Pariah Professions: II

We began to explore pariah professions last time, when we defined them as professions regarded within the enterprise as "outsiders." That view needn't be universal. That is, the people in Finance might regard the people in Engineering as "less than" because, as the people in Finance might say, "the engineers are more concerned with adding new features than they are with generating revenue." The Engineers might have similarly low regard for Testers, but the people in Finance might be neutral about Testers. A profession that is a pariah to one group might not be a pariah to another.

When one profession regards another as a pariah, the disregard can be symmetric. Pairings that often have low regard for each other include Engineering with Finance, Marketing with Product Development, Product Development with Product Testing, Doctors with Nurses, and Attorneys with People Who Aren't Attorneys. And in some organizations, for people looking for a pariah, there's always Tech Support.

In the society at large, social outsiders often lead lives of relative economic deprivation. In organizational life, the economic extremes can be much less pronounced, but compensation is often correlated with pariah status.

In organizations that permit some professions to regard others as pariahs, people exhibit behaviors that limit organizational potential. Here are two classes of behaviors related to information management.

Passive deception

When representatives of a pariah profession encounter opposition as they attempt to carry out their duties, some might resort to passively deceptive tactics, which are efforts intended to prevent detection of actual capabilities and plans. For example, employees of a financial control unit might entertain appeals for policy waivers from some politically powerful parties, while other employees of that same financial control unit — possibly even the same employees — assert to other less powerful parties that waivers are never granted.

Passive deception can be a tempting expedient in dealing with opposition. Still, its effects are caustic and durable.

Information hoarding

To defend against perceived or anticipated actions by members of pariah professions, some When one profession regards
another as a pariah, the
disregard can be symmetricemployees conceal information from members of pariah professions who need that information to properly carry out their responsibilities. The concealers feel justified, because they perceive the pariah's behavior as subverting organizational goals. This behavior can be symmetric; members of pariah professions also conceal information if they feel that they will be hindered in carrying out their duties if the information is made available internally.

These behaviors are especially toxic, because they only add to the tension between the pariah profession and other professions.

Passive deception and information hoarding are representative of a rich catalog of behaviors observable in organizational cultures that tolerate pariahdom. There are, of course, many better ways to be. Whether or not they are in reach for you depends on your position and your courage. First in this series   Top    Next Issue

Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Conflict Management:

The Fine Art of Quibbling

We usually think of quibbling as an innocent swan dive into unnecessary detail, like calculating shares of a lunch check to the nearest cent. In debate about substantive issues, a detour into quibbling can be far more threatening — it can indicate much deeper problems.

Managing Pressure: Milestones and Deliveries

Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status — they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part III of a set of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.

What Do You Need?

When working issues jointly with others, especially with one other, we sometimes hear, "What do you need to make this work?" Your answers can doom your effort — or make it a smashing success.

Indicators of Lock-In: II

When a group of decision makers "locks in" on a choice, they can persist in that course even when others have concluded that the choice is folly. Here's Part II of a set of indicators of lock-in.

Preventing the Hurt of Hurtful Dismissiveness

When we use the hurtfully dismissive remarks of others to make ourselves feel bad, there are techniques for recovering relatively quickly. But we can also learn to respond to these remarks altogether differently. When we do that, recovery is unnecessary.

See also Conflict Management and Workplace Politics for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 21: Choice-Supportive Bias

Choice-supportive bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to evaluate our past choices as more fitting than they actually were. The erroneous judgments it produces can be especially costly to organizations interested in improving decision processes. Available here and by RSS on April 21.

And on April 28: The Self-Explanation Effect

In the learning context, self-explanation is the act of explaining to oneself what one is learning. Self-explanation has been shown to increase the rate of acquiring mastery. The mystery is why we don't structure knowledge work to exploit this phenomenon. Available here and by RSS on April 28.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenGBFYqdeDxZESDSsjner@ChacmtFQZGrwOdySPdSsoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   

Bullet Points: Mastery or Madness?

Decision-makers in modern organizations commonly demand briefings in the form of bullet points or a series of series of bullet points. But this form of presentation has limited value for complex decisions. We need something more. We actually need to think. Briefers who combine the bullet-point format with a variety of persuasion techniques can mislead decision-makers, guiding them into making poor decisions. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.