no retribution later on.

Second: Explain to the offender (call her “Jane”) that she was offensive, and why. If Jim chooses that course of action, you’ll be happy to mediate if he’d like.

Third: If Jim isn’t comfortable talking to the offender, you can have a quiet word with her instead.

Fourth: Jim can shrug it off and decide it isn’t worth making a fuss about.

So long as you’re completely neutral as to which alternative you’d prefer, you should stay out of trouble.

Just, whatever you do, don’t make a joke out of it.

Comments