The demise of workplace loyalty

Modern leadership courses emphasize many things, but loyalty to one’s workplace is not one of them. Loyalty (my definition of it) is considered to be old-fashioned; what’s important is being able to navigate the many and continual changes that come your way as an employee. Don't become too attached to anything because it could all change tomorrow. Don't become too attached or loyal to a project, a job, or a good leader. Be ready to let go of all of it immediately, because you may very well be asked to do that. Be ready for change at all times. That is the modern workplace mantra.  

As long as employees do not resist the many changes that are foisted upon them, they are considered 'loyal' in the way that management likes. That is the modern definition of workplace loyalty. If management decides that an employee should move to a new location and start anew, it is expected that the employee do that without questioning the wisdom of their decision. Modern workplace loyalty is doing and saying what workplace leadership wants you to do and say; it is not doing and saying what is often the truth and what is often best for oneself and one’s workplace, because the truth is generally not appreciated, or rather, management does not often wish to be reminded of it, especially when it comes into conflict with the plans and strategies that management wishes to implement. Most managers are not interested in hearing your thoughts/opinions about their decisions, whether they are about your job or the workplace at large. If management decides that a merger is the best course of action for a workplace, they effectuate it even if most employees are opposed to it. That has been my experience in huge public sector workplaces. Employees must simply find a way to deal with the outcome, even if it is an obvious failure on many levels. If management decides that personnel budget cuts are the way to reduce operating costs, they effectuate them, despite the protests and complaints by the employees affected directly by them. If management decides that the remaining employees are to do the work of the employees who have been let go, they will put a spin on that decision and foist it upon the remaining employees. If productivity decreases as a result of this decision, management will not allow employees to remind them that this is a direct result of the budget cuts. Management refuses to face the truth--that it is not possible for two people to do the work of five. Modern workplaces are all about saving money ad nauseam but making sure that top leaders get the generous salaries they feel they deserve. And so on. 

Leaders would rather not have to deal with such a tiresome virtue as loyalty, with employees who want what's best for their workplace, who like their workplace, their colleagues, the camaraderie, the shared history, and the interesting projects. It's difficult for most employees to live up to the version of modern worker that most modern workplaces want. The same idea applies when discussions of open office landscapes come up; management will push through that idea despite protests from employees who know from the start how the noise and chaos of open landscapes will affect their productivity. They are not listened to. They are expected to be sheep; just follow management's lead and accept the consequences. If the decision proves to be a huge mistake, they'll find a way to gloss over it so that it is never defined as a mistake. Ergo, it will not be possible to learn from mistakes because there aren't any. 

I don’t understand workplaces that refuse to listen to the good advice and ideas of their employees who have worked there for many years, who know the history of their workplaces and the risks involved in going down a particular path. It’s almost as though the longer you work in one place, the more risk you pose to the implementation of the plans and strategies of management, because they know that long-term employees perhaps cannot adapt or might not want to adapt as readily as short-term employees. They are too loyal to the old way of doing things. I can understand this from management’s point of view, but it’s disconcerting to realize that history, experience, and general knowledge are not valued in the same way as they once were. It’s disconcerting to watch a workplace under new management make the same mistakes as were made ten years ago under an older management. It’s disconcerting to know that they did this because they did not want to listen to the long-term employees. It's disconcerting to watch how long-term employees are pushed aside or frozen out in favor of the younger ones who are more malleable. Eventually, the longer you stay in one workplace out of a misguided sense of loyalty, the less valuable you are to that workplace. That is the definition of a modern workplace. It is no wonder that younger people are less ‘loyal’ in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Why hang around when your ideas and advice are not valued? Many of them shift jobs without compunction after five or seven years. I’ve come to see that as a good thing. I started my career with that attitude, because I felt that at the seven-year mark, one perhaps needed a change of venue. It was important to move on in order to grow and develop. But that was a different era when loyalty between employer and employee was a two-way street. Employers may not have wanted you to leave, and they did their utmost to keep you. That is no longer true. But then I moved to a small country with considerably less career opportunities, and suddenly I had to face the reality that it wouldn’t be easy to shift jobs the way I might have been able to do had I stayed in my own country. So I stayed in one place, in one department, at one hospital. I pursued a doctoral degree, did a postdoc, and became a scientist, all at the same workplace. Many of my colleagues have been the same people for the past thirty years. I grew to like that for the most part—the sense of familiarity and shared history. Thirty years went by. But during the past ten to fifteen years, much has changed, perhaps not unexpectedly. The sense of familiarity and shared history are gone. They have been replaced by a feeling that the sands are constantly shifting under one’s feet. Employees come and go. Decisions are made, work groups established to implement them, and then they are abandoned for reasons that are unclear. Few people seem to complain about the waste of time and effort involved in this type of decision-making, not to mention the huge costs involved. Everything has become very fluid and relative. It often feels like the foundations are no longer strong, or that they are now being built upon shifting sands rather than on solid ground. Many long-term employees have adapted to multiple and continuous changes, but it took time, probably much longer than management preferred. The result however is that long-term employees stand alone. They feel alone and perhaps abandoned. They feel devalued and useless to some extent. The sense of shared history is gone. The sense of pulling together for a real and important goal is gone. It’s a strange feeling. I haven’t decided yet whether I like it, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is that management likes this way of doing things.

