Change Discourse: Discretionary Effort, Power and Routinization

I have been reading a grand sweeping tome by Yale historian and archaeologist, Ian Morris, called Why the West Rules...for Now. What struck me in the reading is how ancient kings, who orchestrated hierarchical economic systems, claimed deity - and how readily subjects believed in the kings' "mandate of heaven" ... until things went awry, of course. I didn't think it was a matter of rulers simply appointing themselves as gods and then expecting everyone to believe it - there must be something much, much more unconscious and instinctive going on. This supports Joseph Campbell's thesis that, until now, each age gets the mythology it needs to support its social/technical/economic arrangement. 

People prefer order until it chafes. They get their sense of tribe and belonging via the social order and organization, if not the day to day rituals, the situating of one's activities in the scheme of things.  People tell themselves (internalize and identify with) the prevailing story (or mythology) in order to feel more socially and economically secure. This explains the dismal fate of many would-be change agents in the distant and recent past and the depressing mantra of "that's just how it is - it's never going to change." Usually there is some kind of "reaction formation" (e.g., today's fundamentalisms) before there is change.

With that in mind, think about the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant said "Have the courage to use your own understanding!" How does this tie to high demand/low control situations at work and employee engagement?

I was at a workshop facilitated by Julie Diamond last fall called "Deep Democracy." A very interesting discussion occured about people defaulting to routine/process during work time, and not bringing their personal powers (talents and abilities) into the converstion. There's a certain amount of risk involved and courage required to use personal power in a more or less hierarchical situation, but engagement requires it. (The hierarchical order isn't necessarily embodied in individuals, but in organizational norms and habits of belief.) 


It's important to feel that you bring your whole self into work. This ties directly to high demand / low control issues often referred to in discussions of workplace stressors, because the definition of engagement includes the willingness to invest discretionary effort (which would require a good degree of freedom from control) to achieving the organization's objectives. 


So now the question is, what would allow people to apply more discretionary effort? How can we loosen up whatever version of "the divine right of kings" mythology that the organization is labouring under, and today's kings are just those bureaucratic norms of discourse that provide default support to initiative-sapping routines and hierarchies.

Change Discourse: Power Relationships

I’m starting to get an inkling about why people resist change and, believe me, if you think words like “attitude” might sum it up, you’re just going to have nightmares reading this.  In the process of reading Ian Morris’s Why the West Rules - for Now, it became quite evident to me that it was during the so-called “Enlightenment” that people’s thought structures began to detach from the hierarchically inspired mythos of the preceding eras of history and the idea of democracy and ideal of the “rule of law” occurred to people. It was wonderful, however brief. 

Up until that time, political organization was roughly the same as a grand protection racket. Some of you may think that little has changed, but in fact things have changed immensely. Nevertheless, we are backsliding.

What does the pre-enlightenment “divine right of kings” mythos give us? How does it feed and nurture the so stable pillars of our mindset? How does it keep us holding on to something we see as sane in a complex and dangerous world?

It gives us a self-contained little cosmos with us at the centre.

It gives us clear cut rules of social engagement.

It gives us the acceptable routes to and rites of kinship (e.g., the walk down the aisle and father giving his daughter as a bride to his son-in-law)

It gives us the limits of acceptable convention and the unacceptably unconventional or "weird". 

It gives us the limits of civilized and uncivilized behaviour, e.g., the ideal of professionalism that allows you to bring only 10% of yourself to work.

It gives a small group of people full permission to lead and direct the course of events to their own advantage.

So, what has changed? 

The introduction of the “rule of law” is a vast improvement over the "divine right of kings" mythos if it protects the ideal that each person can be the captain of their destiny, the ideal of everyone having the right to develop and express themselves in mutually beneficial ways (or in ways that do no harm to others).  

But let's face it, we remain to a large extent under the yoke of the ancient mythos, this vestigial patriarchy and hierarchy that so many on the modern ideological bandwagon think had been overthrown three hundred years ago. 

We have sold away a lot of our enlightenment thinking to buy swiffer-clean houses, big box convenience and the North Pacific Garbage Patch. So the rule of law reverts to might is right - until the yoke gets tight. Given that our identities are inexorably tied to the worldview of the group or community we identify with and measure ourselves against.

Seems that we are only the least bit interested in liberty when it is obviously threatened. I think today our numbing of the intellect to avoid facing the Darth Vader that haunts our economic and socio-political realities is what threatens us most. The most disturbing thing is that the numbing is the Darth Vader. 

It takes courage and humanity to develop real understanding in any era, Enlightenment, post-Enlightenment. We think we look better in the dark, perhaps.