We had loss of power twice this summer in New York (consequence of harsh weather) and all hell broke loose in the developed country setting. Without power, you can do nothing. You just have to go back to the old ways of doing things or purchase a generator for running essential equipment. Anyway, the purpose of this essay is to talk of the change in human behavior without power and relate that to power play at work.
Without power, the neighbors had no TV or telephone. Therefore, they go outdoors and talk with other neighbors, just as they would do in the 1920’s or so much as, they do in most developing countries these days.
“Without power most people are friendly” – this seems a good hypothesis.
If you take a headquarters location like New York, you will see that staff without power (dubbed General Service) is the friendliest of all. If you ever attend a year-end party in UNICEF New York, you will see that mainly the General Service staff are dancing and having a good time. Most of the professional staff are either absent from the party or are standing by the sidelines with a stiff collar and not so friendly. Even otherwise, you attend staff meetings to see that the more senior staff is less friendly.
Therefore, we come up with the next hypothesis – “most powerful people are less friendly.”
I recall a cute conversation that took place in 1981(between two GS staff members in the UNICEF cafeteria in New York, they are now talented professional staff):
Howard: “Hi Mary-E, who is that new GS staff member.” (Pointing to me).
Mary-E: “He is not GS; he is a ‘P’. Why did you think he is GS Howard?”
Howard: “Oh, I thought he was GS because he is so friendly with everyone.”
Even when I reached the ‘D’ level, some of my best friends and most sincere ones too were “GS” and that friendship carries to this day. Of course, we have other friendly “exceptional friendly” staff (very senior), who just had an innate ability to combine friendship with senior position and have a good time at the annual year-end party and other staff gatherings. Seemingly, women out beat men at this task.
Some factual incidents of discrimination I suffered at junior level may be worthy of note.
(1) I was in Bangkok for a Budget Review meeting with another New York GS staffer around the mid-1980’s. We both had no invitation to the party hosted by the Deputy Regional Director because of being too junior. All other headquarters staffs were invited.
(2) Arrive at the airport in Seoul (mid 1980’s). The Representative had arranged only for the Deputy Executive Director to pass through the VIP lounge. The late Karl Eric, the jewel of a man he was, declined this invitation and joined the common people through the common gates. On the other hand, David Haxton had done a fine job to have all his New York visitors through the VIP lounge in New Delhi.
(3) In Bangladesh, (mid-1970’s I think), myself, the Acting Representative and Senior Program Planning Officer had to visit the airport to welcome the new Representative. The Acting Representative insisted that I could not sit in the back seat of the car because I was too junior a professional.
It is easy to distinguish a group or individual with real authority within a group or individual with little power at all. In as much as those with little power must ‘shut-up’ at meetings even if they have better ideas. Part of the problem lies in office size as well in addition to attitudes driven by power.
As numbers exceed 150 or so, then social relationships dilute like water. No wonder, headquarters, regional and large field offices are more impersonal that the smaller field offices. At least division directors/regional directors can consider the “division” or “region” as a social center and work with interpersonal relationships to make the workplace a little more “personal.” Fact of the matter is that big cities are imposing, anonymous and alienate people making them mentally tough and unfriendly as well, see New York: A Survival Guide.
Of course, climate also affects the way people behave. Greek Philosophers in as early as the 5th century (or even earlier) associated warmth with love and cold with hate. In warm locations folks are outdoors all the time and hence meet people much more frequently than cold locations. The fact that people meet people more often means there is less isolation and thus to be unfriendly is really offensive. On the other hand, when you live in a cold location, people are indoors most of the time and tend to be more isolated that in warm climates. Isolation leads to cold attitudes as opposed to warm attitudes. It is bad to generalize but there is a distinct unconscious bias theory about people in warm and cold climates.
Bottom line: Those with power – it goes a long way to be a bit nicer and friendlier and afford courtesy to junior staff as well. At least occasionally, bring down the power lines and have a power outage.
Even the great Socrates insisted that he did not possess wisdom, but was striving for it. So Socrates constantly engaged in conversation with everybody - old and young and high and low - trying to bring into the open by his questions the inconsistencies in their opinions and actions.
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