Reflections on freedom, commitment, and following your own path

I reflected this morning on this short citation from the gospel of Luke (Luke 9:62), because it struck a chord in me: And Jesus said to him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. 

Once again, it seems as though Christ is being unnecessarily harsh with us humans, but the priest gave his interpretation of these words and meant that it had more to do with our freedom to commit to a path, and to not let ourselves be distracted by the myriad of duties and the demands of others that distract us each day from the commitments we make freely. The priest emphasized the 'freedom' aspect of the commitments we make. If we make those commitments freely, we are bound to honor them (with freedom comes responsibility). That is the gist of what Christ is saying here. If we choose to follow Christ in this life, we do so freely, we commit to that path. And we cannot look back; we cannot allow ourselves to be pulled off the path by family, friends, or others who do not understand that commitment or who do not wish us well.

This saying could be applied to many aspects of our lives; we must forge ahead on the path we choose freely despite setbacks, despite misunderstandings, despite outright hostility at times. There are family situations I remember well from my childhood, where some adults irrationally demanded loyalty from children in situations where children should never have been asked to choose sides or to prove their loyalty. But the adults behaved irresponsibly, childishly, or in a demanding way that was often frightening to children. Breaking away from those adults was tough, but necessary, in order to create a life unencumbered by those adult problems. The breaking away was done in a loving manner, but in a firm way. It had to be so. The adults had to be made to understand that their lives were their lives, and that the children's lives were not simply extensions of their own. The children would never have made anything of their lives if they had had to accommodate and acquiesce to the petty wishes of those adults. Similarly in marriage; a childish or narcissistic spouse will try to hinder the growth of his or her partner, will try to pull them off the road that their spouses have chosen freely. Sometimes love is destroyed by that behavior; other times the behavior is tolerated, but the repercussions may not be good ones. You know you are in the presence of narcissistic people who do not wish you to follow your own path, when nothing you do for them is good enough, when their demands drown out your own wishes and goals for your life, when your daily life becomes nothing more than slavery to such people. This cannot be allowed to happen, and yet it does, every day somewhere in the world, because the behavior of narcissists is enabled by the ability to make others feel guilty and to feel inadequate. Narcissists play on our guilt and inadequacies; narcissists are 'people of the dark', not 'people of the light'. I think that is what Christ is really saying. I think he is saying that we are each unique individuals with our own road to follow, and that we have our unique talents and gifts to make our own individual journeys. Freely committing to our own path means not enabling others to freeload on our paths, means insisting that others do 'their own work' on their own paths, means disconnecting with those people who are unhealthy and who do not wish us well. We know this instinctively, but we let guilt and pity enslave us. Christ is saying, follow me freely. Your life may not be easy, but it will be yours. And that is all we (men, women, children) can ask for in this life--the freedom to choose our own lives and to follow the path that is uniquely ours.

Quotes about loyalty

Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life.

--Napoleon Hill

Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence. 

