| The Demise of Loyalty | for everyone |
I know the good old days are viewed through a rose-colored lens of time and (usually) weren't as good as we want to remember. Still, at the risk of sounding like a whiny old guy pining for a past that perhaps never was...
I seem to remember a time when loyalty was a value that was honored as worthwhile, when it meant something. I remember an exercise in which participants were asked to list three values for which they wanted to be known. Loyalty was a frequent nominee in the summary charts.
I seem to remember when the phrase "loyal employee" meant something to both the employer and employee, something positive. I'm pretty sure that phrase would engender responses ranging from scorn to ridicule to incredulity if it were used in today's world.
I understand that loyalty is a two-way street. I'm certainly not pretending that all employees gave loyalty to their employers, especially in the way that I would define it: giving full effort and value on the job, looking out for the employer by going the extra mile, giving a little extra, appreciating the job, even sacrificing for the common good, etc. But I think many did. I know the people I respected and whom I counted as friends did.
I don't know when that changed. I'm guessing it was gradually, perhaps even imperceptibly, over time. I think it changed when employers stopped seeing work places as two-ways streets, places that benefited both workers and bosses, places that rewarded all stake-holders in the process. I think loyalty slowly moved from a two-way street to a reversible lanes kind of thing, something that employers felt like they could demand of their workers when they needed it, but not something they owed their employees during the hard times.
No doubt, workers, especially those with marketable skills, quickly realized that they, too, could play the game and cut better deals for themselves without worrying about who or what was left behind. They, too, could be disloyal and justify their actions by pointing to the ever-increasing examples disloyalty in both directions. And so it progressed, accelerating until we come to today when places of business have gotten so huge and/or so cold that individuals no longer matter, that individuals are just expendable resources that can be added or subtracted to benefit an impersonal bottom line, a view that alienates both workers and management from each other, that allows each to think, "Why should I care about you? There's no evidence you care about me." Sadly, both become self-fulfilling prophecies.
I understand the why. But I don't like it, for all the good that does. I think the death of loyalty as a value hardens our society, makes it even more of a "What's in it for me" place that must bear at least some blame for our current economic state of affairs. If individuals don't count, and I see less and less evidence that they do, then it seems to me that we are heading down a frightening road, a road that devalues individuals.
In my opinion, what has made the United States different from other societies is not that we've been chosen by God for preeminence, but that as a society, a culture, we valued, far more than any other I know, individuals. For better and for worse, sometimes, individuals and individual stories counted. And, if you look closely at many of those stories, loyalty often played a significant role. It seems that there are fewer and fewer of those stories just as there's less and less loyalty, to anyone or anything. I'd suggest a connection and predict a dark future.
I guess that's what frightens me most. What's next, the disappearance of personal loyalty? Do we start seeing ever-increasing examples of people abandoning their friends because they become inconvenient or don't bring any added value?
I don't know. I accept that I'm perhaps taking a too negative view of things, based on recent personal experiences, both for myself and those I love. I'd like to be wrong. I'd like to help my daughter pass along to her daughter that value of loyalty that Carolyn and I passed on to her through our approach to our careers, our friends, our organizations. But I'm afraid that we'd be doing Becca no favors for the world she'll have to navigate. Because my recent experience with loyalty has been, well, see above (but only because I can't seem to attach it here at the end).
Rhett Oldham wrote on Feb 18, '09
ReplyDeleteBob, great read and interesting points. Unfortunately it is only that.
Employers and employees have danced an uneasy waltz since WWII and in the last decade one partner has figured out that the cheaper partner is global. Cars in Mexico, customer service in the P.I. engineers from India, money from China as well as multiple goods and services.
Now we have become global with a different set of norms and mores to guide us. Gone are the days of nutual respect and a personal relationship even if it were just at work. Now you have people in Belgium laying off people in St Louis because the AB shareholders wanted a little more loot and the Brazilian boss borrowered money up to his bushy eyebrows to make the deal fly.
There are no easy answers, just harder questions.
Bill Berndt wrote on Feb 18, '09
ReplyDeleteI don't pretend to know which was the chicken and which was the egg but I have said many times (and I'm certain you've heard me before) that the Loyalty Train derailed when "Personnel" became "Human Resources." Nothing brings home the esteem in which you are held more than being listed on the books between Hole Punch and Ink Cartridge.
Karen Huts4 wrote on Mar 5, '09
ReplyDeleteI'm still digesting your epistle, but I think that I see a great deal of truth. The "good old days" and the honor of "our pack"....we were good teachers. Your grand daughter is gorgeous!!
Always from a fellow Hancock zealot.... kjf