Pressure to be Silent: A Corporate Paradox
Introduction
Historical eras can be considered through metaphors that connect the individual to a larger social formation; as those formations decay, the metaphors too become decadent. The 19th Century can be thought of as connecting man with the nation-state through the metaphor of the hero; then, as the nation-state gives way to imperialist war, through the metaphor of the beast. The 20th Century can be thought of as connecting persons to cosmopolitan institutions through the metaphor of the citizen; then as the cosmopolitan institutions give way to Neo-liberal corporations, through the metaphor of the consumer.
We are not yet far enough into the 21st Century to be able to say what metaphor connects individuals to what larger social formation may be taking place. This paper can only take a stance that begins with the Neo-liberal corporation and offer gestures for how to think about potential future social formations. What we do know about the future toward which we are headed is that we live in a global system that is limited. The consumer and the Neo-liberal corporate machine that feeds it are unsustainably mute regarding any future potential. This paper takes the stance that we must begin to give voice to some future possibilities.
[T]o be effective you need a strong sense of empathy toward the people you’re dealing with. You need to see the world as they see it. An important element of leadership today is to understand the little guy, to understand the women who’ve been discriminated against, to understand the people of color who’ve been discriminated against, and to join them in trying to make their lives better.
David Gergen¹
Corporations do not exist in isolation. Corporations exist to make a profit by offering goods or services in the market. The market is a larger social body comprised of various interests and competing stakes. Adopting a stockholder mentality to gain immediate profit can lead corporations to conclude they have no stake in making public declarations on issues of universal human value, as these may be socially divisive — doing so, it is thought, might risk social backlash and jeopardize an ecumenical stance of ‘free commerce’. The mentality to gain immediate profit creates pressure on the corporation to remain silent concerning issues of universal human value. Pressure-to-be-silent drives social schism in both the corporation and the market and undermines the sense of belonging among employees and consumers that many corporations depend on.
Widening and Deepening Social Schism
Social formation through social schism is not a new phenomenon.² While the historical origin of social schism is beyond the scope of this paper, the term ‘schismogenesis’ was coined by Gregory Bateson in 1935 to describe the tendency people have to define themselves against one another and create enduring divisions in the larger social body.³ Today, technology and social media have accelerated this phenomenon.⁴ Starting in 2009 we can see manifestations of a widening social schism and a hardening of polar tribes in the Obama and Trump presidencies, in the attempts to alter the Supreme Court composition, and in its impact on close personal relationships.
Recent events such as the war in Ukraine, mass shootings in Buffalo NY, and Uvalde TX, and the Supreme Court decision restricting abortion access in the US, have spotlighted the relationship between corporate purpose and Environmental, Social, and Governance issues (including Inclusion, Diversity & Equity). These ESG events emphasize the role of corporate responsibility: Social Belonging, Employee Well-being, Employee Safety, Workforce Equality, and Supply Chain. They follow upon events that emphasize Racial Equality and Gender Identity.
Beyond issues of Supply Chain and Employee Safety, the war in Ukraine has increased inflation and intensified overall pressure on corporate profitability and corresponding socio-economic pressures here at home.
In total, social schism is widening and deepening, and corporations will likely remain trapped within it.
At the same time, the loss and social isolation of the COVID pandemic have stimulated an emergent longing for empathy across the social divide.
Pressure-to-be-silent Model
Employees won’t necessarily tell company leaders what they care about, especially if they don’t feel safe doing so.
M Reitz & J Higgins⁵
In the face of socially sensitive issues and to avoid conflict, people often hide their personal views to conform to perceived social norms. The same is true of those for whom the social norm is prejudice. For both, there is a sense of being aggressed against; both feel diminished in value. For each, there is a feeling that:
I must be silent to conform to perceived social norms.
My silence signals I do not agree with these social norms.
My silence indicates that your communication does not align with my personal values and I am primed to respond. because I feel pressure to be silent.
Pressure-to-be-Silent Model
Our Pressure-to-be-silent model visualizes how conforming to the norm drives opposing tribal formations that are indicative of social schism. Pressure-to-be-silent is operative both inside corporations and in the wider social body to which they belong. This becomes apparent when considering the corporation in light of a stockholder mentality that only considers a limited purpose versus a stakeholder mindset that considers an expanded purpose.
From Stockholder Mentality to Stakeholder Mindset: Expansion of Purpose
Purpose is the core animating principle that makes sense of the whole organization, giving it order and direction for its energies.
Since the 1970s, a stockholder mentality has come to predominate corporate organizations. According to this view, the organization is to maximize profit for stockholders first. Stockholders can then decide themselves what extended social purpose they may choose to participate in — if any.