--Colin Powell

Honor your commitments with integrity. 

--Les Brown

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. 

--Mother Teresa

I married an archaeologist because the older I grow, the more he appreciates me. 

--Dame Agatha Christie

Dogs are better than human beings because they know but do not tell. 

--Emily Dickinson

Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby. 

--George Herbert

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.

--Mark Twain

Patriotism is just loyalty to friends, people, families.

--Robert Santos

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good. 

--Thomas Paine

Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down. Respect for one’s superiors; care for one’s crew.

--Grace Murray Hopper

If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die. 

--Maya Angelou

Saying goodbye to loyalty in the workplace

A colleague and friend retired this past week after a long work life (forty years). As is often the case with employees who retire from my workplace, she will come in to work from time to time as a consultant to help with specific projects that require her expertise. At her retirement party, there were several speakers who commented on her expertise and her dedication to her work. But one speaker in particular commented on her loyalty to her workplace, her willingness to speak up when there were problems, and her desire to help make it a better workplace by speaking up, even if it put her in an unpopular position with management. He commented on the fact that the workplace doesn’t need and won’t function at all with only yes-men and yes-women, but rather with employees who are willing to speak up and to say no when necessary. In other words, such employees are willing to stick out their necks, to rise above the radar, to create discussion and debate when warranted and to take responsibility for their choices. They are willing to risk disagreements with management and to risk unpopularity with fellow colleagues who would rather they kept their mouths shut rather than create discord. You would think the workplace would encourage these sorts of behavior and would want to hire such people—people who open their mouths, tell the truth, and are honest, trustworthy and loyal. These are the people who are the backbone of an organization, who know it in and out, who know the history of a workplace (for better and for worse), and who can tell you how the system and infrastructure function. In other words, these types of employees are worth their weight in gold, in my opinion.

The opposite is true these days, that workplaces seem to only want yes-employees around them. It’s fairly simple to figure out--it makes life easier for everyone, especially management. But it may not be a smart management philosophy in the long run. There are several reasons for that, which the speaker above touched upon. He meant that it was necessary for employees to speak up in order to prevent a workplace from disintegrating, to prevent it from self-destruction. When I think about it what he said, it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, there is too much of the opposite—employees who simply agree with the boss when asked their opinions about a specific issue. If you are asked your opinion, and the only thing that preoccupies you is figuring out what management’s stance would be so that you can parrot management’s ideas back to your boss, who will be pleased that you are in agreement with them, then you are a good employee, at least these days. To voice the dissenting opinion, to talk against a specific management philosophy or dictate, to relate the problems associated with the aforementioned, are death knells for your career advancement. If you are direct, honest, willing to debate and discuss, have a sense of an organization’s history, bring up problems, or otherwise ‘bother’ management, you are not valued, or not valued as highly as those who nod and agree with the boss. And of course from a boss’s perspective, the path of least resistance is to promote the employee who agrees with you and your business philosophies and strategies. I get it. I just don’t agree with it. And I cannot see how this makes for a healthy workplace. But I’m of the old school, and grew up during a time when honesty, directness and loyalty were valued.

Some types of managers will tell you the following when you bring up a problem that exists in a workplace: that you are too focused on how things were done in the past (when you bring up historical references for how that problem may have been dealt with previously), that you need to forget the past and focus on the here-and-now, or that you are too direct, or that what you bring up is really not a problem (even though it really is), to name a few responses. They like to talk a blue streak about conflict resolution and the rampant belief that all problems can be resolved; my answer to this is that not all problems can be resolved, just as not all people can truly get along, and in fact to believe so is remarkably naïve and possibly dangerous. Of course, if all employees simply nod their heads and ‘agree’ to a particular resolution, regardless of whether they agree with it or not, then ‘conflict resolution’ has been achieved. But it’s not honest resolution. In the long-run, this type of agreement is not healthy for an organization. Because the result is that dissension rather grows in the corridors. Employees talk about and against management’s philosophies and strategies instead of talking directly to management. There are a lot of rumors and gossip. Management for its part thinks that all employees are happy with the status quo, and so on, and are free to proceed with their plans. But there is a reason for why employees play the yes-men role: they are afraid for their jobs. If you are not in a protected position (where you cannot get fired, e.g. civil service jobs), you can find yourself without a job when the first round of budget cuts comes along. Because the name of the game now is to save as much money as possible—that is the current management strategy—and you put yourself first on the cut list if you are a ‘dissenter’.

