The Fall Guy Syndrome
Have you ever been in a situation where there is so much tension in the office and that to survive you have to play the finger-pointing game? Yes, the classic finger-pointing game. Whoever cannot point to the next guy loses. One of the darksides of corporate life is to have a fair share of finger pointing and washing of hands.
other line that she wants her check not tendered and be pulled out. Girl on the other end takes down everything but she has to leave now because she has an appointment with her OB Gyne. But before she left she did relay the client's instructions to the guy on the next cubicle. Guy got hold of the check and put on his desk to be sure it doesn't go with the batch for clearing. He just went out to get coffee. As he went out, another staff saw the check, and saw the date that it is for today. She looks at the clock, "Oh, no! It's near the cut-off time." She processed the check into the system. The guy got back and was called by the manager to immediately finish his report and forgot about the check since he also did not see it on his desk and got altogether distracted.
The next day client is stark-raving mad. She had her account closed as a result and that she had a lot of future checks issued on that account. She complained to regulatory bodies that this particular bank have incompetent people. Naturally this will get the attention of the higher brass. So now everyone has to explain in writing. What everyone wrote was blaming somebody else and washing their hands off of it. Seeing that this was the branch manager's overall responsibility, and he cannot point a finger to anyone else as higher management had already pointed their fingers on him, he was forced to resign. Higher management comes back to the client and told her that the incompetent manager was sacked and that incident won't happen again. This appeased the client and retracted her lawsuit. Bottom line, the branch manager had to resign or fired because somebody has to take a fall. A sacrificial lamb was needed. That is how the way things work. I am really puzzled by this culture that when something "not good" happens, why does somebody has to be made into a villain. Do not believe we are living in a society where the strongest survive but rather it is a society where the ones who cannot point a finger anymore who loses most of the time.
The point really is that life continues on because somebody took the blame and became the fall guy. Yes, that's why I call this the Fall Guy Syndrome because there has to be a fall guy in order for the world to continue revolving. Until the fall guy has not been identified, the world kinda stops. But once the lamb has been sacrificed, then everything comes back to normal like nothing happened until another fall guy bites the dust (he-hey!). That's how we find solutions to our problems, we have to have an escape goat. That isn't really finding a true solution but we are after is just appeasement.
Not a real incident what I cited above but these things do happen, and this is the pervading culture in the corporate world. Of course, there are exceptions but mostly this is what is happening. Now, where does metaphysics fit in this, you are asking.
Actually Aristotle mentioned something about "Man being a political animal." The great Greek meta-physicist actually is correct but only that he was talking about man's tendency to resort to politicking. It means that humans have a natural tendency to be political and that we can't help it. The operative word is "tendency." If, say, leave 20 people in an island, like the Survivor Island game show experiment, they have to become manipulative and have to play politics to stay in the game and not be voted out. It's not really about who's the strongest physically, but who can do the most subtlest of maneuverings.
Metaphysics is the only thing that can counter these human tendencies we call human nature. The key really is just identify these tendencies and then we can create countermeasures. Once we know the underlying human nature that's causing the problem, then--voila! Problem is now solvable.
In the scenario in the bank, the problem was really not about who did not do their job. It was really not lack of communication too because probably everyone has access to email where they can email everyone and announce that this check is for pulling out. The problem really is lack of empathy. As long as we did enough to wash something off our hands, that is enough for us. If everyone is really emphatic with their jobs, co-workers and clients, I'm sure we'll make sure that everyone will be working for the greatest good of the organization and not the greatest good of their self. If an organization can encourage people to be truly emphatic and less political, the culture that will prevail is sure to result in people being trustworthy, forging genuine camaraderie among colleagues and that everyone has everyone's back.
Quoting Norman Vincent Peale, "Change your thoughts and you change your world." You cannot change everyone but you can certainly change your own thoughts. This is a classic metaphysics thing on how to start having genuine change. If done collectively, this is truly powerful. We follow great leaders not because they have this great leader charisma. We follow them because they have invoked something in us to make us change our thoughts about something and that following that leader will bring about the change we want to happen. (Will delve on this more on the next blog).
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Do you need corporate restructuring culture-wise? Email me at metaphysicsworks@gmail.com.
Thank you for the photos: Photo by Elijah O'Donnell on Unsplash, Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash, Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
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