However, while corporations are in business to make a profit, this profit only comes by way of the goods they produce or the services they offer. As such, profit does not come immediately to the stockholders in the short term but rather in passing through the market chain and returning in the long term. The market, then, is the larger social body made up of relationships among diverse, sometimes competing, business purposes, each with their own stake or interest, into which the corporation must enter if it seeks to make a profit.
In contrast, the stakeholder mindset considers that profit does not come to the stockholder immediately but only by passing through the market chain. According to this mindset, the overall health of the larger social (and environmental) body through which the corporation operates is considered in balance with profits. Therefore, the stakeholder considers the corporation in light of a long-term and extended purpose. Here, consumer power becomes the center point of the social narrative. The immediate reactions to the war in Ukraine are a perfect example of this phenomenon. Corporations were among the very first entities to react to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While world institutions were just starting to figure out how to proceed, before any type of sanctions had been imposed, corporations were called upon to take a stance: to stay or to leave. Consumer goods companies were the first to react, ‘consumer’ being the operative word.
Communication from Stockholder Mentality Traps the Corporation in Social Schism
When the stockholder mentality prevails, it exerts pressure on the corporation to realize short-term gains with limited purpose. In turn, the larger corresponding body of the market responds in kind — tribal formations occur, and overall cooperation and efficiencies decrease. The acceleration and deepening of social schism occur both inside the corporation and outside in the wider social body of the market which leads to stresses on the corporation.
For corporations post Citizens United, this trend has reached a critical point. Making political donations as protected political speech while simultaneously trying to avoid taking public stances on universal social values has become less tenable. With heightened scrutiny, political donations by corporations are made public, and, when disagreement emerges, consumer and employee backlash ensues.
Recently, The Walt Disney Company was revealed to have made political donations to politicians who backed the ‘Parental Rights in Education’//‘Don’t Say Gay Bill’ bill in Florida while their CEO declared he was “less willing than [his] predecessor …to take public political stands — including on LGBTQ issues and voting rights.” These two acts, at variance with one another, sparked backlash within the company and among the wider LGBTQ community. Making political donations while declaring silence on public political stands eventually forced The Walt Disney Company to suspend all political donations within the state of Florida.
When corporations position themselves within the frame of the limited stockholder mentality, ‘bi-tentional’ communication often results — communication that misdirects and obfuscates purpose. Like an Exit sign pointing to the exit, words are signs that point to their meanings. ‘Bi-tentional’ communication, however, is speaking from both sides of the mouth — it generates a tension that is corruptive of meaning, akin to an EXIT sign that pointing both toward and away from the exit ramp, confuses or blocks exiting.
Today, some organizations and technology corporations seem to have made ‘bi-tentional’ speech the very basis of their business model — platforms where truth is rendered schismatically. Moreover, some of these information platforms which too often offer disinformation have usurped the marketplace, further entrapping corporations (where their goods, services, brands, and communications circulate) in deepening social schism.
People seek psychological fulfillment from work, and, as the [COVID] crisis recedes and companies ramp up new ways of working, some people will experience friction, and even dissonance, around issues of purpose.
McKinsey⁶
When corporations make use of ‘bi-tentional’ speech they limit their purpose and either signal they do not belong to the wider community or provoke greater chaos in their company culture. At best, employees are confused, at worst some feel unwanted and simply move on. Either way, the outcome is deepening social schism.
Social Intelligence-Based Communication Promotes Belonging
For corporations to endure over the long term, social intelligence is necessary. Social Intelligence-based communication avoids the tendency to develop tribal formations and backlash by attending to the larger mediating community, and so articulates an expanded purpose.
For corporations, communicating with social intelligence means assuming a stakeholder mindset that helps the corporation belong to the larger social body of the market through which it gains profit.
Social Intelligence-based communication enlarges the conversation and galvanizes all members, and not merely the underrepresented, to the company’s expanded purpose. It encourages the contribution of all members and recognizes the benefit diverse perspectives offer to the company.
Social Intelligence-based communication works by unblocking expanded purpose from a narrow stockholder mentality. When a portion of stakeholders are inadvertently made to feel they do not participate in the company’s purpose — when a pressure-to-be-silent phenomenon prevails — Social Intelligence-based communication helps overcome internal resistance to belonging. In this way, Social Intelligence-based communication helps the corporation belong to the wider stakeholder community as a responsible member (a person) that manages ESG factors.
Communicating Belonging Defuses Backlash and Great Resignation
When corporations make use of protected political speech but fail to take public political stands, they create within themselves pressure-to-be-silent. Often the result is confusion and even further momentum to the phenomenon of the Great Resignation.
