The Dark Side of human responses — The Force in organisation, part VI
Human responses in organisation tend to produce patterns of separation and resentment which destroy partnership.
It’s natural, instant. And it builds more… more separation,
more resentment. Less and less partnership.
As we begin to work in partnership, with good intentions,
something turns up. One party takes on the burden, the other is grateful. As
the burdened party takes on more burden, power, responsibility… the other is
alienated, ‘done to’, disempowered. Or, increasingly entitled and demanding.
Worse — we put a third person in the middle, their job:
to meet the needs the empowered and disempowered have of each other — to be in
the middle.
These dynamics are real — but we don’t see our instinctive,
reflex response making it worse.
The Force is at work, the easy path to Burdened Tops,
Oppressed Bottoms, Stretched and Torn Middles, and Righteously Screwed Customers.
The Jedi resists this pull, creates the independence of
mind to act not reflexively, but in service of the system.
Do you recognise some of these patterns in your
organisation? Uneven distribution of burden, responsibility? What would it mean
to act in service of the system?
