Bruno

Discussion (4) ¬

1. 
   Pete Rogan

   August 2, 2016 at 7:26 pm | #

   Not so fine a point, I think. This fear only manifests itself when the choice to be powerful exists, and most times, I believe, when this comes to you, it’s because things have gotten intolerable until somebody changes them, by effort, force of personality, or persuasion, or whatever other tools you have or find yourself growing in that instant. When the opportunity comes, in my experience, it’s because a route to a better future exists but no one has the courage to lead everyone to it. At which point the fear of power becomes another form of cowardice, and a refusal to do what you know is right and must be done. I can’t blame the woman on the sidewalk in the night screaming for somebody to save her baby, but the woman who knows where her bedroom is and where the ladder is and knows in another minute it will be too late has shunned the power to save a life. I cannot respect that.
2. 
   Kona

   August 3, 2016 at 11:11 am | #

   Made me think, Pete. I can honestly say that, in the hypothetical type of situations you pose, I have come to the forefront when I could see nobody else was going to, and lead the charge. But I have been wrong about situations often enough to make me hesitant now. Also, I tend to associate power with responsibility, and I can only take on so much responsibility. And when it comes to non-life-threatening situations, that’s just taking my place in the corporate (in the most generic sense of the word) structure, where I am just a link in the chain of authority, no matter how high I rise. “A route to a better future”? It’s not always lack of courage that blocks the route; sometimes it’s a difference of opinion over who it’s better for, and who should lead the people to it.
3. 
   Pete Rogan

   August 3, 2016 at 10:10 pm | #

   A strong ego is a powerful ally to getting your way, when no one else wants to go that way (for whatever reason) and haven’t the gumption to do it their way. As you say, Kona, doing so in the corporate environment can get you noticed as somebody who gets things done… and then you find the shocking, tragic truth that hypocrisy and cowardice rule most lives, even those with the biggest mouths. No wonder I developed bruxism.
4. 
   Edward Welbourne

   August 7, 2016 at 7:37 pm | #

   In a corporate environment, getting “noticed as somebody who gets things done” is a two-edged sword.

   In theory (and in well-run businesses) being smart and getting stuff done is about the most hire-worthy pair of virtues you can possess.
   In practice, in corporate bureaucracies, Getting Things Done Beyond Your Station (i.e. making things happen despite management not having bought into (and, in the process, claimed credit for) them) is About The Most Fatal thing you can do.
   I’ve done that a few times. They can’t hurt you for it – immediately – but doing it marks you.

   The next time I tried to get something done that Should Have Been Done (IMNSHO, the web should be open to all, including those with limited eyes) – but I failed to get it to happen, thanks to obstruction from management – those who’d prevented it from happening used, as an excuse to get rid of me, the fact that I had Ideas Above My Station (mere programmer, not A Manager). Being “uppity” is never welcome – for all that the management that hired me viewed the same attitudes as “contributing to the decision-making process”; corporatism had replaced that view and disposed of those managers.

   Unlike our dear Bruno, I work in an industry with enough genuine meritocratic culture that I am employable, regardless of the enemy (i.e. corporate) faction in management in that job (indeed, I now have a nicer job); for most jobs, like Bruno’s, an adverse prior boss is a Death Sentence for your career. Good luck finding a new one.