It is no secret that values and culture have a direct impact on the quality of organizations and their management. Trainers used to employ a "parable" to highlight norms and values and to get groups to make their own explicit. Here is the parable:
A young woman's husband worked nights. During his absence, she was having an affair with another man who lived on the other side of town. To get to his house and back, she had to cross a bridge that was known to be dangerous. One night, as she was returning home, she was accosted by robbers, and, when she resisted, they killed her.
The following assignment was given to the group being trained: rank — in order of importance — who was most responsible for the young woman's death. The results were often surprising, and also varied widely by location and the makeup of the trainee group. What was most surprising was the number of people who did not say that the murderers were the most responsible. In Virgin Islands groups, there were always participants who said that the young woman was most responsible, and some who blamed her husband for not being at home where he belonged.
This exercise sparked heated discussions of values, and these totally fictional characters almost came to life. Trainers would then make the transition to real-life values issues in the workplace. There are different perspectives and filters through which to look at organizations and workplaces. These include the quality of their products and services, their systems and processes, whether they achieve their stated goals, and their norms and values which, taken together, are defined as the organizational culture.
The past three decades have been a bad time for healthy organizational cultures and workplaces. In fundamental ways, purely material values and a winner-take-all ethic has driven out other values. Among the most notable losses has been a marked decline in empathy, the quality of putting yourself in the "other's" place, and seeking to understand other people's or group's situations, values and motives.
In society at large, this decline has taken the form of growing indifference to anyone who is not like us. The most dramatic recent manifestation of this indifference was the Republican National Convention, at which a virtually all-white body of delegates displayed their disdain for anyone who either did not look like or think like them. In the workplace, the result has been a leadership perspective that front-line workers are just so many replaceable parts rather than multi-dimensional human beings whose value extends beyond the job that they do.
The decline of empathy in society and in the workplace is linked to the collapse of other values that have traditionally been associated with American life. Two of the most important of these are the linked values of trust and loyalty. For many workers, the equation is a simple one: If they don't care about me, why should I care about them? ("Them" often includes not only the bosses, but also customers and other service users.) The results are to be found in high turnover, indifferent service, an increasing reliance on surveillance and the use of gimmicks, such as calling low level, untrained and underpaid staff "associates."
Are the Virgin Islands a part of this overall pattern? This is a complex question, and the answer that I give is more for purposes of discussion than a definitive response. The decline in empathy, trust and loyalty in the Virgin Islands parallels that on the mainland, but it seems different in important respects. There would seem to be three important dimensions to the Virgin Islands version, each of which imposes significant social and economic costs.
First, the decline in empathy at the top of Virgin Islands organizations seems to be driven less by pure greed and more by a perverse sense of entitlement. Top jobs are seen as a form of property rather than a responsibility, and, therefore, nothing is owed to the managers and workers who actually deliver the products and services. Goodbye loyalty and goodbye trust.
Second, racial and class divisions in the territory are so deep that people frequently talk past one another or don't bother to communicate outside their own group. The results are profound misunderstandings and further downward pressures on empathy, trust and mutual loyalty.
Finally, the tourist-based economy may be structurally anti-empathic. The great African-American comedienne Moms Mabley used to start her shows by asking her (all-black audiences), "How are you doing, children?" Everyone would groan, and Moms would reply, "I know, I know, I'm tired, too." Just so there is no confusion, Moms was referring to the fatigue produced by dealing with white people. It's hard to show empathy for people who are often annoying, bring bad attitudes and whom you will probably never see again. But — a big but — others have managed this problem better than Virgin Islanders, and the result is that they do see them again.
So what can be done? The first step is to acknowledge that this issue is a big deal with significant costs. Then the hard part starts. Norms and values — both positive and negative — become entrenched over time. They can't be switched on and off when our mood shifts. The starting point is to make them explicit, make their consequences clear and then begin to define a more desirable future. That — in and of itself — is a very big deal.
Editor's note: Frank Schneiger is the president of Human Services Management Institute, a management-consulting firm that focuses on organizational change. Much of his current work is in the area of problems of execution and implementing rapid changes as responses to operational problems.
