This made me think of how, after WWII, modern German military law explicitly requires soldiers to disobey orders that violate human rights. Even if the most "obedient" of environments, we need criteria.
Requiring people to disobey inhuman commands sounds like a good requirement for people — I wish that modern companies would introduce that kind of thinking as well. Humanity and kindness introduced everywhere could improve life for all of us.
In fact, I think the same would count in politics and public administration. The trend, however, is currently going in the opposite direction. It currently doesn't look like people want life to be improved?
I agree. It always comes to my mind when someone describes a kid as "obedient." That's hardly something to brag about if you ask me. Of course kids need to learn manners because we live in a society, but I wouldn't want an obedient kid. I'd want a child with critical thinking skills
I think a lot of us don't know what we want, both because we get too many distractions and little time to think and because the world is full of so many uncertainties lately that some people are just (understandably) in survival mode.
It is, yes, but they allow 1 free read. Maybe you have spent that one already. The essence is that social media has provided everybody with the weapon to hit each other but developed algorithms that promote contents that speak to fast and strong emotional reactions (anger) and punishes considerate, dialogue-oriented contents.
This leads to a lot of fighting, people splitting in groups getting more and more out of sync with each other, unable to talk across the divider lines. There are more details – many more, as this is a very long article.
It was written in 2022 as a kind of attempt to explain what really happened when Trump won the USA president election the first time, and who the USA had become more like two different countries on the same spot, fighting each other.
The article speaks for putting restrictions on how posts can spread on social media, avoiding the viral spread that kills all dialogue.
It is impressive that social media plays such a crucial role in things as important as the US election. What I wouldn't know is how to control this without falling into censorship. I think the only option would be regulating the platforms themselves, which consciously push posts that could cause outrage simply because it means more "engagement" and more money.
Thank you. Yes, there is this aspect as well — informing and sharing knowledge doesn't necessarily mean sharing every bit of information and every thought. I think that some people are happy to leave certain aspects, certain details, to their colleagues or managers to manage. Otherwise, life can become too complex. By knowing mostly what you need to know for your role, you can better focus on doing that well without feeling responsible for everything.
However, even though people are different in this respect, it has never been good or even purposeful to deliberately prevent people from getting information, in a company, that is. Apart from a few sensitive pieces of information, most things need to be processed by many, and we can probably all benefit from making use of the full scope of brain power around us.
When an employee feels that they can do their work less good because information is being withheld, they become frustrated and, at times, obstructive. It feels like lack of trust, like not being considered one of the flock. And nobody in a social context likes that.
I have had a good deal of experience with this very dichotomy. I always maximized information sharing, but I had colleagues who argued that their team members “didn’t need to be burdened with all that.” Needless to say, their team members used to come to mine for information. Instead of getting the message though that people want to be informed, my colleagues just seethed at me.
That's an interesting thought, and I believe that you are right. People will, mostly, seek information if they are not being given it. They may not always know what information is there to seek, though.
A company setup is sometimes easy to overview — people know what the company is doing, by large, which products are being produced, which target groups these are for, etc., and employees also know, more or less, who is working there, what personal traits they have (rumours about especially managers are common), and this way there is an information spread across the organisation, no matter what the managers try to control.
But a company can also be more complex, especially a larger one, and many things can happen that just a few people are informed about. This can lead to such unpleasant events as we saw with Enron, for instance, that suddenly turned out to be everything else than most people, including the employees, thought it was. Some people knew, of course, but most didn't.
This made me think of how, after WWII, modern German military law explicitly requires soldiers to disobey orders that violate human rights. Even if the most "obedient" of environments, we need criteria.
Requiring people to disobey inhuman commands sounds like a good requirement for people — I wish that modern companies would introduce that kind of thinking as well. Humanity and kindness introduced everywhere could improve life for all of us.
In fact, I think the same would count in politics and public administration. The trend, however, is currently going in the opposite direction. It currently doesn't look like people want life to be improved?
I agree. It always comes to my mind when someone describes a kid as "obedient." That's hardly something to brag about if you ask me. Of course kids need to learn manners because we live in a society, but I wouldn't want an obedient kid. I'd want a child with critical thinking skills
I think a lot of us don't know what we want, both because we get too many distractions and little time to think and because the world is full of so many uncertainties lately that some people are just (understandably) in survival mode.
Yes, I agree. Children and all others must learn to think and weigh arguments against each other, then doing what makes sense. But I just fell over a long article that explains why people may not want harmony… https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo
It's behind a paywall, but the title is intriguing!
It is, yes, but they allow 1 free read. Maybe you have spent that one already. The essence is that social media has provided everybody with the weapon to hit each other but developed algorithms that promote contents that speak to fast and strong emotional reactions (anger) and punishes considerate, dialogue-oriented contents.
This leads to a lot of fighting, people splitting in groups getting more and more out of sync with each other, unable to talk across the divider lines. There are more details – many more, as this is a very long article.
It was written in 2022 as a kind of attempt to explain what really happened when Trump won the USA president election the first time, and who the USA had become more like two different countries on the same spot, fighting each other.
The article speaks for putting restrictions on how posts can spread on social media, avoiding the viral spread that kills all dialogue.
It is impressive that social media plays such a crucial role in things as important as the US election. What I wouldn't know is how to control this without falling into censorship. I think the only option would be regulating the platforms themselves, which consciously push posts that could cause outrage simply because it means more "engagement" and more money.
Good post Jorgen. Modern leaders (at least the good ones ) learn from their followers
One of the things I learned as a leader from my team is that a leader should not share all the details all the time with the employees
D
Thank you. Yes, there is this aspect as well — informing and sharing knowledge doesn't necessarily mean sharing every bit of information and every thought. I think that some people are happy to leave certain aspects, certain details, to their colleagues or managers to manage. Otherwise, life can become too complex. By knowing mostly what you need to know for your role, you can better focus on doing that well without feeling responsible for everything.
However, even though people are different in this respect, it has never been good or even purposeful to deliberately prevent people from getting information, in a company, that is. Apart from a few sensitive pieces of information, most things need to be processed by many, and we can probably all benefit from making use of the full scope of brain power around us.
When an employee feels that they can do their work less good because information is being withheld, they become frustrated and, at times, obstructive. It feels like lack of trust, like not being considered one of the flock. And nobody in a social context likes that.
I have had a good deal of experience with this very dichotomy. I always maximized information sharing, but I had colleagues who argued that their team members “didn’t need to be burdened with all that.” Needless to say, their team members used to come to mine for information. Instead of getting the message though that people want to be informed, my colleagues just seethed at me.
That's an interesting thought, and I believe that you are right. People will, mostly, seek information if they are not being given it. They may not always know what information is there to seek, though.
A company setup is sometimes easy to overview — people know what the company is doing, by large, which products are being produced, which target groups these are for, etc., and employees also know, more or less, who is working there, what personal traits they have (rumours about especially managers are common), and this way there is an information spread across the organisation, no matter what the managers try to control.
But a company can also be more complex, especially a larger one, and many things can happen that just a few people are informed about. This can lead to such unpleasant events as we saw with Enron, for instance, that suddenly turned out to be everything else than most people, including the employees, thought it was. Some people knew, of course, but most didn't.