Corporate Culture – it’s about belief, not demons

So, they’ve started giving some of the bonuses back and ostentatiously declaring that they are not taking as big ones this time round.

It is absolutely tip-of-the-iceberg stuff in terms of beginning to address the corporate culture schism which is dividing the have-loads from the scared-for-our-jobs in our battered economy.

What is happening is that there is a great hubbub about shutting off the highest profile excesses. There is a coming together around the most offensive of those things which we feel our ourselves to be against.

However, this very public breast beating is barely skimming this issue of what we don’t stand for, never mind coming anywhere near considering what it is that we do stand by.

It is as if there is a fear, a sense that if we dare to unpack our economic and corporate beliefs, Pandora’s Box will issue forth all those things of which we are frightened and which we have been trying to ignore.

If this seems contrived or exaggerated, then consider this: as soon as the financial institutions wobbled, all morale in the economy simply fell over. It was if confidence was built on sand.

And perhaps, in the sense that it was shallow, temporary, shifting and forever changing, perhaps it was.

We need to be spending less time denouncing a handful of perceived demons and a lot more time considering what is our actual commercial and organisational credo and faith.

Once we have those certainties and business ethics in place, there will be no more fear about facing challenges head on – and not simply finding ourselves with backbones of sand when the pressure comes on.

Witch hunts have never really achieved a great deal in the long run. They tend to say as much about the deepest fears of the hunters than the value to be gained from the hunting.