Too Many Americans Are Still Slaves – By Paul Rux, Ph.D.
As we move
through our course on Organizational Development and Leadership, we constantly
learn about the vital importance of finding and factoring facts in leadership
and management from both theory and practice.
Facts, of course, mean stakeholders in the organization cannot be afraid
to tell, speak the truth. Yes, in
America, we brag about our freedom of speech.
Yes, in practice, the systems in which we work do not welcome freedom of
speech. Organizational politics do not
want to deal with facts, agendas, yes, facts no. Personality disorders also intervene to bully
stakeholders into silence. As a result,
lack of fact-based decision making in organizations of all kinds leads to
increasing dysfunctions. A key reason
is, in fact, our vaunted freedom of speech in America is not welcome in many
organizations.
The ancient
Greeks defined a slave as somebody who was not allowed to speak. Be seen but not heard. Do your work as ordered and keep your mouth
shut. Doesn’t this describe the situation
in most American organizations today? We
do not want to hear facts that upset agendas or egos. Keep your mouth shut and go along with the
program. Keep your mouth shut and don’t
make waves. Be a slave.
Americans like to think that they abolished slavery with our
Civil War. One form of it they did. However, slavery, “Keep your mouth shut,”
survives in different formats today in America.
Of course, the poison it inflicts on human self-worth, dignity,
happiness, respect is a cancer on American society. More and more, Americans are coming to
realize that they are in effect slaves in, to systems, and in time they are
going to lose confidence, trust in and respect for these systems and back away
from them. It is not in Americans to be
slaves. Sooner or later they will
reclaim human freedom, the right to speak up, out, even if it means retreating
to modern versions of “Walden Pond” where authentic people can live.
Paul Rux,
Ph.D., lives in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, one of the few “Walden Ponds” left in
America today.
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