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A few thoughts on this, which I will call “The commodification of human decency” 1/ https://twitter.com/stevenshorrock/status/1309516133536600064
Many ideas spring up in the world of management and of organisational behaviour aimed at ‘treating people better’ - humanely. Very few of these - if any - are really new. Mostly, they stem from basic human values, which might be called humanistic values. 2/
Even humanistic values - embodied in the ‘third force’ of psychology known as [yes] humanistic psychology - are not new. They can be found in philosophy and religion, fundamentally in The Golden Rule, for example - the principle of treating others as you want to be treated. 3/
Concepts relating to organisational functioning include for instance ‘just culture’ and ‘psychological safety’. Neither is a new idea. The ideas of justice and fairness are probably as old as the idea of safety. 4/
‘Psychological safety’ - being able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences - is also old, but not as old. It is rooted in family theory, many approaches to counselling and psychotherapy, as well as management. 5/
What is new is the labels. The combination of ‘just’ and ‘culture’, and ‘psychological’ and ‘safety’ makes something (that seems) new, even if it is really just a popularisation of older ideas to a new context or audience, with a different slant, perhaps. And that’s fine. 6/
There no problem in raising awareness of values and ideas that are important expressions of The Golden Rule of humanistic values. 7/
While books are written about these single ideas. Again, not a problem - whole books are written about all sorts of basic or simple concepts. Sometimes we forget the basics of human decency, or goal conflicts mean that we trade aspects of them off against other values. 8/
We sometimes even need to add bureaucratic and technocratic machinations to such concepts. For instance, organisations have adopted just culture decision aids and committees, reflecting a sort of judicial code and jury. Partly this is needed to help integrity of deliberations. 9/
I’m not completely comfortable with some technocratic developments, but equally my own preference (depth of understanding and empathic discussion) is subject to other human tendencies and biases that can act against fairness. 10/
There is no perfect way to integrate certain aspects of human decency into an organisational setting since there will always be competing goals and different perspectives on issues. And some people with significant power work against these values. 11/
We might hope that depth of reflection, empathy and discussion would go a long way to reduce these problematic aspects, but we also know that several dysfunctional aspects of organisations and professions work against these basic activities. 12/
Dysfunctional organisational and professional traits such as déformation professionnelle and trained incapacity mean that our professional ‘upbringing’ get in the way of our humanity, combined with the bureaumorphising effect or organisational culture. 13/
These can combine to have a commodifying effect on how we integrate basic human values into our work. Examples include certification schemes for ‘psychological safety’ and ‘just culture’, among others. 14/
My heart sinks a little when I see these. Who do they benefit? The curricularisation, certification, and call-off contract support for (sometimes trademarked) versions of human decency create revenue streams and dependency but to they create care? 15/
As John McKnight (1995) wrote: “Care cannot be produced, provided, managed, organized, administered, or commodified. Care is the only thing the system cannot produce. Every institutional effort to replace the real thing is a counterfeit.” 16/
So institutional efforts to produce, provide, manage, organise, administer, or commodify basic human decency - including fairness and freedom of expression - are also counterfeit. 17/
That doesn’t mean that efforts should not be made and processes put in place to try to ensure fairness and freedom of expression, for instance. But we should be mindful or what we are doing, and of unintended consequences (or consequences intended by others) of doing so. 18/
Reading and discussion is good to help really reflect on neglected aspects of human decency. Certification, belts, levels, trade-marks and the like - well, these seem to me to be crass attempts to commodify and commercialise human decency. 19/
