My thoughts were sparked by this paragraph -
When I still lived in Moscow, journalists who had access to the Kremlin often chided me for taking Putin and his goons too seriously. They didn’t exactly deny that he could have people killed and probably did, or that he was building a dictatorship. They just thought I was making too much of it. It took me a long time to understand that this wasn’t because these men knew more than I did, or even thought they knew more. It was precisely because they shared a world with Putin and his men and saw them as normal, as part of their community. We do not fear those whom we see as being like us; we fear the other.
Normalization.
We've been hearing that a lot these last four years and I think there's something to it. But I wonder if there's also more going on. Something that explains why there seems so little accountability,why we talk of a 'swamp' in Washington. And perhaps, also, why so many of us feel like our politicians, media, and alleged leaders have been such failures.
I mentioned coming up with my own explanation for why we consider politicians corrupt, and how they might miss the signs of it happening. A lot of it was captured in some ethics training we had at our old job, which illustrates that this isn't just about politics, or DC.
Think about any place you visit regularly. A coffee shop, a restaurant, a store...
The first time you're there you're just another customer. Probably the second or third. But as you continue to go, and if you consistently go when the same people are working, you start building a relationship with them. They smile in recognition. Know what you're going to order. Maybe you chit chat while they ring up your purchase.
In business and politics it might cross certain lines - a vendor or lobbyist. Most of it isn't too bad, and of course the lobbyist or sales rep wants to be personable and likeable. Humans are very social, after all. (And we are more easily influenced by people we like. Hence why pharmaceutical sales reps are so scary.)
You might think it's all on the up and up, and that you're clearly keeping your work relationship and personal relationship separate.
Those tickets to a baseball game are just between friends, right? They knew you were a fan and hooked you up. You wouldn't favor them for a contract over it or change your vote, honest!
Except a) it sure doesn't look like that from the outside, and other contractors or lobbyists may (rightfully) be upset about it and b) you probably are more influenced by it than you think.
There are lots of studies regarding the latter (again, look at pharmaceutical sales and the medicines doctors prescribe). Sometimes the firm insistence that you're not biased (honest! I swear!) is actually a sign that you are. Like an unwillingness to recuse yourself from a conflict of interest. (if you're not biased what's the problem with letting someone else make the call? Sounds like you want it to go a certain way, and why is that?)
On a less dramatic level, I also see it with the coworkers who are 'nice'. Or rather, they aren't actually very good at their job but everyone likes them and nobody wants to see bad things happen to them.
Now, despite the pressure businesses have to remain competitive, stay lean, and be productive there's also a negative impact on your people when you fire someone. (there's a lot of business research into the effects of downsizing, FYI). I also think there's a limit to how lean you can go before other negatives appear - like our supply chain not having resilience when dealing with a pandemic, it suppliers trying to cut corners and hurting quality, but I suppose what really would make me heretical in the business world is that I think businesses can be a lot like WoW (World of Warcraft - an MMORPG or massively multi-player online role playing game) guilds.
A friend of mine used to run a guild for Wow, and she commented that some guilds were all about quests and leveling up, while others were more about relaxing and having fun with your friends. You try to find the guilds that suit the way you want to play the game.
Which is a fancy way of saying that if you're making enough money to be profitable and want to keep a 'nice' employee around even if they aren't quite good at their job, well. That's up to you.
But my first post-college job was in the military, and no matter how nice you are I don't want to deal with the potentially deadly consequences of someone who can't do their job right.
Nothing personal, don't hate them or anything, but we can't afford that.
And if you let too many people like that stay, if you never fire for incompetence, your business can start building up dead weight and stop being competitive (which in the long run hurts everyone. You might have had some comfortable years together, but then everyone would be out of a job).
So the only reason to take 'likeability' into consideration is the absence of it. That is, I kind of agree with the 'no asshole rule', people like that will generally do more harm to your company than good. But once you've cleared that bar, the only thing that should matter is your competence.
But 'should' isn't how people work, and I've definitely seen nice but not-so-competent people in a variety of positions.
We don't like seeing bad things happen to people we know. Even when everyone knows someone is a poor performer, people don't like seeing them fired. And downsizing a good employee? It's a reminder that it could happen to anyone, and that your employee doesn't really have any loyalty or care for you.
This is the reality that the vast majority of us live with. It's different for the rich and powerful, though. They soften everything. Your business might decide that the pandemic means you have to downsize by 20%, and you're gone.
But the CEO still gets a couple million on their way out the door.
And members of Congress stall, and argue for leniency, and don't want to see impeachment or censure or the removal of the seditious among them. Perhaps for political reasons, maybe even mostly so. But I'm sure some of that is also because these people are people they know.
And they're more concerned with taking care of those they know than with their duties and onligations to the people they're supposed to work for.
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