From the stockholder mentality, employee churn and internal backlash do not matter. Any potential consequences are beyond next quarter’s earnings. From the stakeholder mindset, backlash or employee churn must be managed so the company does not suffer in the short or long term.
To help a company and key stakeholders manage toward its expanded purpose of belonging for the long term, Social Intelligence-based communication offers a pathway to help reduce risk by enabling structures that promote empathy across the social schism that divides tribes.
Belonging is a relational category that calls on diverse members to emotionally invest something of themselves in a shared group value.
Belonging reduces the pressure to be silent that drives tribal formations.
Belonging
Implementing Socially Intelligent Communication©
Communicating belonging so it reduces the tendency of tribal backlash means addressing members who do not necessarily feel immediate concern for those other members who may feel they do not belong.
To inspire all members to contribute to the organizational purpose requires calling on core universal human values — values such as Belonging, Empathy, Equality, Openness, Trust, Goodness, Fairness (Justice), Safety, Autonomy, Freedom, and Truth.
Critically, these values need to be analyzed and ultimately agreed upon as the foundational cornerstone for the company and its stakeholders. Those select values will be the fittings through which the company belongs in the community for the long term.
All people consider such values to be good, but not all people will agree with how this good is communicated. Socially Intelligent Communication© seeks to help galvanize all members of an organization to its purpose by acknowledging and passing through alternative perspectives. Careful attention to the mediating community in communication, the sense of belonging, will require that communication be voiced personally, with empathy, and not excused bureaucratically (i.e. out of a PR-driven, risk avoidant effort).
Socially Intelligent Communication© requires the strategic application of the sense of belonging to the craft of message development and then the testing of those messages for elements that have the potential to spark backlash. Socially Intelligent Communication© helps promote belonging by avoiding social schism.
When The Walt Disney Company’s CEO recently claimed that “corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds,” he opened a schism. LGBTQ employees and the wider community likely wondered why then does the company make use of protected political speech (i.e., making political donations)? — and backlash ensued. When the CEO doubled down by claiming his belief that “the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce, the welcoming culture we create, and the diverse community organizations we support,” he drove the company deeper into the social schism his bureaucratic, ‘bi-tentional’, speech opened up.
How could the company publish content in support of the diverse LGBTQ community if it could not also take a public political stand? Rather, such a bureaucratic message likely told LGBTQ employees and those in the wider community to be silent and take their place in the closet. Such a message could not be said to align with the company values and is antithetical to the platform The Walt Disney Company claims for itself: “A world of belonging where each person feels seen, heard and understood.”
Methods, Means and Mission
At Socially Intelligent Communication© we test messages and broader communications to identify phrases, statements, words, and other elements that best resonate with stakeholders while flagging those that are potentially conflictive. Our method consists of three phases:
We use a proprietary database of ESG risk events to measure the social pressure a company is likely to face.
We then develop strategic guidelines to craft communications within the scope of belonging.
Finally, we test those messages to determine what elements in them risk sparking backlash to the sense of belonging.
Our service is tailored to the current state of our client. Our insights help leadership realize its future purpose. Among the methods we employ are:
Database Search
Stakeholder Interviews
Values-Based Research
Co-visioning Workshops
Message Construction
Historical Message Testing
Testing of Created Messages.
Our mission at Socially Intelligent Communication© is to help organizations express universal human values without fear of backlash by animating the community through communication to come together for a good greater than themselves. We recognize that silence speaks volumes. By focusing our attention on testing for and analyzing those elements of communication that pressure some members to feel they must be silent, we identify the seeds that inadvertently open social schism and spark backlash. In doing so we help create a company culture of belonging that liberates an expanded purpose founded on universal human values and enables corporations to express those values authentically, and to act responsibly according to them.
Endnotes
¹David Gergen, Interview: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-on-books/author-talks-its-time-to-pass-the-baton?cid=other-eml-onp-mip-mck&hlkid=1bf6f434e8b742f18965daae33b3c901&hctky=13502112&hdpid=b02bc800-6b29-4517-a025-c31f22eeb10d
²David Graber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).
³Gregory Bateson, “199. Culture Contact and Schismogenesis,” Man, vol. 35, [Wiley, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland], 1935, pp. 178–83, https://doi.org/10.2307/2789408.
⁴Buddhika B. Jayamaha & Jahara Matisek, “Social Media Warriors: Leveraging a New Battlespace,” The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters, 48, no. 4 (2018), doi:10.55540/0031–1723.3008.
⁵M Reitz, J Higgins, “Leading in an Age of Employee Activism”, Jan. 2022. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/leading-in-an-age-of-employee-activism/
© 2022, Socially Intelligent Communication LLC.