It seems to me that loyalty is a dying virtue in the workplace in any case. There is no objectively good reason to be loyal to a workplace anymore, because that workplace will not be loyal to you in return, not in the age of budget cuts and streamlined efficiency. There is no contract between an employee and his or her workplace anymore, the way there seemed to be in my parents’ generation. The workplace has changed enormously during the past thirty years. It would be unrealistic to assume that it would not. The changes may be for the good in some ways; I am in a wait and see mode. There are certainly long-term employees who have abused their positions, just as there are companies that have abused their long-term employees. But at present, there does not seem to be much point in sticking around in one workplace for years anymore; in fact, it may be a liability to do so, unless you find a workplace that values loyalty. Younger people coming into the workplace at present know that their prospects of landing a permanent job (cannot be fired) in an organization are few to none. Companies will not offer such positions now; young people know this and know that they will be out of a job after four or five years, after they have fulfilled training courses or reached the limit in terms of how far they can progress in one position. There is thus no real point in getting too attached, too involved, too dedicated or too interested in what goes on in your workplace; you won’t be there for more than four or five years. You know you will be moving on. The workplaces of the future seem to be places where mutual utilization of each other will define how things are done. Loyalty will be reserved for the personal arena—loyalty to family and to friends. Perhaps this is the way it should be. But a part of me still feels that it should not be necessary to comment on an employee’s loyalty at the end of a long work life—that this type of loyalty should be more the rule than the exception. My guess is that the workplaces of the future will be defined by short-term employees working on short-term projects that are led by short-term managers; employees and bosses will be project-dedicated but not necessarily workplace-dedicated or workplace-loyal. They know they are dispensable, that they can be fired, replaced at will, or rehired, but also that they can move easily from one workplace to another, without the feeling of attachment that long-term workers often feel after many years in their workplaces. The white collar workplaces of the future will be more like factories—producing what they produce without much attention paid to those who are doing the producing. But in return, the employees will receive training and a good income, but no more. Expectations of career advancement within one company will taper off, especially if an employee reaches an income level that is non-sustainable for the company. It will be cheaper to hire younger workers without much experience. In this way, loyalty will be discouraged and eventually obliterated. A glum scenario, perhaps, or perhaps not. Time will tell.  

Sexcapades

This past week the news has been dominated by sex scandals—some of them of an (alleged) illegal criminal nature and some of them not. What they have in common is that the men involved in all cases risked their marriages, personal lives and reputations to live out their different sexual fantasies. Again, I have to ask the question, what were these men thinking? But I know I won’t get a satisfactory answer. Or I’ll get the standard wisecrack answer—they weren’t—it was their second brain that was doing the thinking.

This time it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who ‘took full responsibility’ and stepped up to the proverbial plate to inform us about his extramarital affair with one of his household staff members and the resulting love child. The news was apparently kept secret even from his wife Maria Schriver, who when she heard it from him apparently a few months ago, promptly moved out of the house. They are currently separated and will likely divorce. When I first heard the news I thought, yet another male politician who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Really, what is the world coming to, I ask you? One politician after another caught up in the arms of sleaze—affairs with household staff/servants (Schwarzenegger and a few of our country’s founding fathers), dabblings with prostitutes (Eliot Spitzer), oral sex with congressional pages and sex with nightclub singers (Bill Clinton), adultery with women sneaked into the White House (John F. Kennedy), adultery with an Argentinian girlfriend (Mark Sanford) and adultery with other (healthy younger) women while their wives struggled with cancer (Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, and a few other men I know of who are not politicians). The latter especially is distressing to read about if you own an iota of empathy, because you know that the news that your husband is fooling around or having children with another woman while you battle cancer cannot be anything other than immensely stressful precisely at the time when you need little to no added extra stress. And how sad to leave this life knowing that your husband was a ‘rotter’ as my mother would have called these types of men. What a thing to forgive, and can you really? What a betrayal—the ultimate betrayal. Even if you did live, could you trust a man again? Again I find it hard to believe that men can behave this way. Of course I know that there are two sides to every story. If I didn’t write that here I’d be reminded of it by some well-meaning person. And I agree, there are two sides to every story. But it’s hard to find equivalently awful stories about female politicians who behave in this way toward their husbands. I’d like to know about them, I really would.

