The curse of corporate culture

American Thinker ^ | 22 Sep, 2023 | Mark C. Ross

[MtnClimber]

If you were to do an internet search, you'd find mostly positive statements about the benefits of corporate culture. Then again, if you were to look for a book about the evils of communism published in China, Cuba, or Venezuela — you'd come up empty-handed.

There's also the term "corporate socialism." Enlightened management knows what is best for the workers — including what they do after work. After all, everybody belongs to a team. It is all about team work.

I once attended a trade association meeting where a representative from a company located in Berkeley addressed the attendees and bragged about how his company cared so much for its workers. Not only were they not allowed to smoke at work, but they couldn't do it at home, either.

I also happened to have a deep business relationship with another Berkeley company. My company instituted an individual productivity bonus program as a way to encourage greater worker efficiency. There was a significant administrative cost in the accounting of each worker's production, but worker morale and company profit were both significantly improved. Our people loved getting that extra check every month. The Berkeley associate was so impressed that his company adopted a similar program...except that it awarded team bonuses, and the results were unimpressive. This is a serious example of why socialism doesn't work. It also reveals the corporate culture of Berkeley, California.

Just a hint at a key to success in such endeavors: I use the typical Las Vegas casino as a reference. When someone hits a jackpot on a slot machine and starts shrieking with joy, the other players start playing harder and faster. We rigged the bonus system to make sure the goals were well within reach. We wanted to see winners.

[MtnClimber]

An interesting article. It would be a great article for high school civics class (if they have that anymore) except many teachers would see themselves negatively portrayed.

[cuban leaf]

I retired in June of 2021 for two reasons: First, I had a very mild mini-stroke, which gave me the excuse to quit immediately. Second, and more importantly, I had simply had it with corporate culture. The final straw was when I sent an email out just after we started WFH (early April of 2020) and I discovered a great site that tracked covid stats. You all remember it - worldometers.info.

Anyway, I titled the email thusly: “Great ChinaVirus info”, using the name given the virus by the leader of the free world.

My manager received a formal complaint from one of the women on my team that my title was racist. She was a single woman who had adopted two chinese children and felt “threatened”.

That happened over a year before I retired, but I had quiet quit before that. My productivity was quite close to zero for that entire time, even though everyone praised thw work I was doing. I found out, a few months ago, that EVERYONE was getting pretty much nothing done. And then, this month, I see the company’s lease on 14 floors of prime downtown Louisville office space expired and they chose not to renew, moving it ALL to their old mid-century office a few blocks away - An old Sears retail store. 🤣

[Ezekiel]

Nice article.

Of course the pattern fits religion to a T (the root of 'corporate culture'), but oh that's somehow different. After all,

Got questions? We're open, honest, and sincere! We're humble, beautiful people! We've got answers! Ask away! The quiet part: just as long as you fall into lockstep with the party line when you're done. (No shortage of parties to choose from.)

>>>

In case you haven't noticed, government [ahem] at all levels is also totally mired in its own corporate culture. To me, the most obvious evidence is the aversion to actual problem-solving. To both bureaucrats and elected clones, problem-solving success is measured only by the amount of money thrown down the appropriate rat hole...

...problems persist, even though enormous amounts of money are being spent. In practice, this is not an unintended consequence — persistent problems are the mother's milk of political [ahem] careers. If problems got solved, we wouldn't need to keep these slugs on the taxpayer's payroll.

<<<

Haman Resources Departments pride themselves on their eagle-eyed scrutiny, always on the ball to reject all of the 'unqualified' candidates. Lord knows you can't have the wrong guy get into a position to actually solve problems (well, unless we can treat him like a chump and take all of the credit), because there goes the Establishment.

The secular world is a living parable. Egyptian bondage.

[caddie]

I would say that corporate culture nowadays is like a darkened room filled with coral snakes with AIDS.

The person writing this article has obviously never worked in any corporation of significance.

The TEAM bull$#!t is a common theme with corporate people.

It superficially suggests camaraderie, but actually is Cloward-Piven.

With its 'incident report' and 'anonymous feedback' options, it allows a crybaby minority janitor the ability to attack an executive (invariably a conservative or unwoke person) and leaves the executive no means of reply or recourse.

So the specious complaints pile up against the conservative executive, and he is eliminated: "Everyone on the TEAM hates him." "He is not a TEAM player." The janitor takes down the 20 year veteran executive with an impeccable record.

What kind of team has a hierarchy like that, where a janitor gets the executive fired? Then Cloward-Piven TEAM.

TEAM. TEAM. TEAM. One of the cleverest implementations of hardcore Marxism that I have ever seen.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[larrytown]

Seems like a lot of lessons didn’t get learned by the Pullman experiment.

[kelly4c]

Someone in the family went white collar a few years ago. The culture is total BS and conducive to cheating the way they push the happy hour BS as if you should want to spend time after a hard 9 hour day with the people you spent all day with instead of family and friends. Not to mention the woke mandatory training module s.

[caddie]

Agreed. It is nauseating.

What it shows is how completely artificial their claim to 'leadership' is.

Let's see, to be a doctor, lawyer, priest, rabbi, architect, farmer, accountant, plumber, chef, builder, skilled tradesman, soldier, sailor, etc.,...

you have to sign on to a group, guild, etc., that goes back a lot of years... from 200 to maybe 10,000 years.

Then, you need to hang out with them pretty much 12 to 24 hours a day for about 10 years before they consider you one of them.

But the MBAs who pretend to know everything about everything, gosh, they didn't even invent that bogus degree until 1950 in the hyped-up phony, academic-decay, post-WW2 Boomer-consumer world.

And the MBAs came out of the gate with so much hype and bullshit that people granted them authority and power which was and is completely undeserved.

Worthless degree that takes one or two years, 9 to 5 tops, weekends free, no call.

Have to make up 'team building exercises' because otherwise there is no stress whatsoever to their 'training'. Never get your hands dirty. Learn a huge vocabulary of bogus MBA-speak. Learn to lie in front of large assemblies.

Learn to fire heads of families by the dozen without losing any sleep over it.

Basically know less than a smart kid who had a paper route for a few years.

So yes, I agree with you, they have to synthesize or 'fake' all this camaraderie and tradition to conceal the fact that they are mere charlatans who know nothing about anything and have no loyalty to or respect for any institution or occupation.

They have invaded medicine because physicians are sheep-like and generate a lot of cash... obviously this is low hanging fruit for worthless grifters like MBAs.

So yeah, I hate MBAs, and all the traitorous MDs who flipped for a few dollars and gave away the ancient and noble profession to a group of people so unprincipled and lazy that they could not even learn a decent trade to feed their families.

Their self-hate and other-hate shows in all their policies, HR being their core doctrine.

Medicine needs to get rid of them quickly.

They are a cancer on decent society.

[Hiddigeigei]

"An interesting article. It would be a great article for high school civics class (if they have that anymore) except many teachers would see themselves negatively portrayed."
My high school civics class was taught by our Home Room teacher who was also the football coach, It was in the late 1940s< I remember it covered three levels of government, Federal, State and County, and the respective powers granted each by the Constitution,

[Hiddigeigei]

"An interesting article. It would be a great article for high school civics class (if they have that anymore) except many teachers would see themselves negatively portrayed."
My high school civics class was taught by our Home Room teacher who was also the football coach. It was in the late 1940s. I remember it covered three levels of government, Federal, State and County, and the respective powers granted each by the Constitution,

[SauronOfMordor]

I remember when my company decided to try “management by consensus”.

What it really turned into was “dictatorship of the most obstinate”. The women execs loved it. They got to talk endlessly, but in the end none of them was accountable.