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I know I’m going to regret this … and I promise, I will connect it to practical business concerns.

Last week’s possibly satirical discussion of non-human entities we’ve created and given power over us to (“Who needs Skynet,” 2/12/2018) led to a lively discussion in the Comments section, including a controversy in juridical circles as to whether, when the First Amendment mentions “the press,” the protections are supposed to apply to the technology and its use or to the institutions commonly referred to as “the press.”

Or both.

My own conclusion: Failing to recognize the press-as-institution puts us at serious risk. Imagine politicians or lobbyists who don’t like what a member of the press-as-institution publishes. Without imposing any restriction on any individual’s use of press technology to disseminate information or opinions, those politicians could pass laws that drive that press organization into bankruptcy in retaliation.

But, if we do want to recognize the press-as-institution and protect it from governmental retaliation we’re faced with the fascination challenge of defining it.

Strict originalists face an even more challenging issue: As written, the First Amendment only protects speech and publication. It doesn’t even mention the activities needed to discover and gather the information the news media publishes.

Dumbass opinions, in this view, would enjoy constitutional protections. The careful research needed to publish accurate information would not.

Which got me thinking about The Post, its recounting of how the Pentagon Papers were brought to light, and how, in the end, revealing how the American public was misled into the Vietnam War arguably strengthened our government in the long term.

Which gets me to a point I’d like you to entertain even if you disagree with the above conclusion.

Unlike our government, there’s nothing in how corporations are chartered, organized, and run that provides any protections that would allowing employees to play a press-like role in their management.

I’m not talking about whistleblowers and the discovery of corporate wrongdoing. I’m talking about something far more mundane and potentially useful.

Imagine you discover a function within the company you work for is guilty of chronic but concealed idiocy. Nothing illegal or immoral, mind you. Just stupid.

Speaking of stupid, now imagine you try to bring the issue to the attention of a member of the ELT (Executive Leadership Team for those of you who haven’t heard the term before). Think they’ll thank you for your trouble?

Not most business executives, who largely rely on their chain of command for most of their information about What’s Going On Out There, supplemented by management dashboards and computer-generated reports.

Which often means they know much more about unimportant matters than about, for example, the stupidity factory you uncovered.

As I’ve mentioned from time to time, one of the most important skills for any business leader to develop is organizational listening. In the past I’ve suggested developing a variety of mechanisms, ranging from formal metrics to informal internal networking to accomplish this.

But this whole conversation about what constitutes the press leads me to wonder if a business would benefit by establishing the internal equivalent of the press-as-institution.

I’m not talking about adding a First-Amendment-like policy to the manual. While the results might be fun to watch, the most likely result would be a very poor signal-to-noise ratio.

I’m talking about establishing a formal internal news-gathering function, focused on discovering what managers don’t want the ELT to know and that ELT members might not want to know.

One of the most important (and most easily abused) functions performed by the press-as-institution is deciding what information is worthy of publication. Whether you get your information from newspapers or broadcast or cable news, you rely on them not only for the information they provide itself, but also to let you know what subjects you should be paying attention to.

A corporate internal news-gathering function would play a similar role. It would be a known place for employees at all levels to report what they’re aware of and think the ELT should be aware of, without incurring personal risk. It would also be responsible for sorting through it all, deciding what matters, and, when the situation calls for it, researching an issue in more depth.

It would have a regular slot on the ELT agenda — it wouldn’t need to fight for air time.

The ELT would be responsible for paying attention — for reading its metaphorical newspaper. And for instituting and enforcing the one rule critical for this organization’s success:

Don’t shoot the messenger.

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This isn’t something I’ve tried with a client and can attest to. I know of no business that’s tried this. If you do, please post a Comment to tell the rest of us about it. If you don’t, post a Comment anyway.

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|In: Business Ethics|Last Updated:

This is probably a mistake.

But I wrote about male/female workplace issues quite recently (“A tale of two genders,” 8/14/2017). Now we have the decline and fall of Harvey Weinstein and others of his predatory brethren, with remarkably little root cause analysis.

Let’s start with this: Harvey Weinstein was a major financial contributor to the Democratic party and its candidates. Roger Ailes used his media outlet to promote the Republican party and its candidates.

Linking their sexual predation with their political affinities is … what’s the word I’m looking for? … ah yes, that’s it: reprehensible. Please don’t. The last thing we need these days is more tribalism.

We can each freely agree with someone about their political views without incurring an obligation to defend them on any other aspect of their lives. “Us” does not mean “good person” any more than “them” means bad person.

Well, actually, it usually does, but let’s not succumb to the temptation. Let’s do the opposite and forbid political affinitizing (I don’t care if it isn’t a real word) about this. It cheapens an issue that should, under no circumstances, be cheapened.

Next, let’s jettison the next-most-popular root cause analysis: “They’re horrible human beings.” Yes, they are, but how does that help? What’s useful is understanding how they became horrible human beings.

Which gets us to what’s missing as commentators vie to write the Most Condemnatory Commentary Yet. It’s culture, a subject I wrote about last month (“It’s always the culture,” 9/25/2017).

Whenever you see a pattern of behavior that’s common to a group of people who know and associate with each other, you can bet culture is a major causal factor.

Go back to the early days of the entertainment industry. The so-called casting couch was, if not ubiquitous, certainly prevalent. Those who had them figured their couch was one of the perks of their position. Reclining in one was, for many a budding starlet, a distasteful prerequisite for a shot at the big time. Some chose (or in some cases were forced) to acquiesce. The rest went home.

Those who ran the entertainment industry knew and socialized with each other. Anyone lacking a casting couch in their own suite of offices understood the key message: This sort of thing is okay. It’s how we do things around here. It’s embedded in our culture, “us” being the powerful and important people who run this industry.

Want to understand how Ailes, Weinstein, and so many others could get away with their offenses for so many decades?

I had the good fortune of having a business partner who was a student of anthropology. Culture, he explained, is the learned behavior people exhibit in response to their environment.

In our Cro-Magnon past, a lot of the environment was physical: Animals that could be hunted, vegetables that could be gathered, plant, animal, and mineral matter that could be turned into useful implements.

In an organization, in contrast, most of your environment is the behavior of the people around you. Culture becomes a self-reinforcing loop: it’s the learned behavior people exhibit in response to the learned behavior people exhibit in response to the learned behavior people exhibit.

Ailes and Weinstein, Hitchcock before them if Tippi Hedren is to be believed, and Fatty Arbuckle before him, all were embedded in a culture where the norm was, and apparently still is in some circles, “This is okay. It’s better than okay. It’s something you deserve.”

Look at just about every horrible act performed by any group of people who knew each other at any time in the historical record, and ask how it’s possible that human beings behaved in such extraordinarily repulsive ways. The nearly uniform answer: Their culture told them this is how they’re supposed to behave. It’s more than okay. It’s approved of.

Which has what to do with you?

If you have a leadership role in your organization, you’re responsible for the learned behavior people exhibit in response to their environment, because as a leader a disproportionately important part of their environment is you.

If you indicate, directly, or by modeling, or through implication, or even through omission that something is acceptable that shouldn’t be, you’re responsible for anything and everything that happens as a result of the culture you’ve helped foster.

Members of the KJR community understand these two critical points about culture: First, being a leader isn’t a matter of position. It’s a matter of choice.

And, second, if there’s something you don’t like about your organization’s culture, the most important tool at your disposal is a mirror.

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