I have been witness to some strange male (and female) relationship behavior during the past thirty years, so I know that bad behavior does happen. I know of married men who traveled under assumed names to meet their lovers so that their wives wouldn’t find out, I know of men who were on message boards and internet dating sites passing themselves off as single when in fact they were married, I know of men who were fooling around with their current wives while their soon-to-be ex-wives were succumbing to cancer, I know of men who strung women along for years telling them that they would marry them and then dropping them the minute they found the woman they ‘wanted to marry’. I know of swinging couples and wife-swappers; of men who lied to women about being ‘separated’ in order to get a woman to sleep with them. I know of men who travel on business who pick up prostitutes and call girls when they are in another city. I know of married men who offered to be sperm donors for single women and whose wives would probably not have appreciated the offers had they known about them.  I also know of women (married and single) who have contacted the wives of the men they have decided to seduce, to tell the wives that they and the husbands are very attracted to each other and that if the husband hadn’t been married they would be together. I know of women who pursue married men on social network sites, by email, and via text messages. I know of women who worked for men who told them at the outset that they’d like to be their mistresses, who ended up being so, and who ended up marrying them after causing hell for the wives involved. In Norway alone, infidelity in marriage occurs in one of two marriages according to what I hear from other people and from news reports; I have no way of knowing whether this is true, since most people would never talk about this honestly. In turn, I know of wives who fought back and told some of these women off and told their husbands off at the same time. I know of some women who divorced the louts they were living with. I know of some wives who really fought back—when their husbands went to live with the other women and the scorned wives made their lives a living hell. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You bet. And maybe it’s good that it is that way at least in some cases. But sometimes I believe in divorce as the solution to painful hellish lives. I’ve seen a number of abusive and depressing marriages during my growing up—drunken men who hit women, eternal flirters and skirt-chasers who were never happy with the women they had at home, or men who always had to have the last word—who controlled their wives and families with an iron fist. And this took place/takes place in Westernized society. So every time people say to me that women have it so much better in our neck of the world, I remind them of this, and then we come down a few notches on the ‘everything is great for women in our society’ scale.

Which brings me to the men and women I know who are unsung heroes in my book. The men and women who have stayed married through thick and thin without cheating, without abuse, without carping. Who start each day with a smile and who never cease to amaze me with their cheerfulness and helpful spirits. Who are loyal and kind to their spouses and children. Who have probably been tempted to leave a few times in their lives, but didn’t, because they put the happiness and needs of their spouses and families ahead of their own. Who stuck by spouses in times of sickness—the true test of love. I’ve seen what sickness in one or the other partner can do to relationships, so I know it’s not easy. Loyalty is underrated in our society these days. But it is what makes marriages and friendships last. Without it, there can’t really be much trust. You have to be able to see into the future and ‘know’ with your gut that the person you share your life with will be there for you when you are sick, when you need help, and vice versa. No one said it would be easy. Maybe you’d like to run at the first sign of trouble. But maybe you didn’t; maybe you wrestled with your doubt and anxiety and temptation and stayed put. These are the people who impress me. You don’t need to climb Mt. Everest or practice extreme sports or any of those things to impress me. ‘That don’t impress me much’, as Shania Twain sang a few years ago. What does impress me is longevity and the ability to be positive and cheerful in a marriage. I’m not saying that all people should stay together for an entire lifetime; I’ve already argued for divorce as a solution to hellish relationships. But if after some years of being together, an otherwise decent marriage loses a bit of its luster and temptation comes one’s way, maybe one should take a closer look at what one has before tossing it away for a sexcapade. It is possible to stay faithful, and I know couples married for forty or more years who have been faithful to one another. They say so, they are still in love with their spouses, and they are my heroes.