Since the US Supreme Court decision of "Citizen United", I've asked myself about the long term implications of this decision to corporate cultures, and the impending backlash .
In this decision, the US Supreme Court has established that a legal entity, like a capitalistic, money making corporation, is, like a private individual, a human, entitled to protection of free speech under Article 1 of the US Constitution.
But is a corporation a human with feelings?
A group of humans, sharing the largest part of the day together, action driven but creating expressed and repressed emotions and feelings?
Are companies like a family, sometimes functional, most of the time dysfunctional?
And if dysfunctional, what is the real work needed to make it a bit more functional?
We'll explore this theme in various blog posts.
Today, I want to explore the implicit hiatus and disconnect baked in the apparently "caring" message which companies send their employees, when telling them 'we "care" about you'.
Indeed, for human resources and motivation development reasons, companies often portray themselves as "caring for us".
But does a free supply of food, like at the Twitter cafeteria or on the Google campus mean that the Google Board of Director cares for the employees the same way they care for their family?
When phrased that way, the answer obviously appears to be "no".
Our rational brains tell us that those "benefits" are just a way to manipulate the employees into a higher productivity: stay on the campus a bit longer, work a bit harder, and tell your friends about how wonderful working there actually is.
The problem is that, beneath the surface lies the seed of a fundamental deception.
If and when the times will get hard (because they will, even for Google, Twitter and Facebook), the potential for an immense disappointment exists.
It is there, built-in already, not only waiting to disappoint (of course) those who will receive their pink slip, but more importantly for those who will survive the big lay-off.
Their heart will turn sour and angry, at this corporate culture who now seems double-faced, after having told us that they "cared".
Employees will forget that they gave their tacic acknowledgement to this "trade".
Yes, it is easy to accept the free food and drinks.
But the second part of the "human resources deal" is left in the shadow: you are expendable, and when our corporate blind spot will suddenly emerge, it will be too late.
And so, I posit, corporations and companies are not functional families, where one can verbalize safely the negative consequences which are looming in case of danger.
Companies, thus, have to work harder at establishing a true and honest communication of what is the real "deal" passed between themselves and their employees.
Doing so sends the message across the organization that it is OK to talk about what is not talked about.
And so, maybe, through the capillaries of the corporate entity, the true voices of the organization will surface, bringing back to the HEART of the system the weak warning signals demanding a necessary change.