Marketing Your Good Character
Or That Of your Company
by Paul Grimsley
I often think that when abuse of power is found to have existed for a long time in a place that the system supports it, because those who operate within said system, not necessarily involved in the abuse, calculate that at the time it is better to be passive in regards to the abuse.
When it becomes obvious that it is not going to help them financially to remain silent any longer, they come forward and start talking about the outrage they feel and the new shiny plans that they are going to put in place to handle the problem. It isn’t like they suddenly task a whole new set of resources to deal with issue — they generally draw from within their own extant structure. This means they could have done it all along.
Things aren’t just invisible. Things don’t happen to so many people for so long without people knowing. People bury their discomfort with a bad situation in innuendo, euphemism, and humor — the victims get shunted off down a branch line, and the juggernaut just keeps on rolling.
To hold up a certain philosophy and label it corporate culture means that everyone there is complicit on some level. Start to shine a light into the dark corners and make the cockroaches scuttle, and you start to see the dirty tendrils reaching out into the heart of society too. So, if the microcosmic company structure has to change, then the larger societal structure has to change too.
It’s a human rights issue. The fact that specific laws have to be developed to protect the rights of a certain sector of society means that this sector is undergoing a disproportionate level of abuse of their rights. The fact that these abuses are carried out, very obviously, by another certain sector of society means that it is only apt that any solution seeks to investigate and correct whatever it is that is occurring in said sector that makes those in it feel entitled to commit human rights abuses.
Those affected by a problem that doesn’t get an amount of attention proportionate to the scale of the situation need to be acknowledged, and if we are interested in protecting their human rights, which we should be, we should ally ourselves with the wronged.
The argument that some people aren’t like that is not helpful because it is focusing on trying to exonerate people who were never accused in the first place. If they aren’t part of the problem then the suggestion that there is a need to solve the situation is not being aimed at them. If they are angry enough to continually protest about this feeling that they are being accused as well, instead of just acknowledging those being abused and coming out on their side, then one has to wonder if they have another issue they aren’t being forthright about. Were they complicit? Could they have done more? Do they feel guilty?
The argument that certain people allied with a cause to help people suffering an abuse of their human rights aren’t savory, or have bad methods of communicating their message, is a separate issue that should be addressed to these people, and corrected on that level. It doesn’t render the problem obsolete because a few people aren’t setting the best examples.
So, how to engender support within companies that have an issue with human rights abuses? Hit them in the pocket — because fiscal considerations really have to be at the base of a decision not to handle the situation. It would be interesting (probably not) to hear someone come out with a moral argument in support of abuse (yes, I understand that this happens all the time, and that the immorality of the victim is often highlighted so as to illustrate why their being targeted is some kind of karma). But basically make it unprofitable to be this way and companies won’t want to do it.
Offer incentives to get them to improve the work place for women and minorities, and they may be swayed. Target their bottom line, increase their profit margin. People are, at heart, moral creatures, and even the ones making the wrong decisions, on some level know what they are doing is wrong — otherwise, why hide it?
If you want to be a good citizen, and you want to be a good coworker, and you want to work for a company that treats its workers well, maybe if you understand that your job security is not under threat when you come forward, you will be more willing to come forward. It shouldn’t be the case that people suffer to the point where they are compelled to speak, knowing that when they do they are affixing a scarlet letter that will burn through their resume for ever after when they go for another job in the corporate world.
If your company is under threat of going under because you are racist or sexist, or whatever your preferred mode of prejudice is, then you are going to make sure it is a good place to work. The idea that it is some kind of strange PC, liberal ideology that demands you treat people well, rather than just basic common decency, is a thing that needs to end.
Imagine if this becomes a thing you can advertise — that your company has a good work ethic and a great environment, where anyone can work and feel safe. You are probably going to start getting better people applying for the work. And if everywhere adopts this kind of thinking, might we not drive the cockroaches into the light, where we can all deal with them — whether that means just putting them outside, or whacking them with a shoe.
