It never ceases to amaze me how people in organisations seem to have evolved a coping mechanism of being the ‘Victim’. Maybe Darwin and Freud are right, and violence and a desire to survive are innate default positions for us. I really hope not.
Increasingly, I am hearing about individuals in organisations who, when challenged assertively, automatically assume they are under attack and launch their own attack on the other person, with the desire to gain the upper hand – leaving both claiming they are a victim of the other and a tsunami of conflict enveloping the department and organisation.

Each prefers to ensure that their best interest is the only one that they will aim to destroy others to ensure they have it. Not so extreme as it sounds, authors/philosophers have been discussing it for centuries; for example, Hardin (1968) wrote that “ruin is the destination toward which all men rush; pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.” Maybe Hobbes is to your liking: “men seek their own good and end up fighting one another”. The point is that self-interest is pushed at every opportunity in the modern workplace, possibly due to the financial and psychological structures we have developed.

This self-interest puts organisations at risk when individuals are attacked for challenging bad decisions. It appears that muscular management is coming back into vogue, emphasising the position of, and need for, command and control (C&C). I rarely use the word need, much preferring the less exalted position of desire; however, in this case, I believe some managers have elevated the willingness to wrench power from individuals to the level of a need. They cannot exist without the power they think they derive from a C&C culture.

Unfortunately, they do not understand they are impacting productivity and, therefore, the business’s success. Still, they are not interested in the organisation but rather in their own self-interest. Some would claim this leads to a culture of bullying, but I do not – it is purely selfish behaviour that these ‘childlike’ managers have not yet managed to grow out of but which is being rewarded by their equally bad-mannered superiors.

This may be a bit of a rant. Still, I got annoyed this morning with the brazen stupidity of an organisation lurching towards C&C, discarding any hidden semblance of collaboration, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake for all who work for it. The stupidity is that they do not even see it – they are blind. It reminds me of the story of the Emperor’s new clothes. They have had some management consultancy companies tell them how to do things, that people are like sheep and need to be led and told what to do.

As a result of the laziness of consultancies who have a vested interest in rehashing old, outdated rubbish, the organisation has taken on board the advice – as it fits their need for control – and is now imposing directives from the top down with no right of reply from the workers who can see the accident waiting to happen because the ‘leaders’ do not understand the business.

When will organisations begin to get the Ostrom message of collaboration; where in this new world being developed is the place of trust, reciprocity and reputation? Suppose self-interest is at the heart of management behaviours. In that case, the only result will be that an already wounded animal will die.