`📅 Thought for today:
‘The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.’
— Hannah Arendt
#thoughtfortoday #liars #lying #cheats #badboss #culture #toxic
I am thinking about liars and cheats today.
Strangely these thoughts arise from some work I did with a company on their culture, not from recent political events in the UK.
There was a lot of work to do.
Self-preservation and insecurity had accumulated and festered in the senior team.
This manifested in the attitudes and behaviours of management, which the employees copied.
Managers scrambled over each other to gain praise whilst diminishing each other.
The boss smiled benevolently on anyone who met his approval and was vicious to those that don’t.
Lying and cheating was the norm such that no one knew what the truth was.
I wouldn’t work in a company like that and they wouldn’t employ me anyway, but a new broom has been installed and a clearout saw many departures. Good people have left as well, but enough remain. The culture is changing.
And then Sue Gray publishes an “update” on her report which lands a significant punch, and Mike Lynch loses (for now at least) his case and is set to be deported to the US to stand trial for fraud.
And I look around me and wonder, have we become so used to people in high office lying and cheating their way through life that we no longer are surprised?
And what of those that support and enable the liars and cheaters. Do we judge them, or are we curious what their motives are?
Or do we now shrug our shoulders, realise we are not surprised anymore and do nothing?
