The Seven Signs of an Indifference-Based Workplace
The economic crisis sent waves of shock and fear through the global business world. And, on cue, the collective clench of the corporate community has compressed logic, reason and old-fashioned common sense into a diamond-hard lump of flawless stupidity. We started down the road from Good times to Bad, and the stages in between. While this is nothing new, pressure always brings out the worst in people. After the first stage — shock — wears off, they doubt others and especially themselves. And if in doubt, you must then go to Stage Two: scare everyone.
So, enter fear. Be afraid for your job. Be afraid to talk, to innovate, to rock the boat or even suggest that it’s still sinking. Rearrange the deck chairs, and be happy there’s something to do. Now let’s spell out ‘INNOVATION’.
But fear only lasts so long. Everyone eventually burns past their ability to make adrenaline. The landmarks that usually keep your going: reward, advancement, the satisfaction of a job well done — all dissolve. You no longer ask questions like ‘how do you expect a cheap desk calendar to change corporate culture?’ or ‘Why do you feel that breaking everyone’s computers was a big win?’
You have arrived at the Third Stage, indifference. Advancement is dead; motivation, gone; innovation, a dirty vortex of political recrimination and obstruction. Common Sense, in other words, has been bitch-slapped into silence.
These are the 7 signs of a indifference-based workplace. If this is your company, and you still give a damn, read on:
1. Getting Another Job is Job One.
People are leaving. And the people who leave are making lateral moves. It says volumes when you’ll leave a place for less money. But leave they do. As time goes on, this morale-crushing story is repeated, in groups both close and far. In difficult situations, when managers ask more of their people, they’re more apt to hear, “What are you going to do? Fire me? Lay me off? I’m okay with that.” instead of “Thank you, sir, may I have another?”
2. Appearances Mean Nothing.
A normal company is obsessed with the notion that perception is reality. Endless PowerPoint decks highlight how great the future is. But as indifference sets in, nobody stays in the office because nobody can be bothered to care. Long gone are the days when long days got you the promotion — or rigging the light timer to stay on an extra couple hours after you leave. An indifference-based management structure doesn’t notice anymore, because even they are ‘working from home’…and still missing conference calls.
3. Gossip Dies.
Nothing’s shocking anymore. Being on the layoff ‘list’ isn’t shameful anymore…it’s a cathartic release, a state that creates envy, not pity, in others. There are no more juicy tidbits, either…there’s no realistic chance of advancement, so there’s no practical point to sleeping around. A healthy company has an environment where people openly wish for the successful to fail, grow giddy when others fall, and there’s some reasonable expectation that knee pads would be a wise investment.
4. Indifference Reigns.
A knife in the back would be some excitement in an otherwise bland and unrewarding day — but alas, nobody is waiting to shiv you in the bathroom. That would take effort. Well-functioning organizations produce anger and fear over trivialities. In the Good ‘ol Days, strong management packed auditoriums so they could dole out steaming bowls of thick, chunky recrimination. In these indifferent days, the same manager stares at an empty conference room. The one person who shows up eventually succumbs to the uncomfortable silence while ‘waiting for people to show up,’ excuses himself ‘for a minute,’ then never returns.
5. The Value of Information Crashes.
In a well-oiled corporation, information was gold. People held it and traded and sold it — for more information, for money, for advancement, for sexual favors, or just to hold it, like a dagger, above the heads of others. In an indifferent workplace, information is for the asking. The company is worthless so the information is also worth just about as much — if anybody wanted to ask for it. It would imply you wanted to do something with it, and that would itself imply motivation.
6. The Office Starts to Seem Funny.
The Office was never funny…and the British version was doubly unfunny. This is a particularly pathological mental illness brought on by constant exposure to an atmosphere where intelligence, process, ambition, responsibility and value all erode to down to the sandy nub of indifference and boredom.
7. Management Stops Leading.
Barely able to lead convincingly in good times, management abdicates its responsibility to have a plan, or even a clue. Everything is about the ‘quick win’ when in reality, it’s about throwing bricks in the Grand Canyon. In good times, you have to follow ‘the process’…under the flag of Indifference, ‘the process’ is ditched in favor of ‘getting SOMETHING done,’ no matter how ill-advised. And since it comes “from the top,” each successive, avoidable-yet-unmitigated disaster simply gets chocolate-covered and declared a runaway success.
Culture starts from the top…and Being a Great CEO is very difficult. It requires you be in touch with your business, can plan, lead, inspire and execute. But who wants to be great? Being an ordinary CEO is surprisingly easy — it requires only that you are a fair-to-middling cheerleader and have a tin ear for everything else. And in the days of indifference, who cares for the rah-rah?
