Latest / Love Letters to Troublemakers / E4. The Implicit & Explicit Social Contract of Work

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E4. The Implicit & Explicit Social Contract of Work · Love Letters to Troublemakers

0:00
Loyalty to your company being a virtue and like your Co workers
0:04
being more of a liability. I think that's hard.
0:07
Like we're taught to go to HR, not to each other.
0:19
Hi, I'm Lars Gallion. And I'm Aparna Ray, welcome to
0:23
the Circle Back Club. But this is a podcast for
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anybody who's ever suspected that the problem is not us.
0:29
We name what's broken at work, back it up with receipts, and
0:33
build real power with people who are done performing.
0:37
No productivity hacks, no brand advice.
0:39
Just an audits analysis at a community ready to change the
0:44
status quo. Yeah, we're here to reimagine
0:48
and rebuild workplaces, to strengthen communities instead
0:52
of depleting them, to see your Co worker as your comrade, not
0:56
your competition, and to stand up for the dignity and care of
0:59
all humans and this beautiful planet together.
1:02
And there's a lot of different ways that we get to talk about
1:05
that. Today we're going to focus on
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the social contract that we agreed to being in white collar
1:12
work. And of course, what do we want
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to do about it? What do we want to change?
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This social contract is all of the implicit and explicit
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behaviors we engage in with our Co workers.
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Some are conscious, some are not, and somehow all of them
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become purposeful expectations from the company.
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And one way or the other, it's where it's truly something that
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we're navigating. So in this episode, what we're
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going to do is name some of these behaviors, talk about who
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gets to create them, who gets to enforce them, and get into the
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impact that these unwritten rules have on our well-being and
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our capacity to relate and be in community with other people.
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So let's renegotiate, shall we? Let's do it.
2:00
We're. Really lucky to be joined by our
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friend Leilani Lewis today. Welcome Leilani to the club.
2:07
Thank you for having me. Yeah, we're so happy to have
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you. Leilani is an award-winning arts
2:13
leader, a writer, and a seasoned diversity equity inclusion
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practitioner based in Seattle. She is also an incredibly
2:23
important part of our podcast creation, from our name to our
2:27
episode format, our Season 1 arc, literally everything.
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So it's really, really special to have you as a guest on the
2:35
show. And yeah, just thanks for being
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with us. So stinky.
2:39
We can warm up a little bit before we go into social
2:42
contracts at work and ask you to is there a social contract in
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your social life, your personal life, that you want to change?
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So many, so, so many. But I think that the one that I
2:56
see, or at least at work that I remember and even maybe
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sometimes socially is that sometimes as a person who
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identifies as a woman or in this role, I'm kind of like have to
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be the organizer, secretary, note taker, person who know,
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cleans house. And often I do it to myself.
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I raise the hand. But the implicit is that, you
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know, you get looked at as the responsible party or for those
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types of parts of the job or the role in your friend group or
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something. So I'm pretty over it, pretty
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over that. OK, she's not organizing
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anything anymore. No, she's just done.
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OK, I'm going to build on that. The social, the implicit social
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contract in my marriage is that I am the cook and the grocery
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shopper. And I have been trying so hard
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to change this. And whenever I like, ask my
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husband, I'm like, oh, well, do you want to get groceries?
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Of course, like he will say yes, and he will ask me for all the
3:55
items that are needed. But other than buying himself
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Creamer and grapes, like those are the two things he buys for
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himself. He doesn't buy any other food,
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you know, And every single day it's like, hey, what are we
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having for dinner? And one of these days it's going
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to be a chunk of him that we're having.
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That's what's up. I'm sorry.
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Cream, cream and grapes. That's, that's yeah, That's it.
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That's what he's yeah, because he likes a very specific Creamer
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for his coffee. And he loves these, like big
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green grapes. And those are the two things he
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stops at the grocery store for. And also full contracts can be
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renegotiated. So correct, we got it, we got
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it. I think for me, it's kind of a
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deep one, but that's just who I am in general is I want to be in
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more potential conflict in my relationships, which probably
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comes off weird, but I was socialized to see my value as as
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being able to keep the peace. And I really want to say things
4:56
sooner, be a little bit messier, and rudin myself a little bit
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more in my personal relationships.
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So that's what I'm working on. Amazing.
5:08
Well, let's talk about these contracts at work.
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As I said in the onset here, right?
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Some of these social contracts are conscious, some are not.
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Ultimately, they all have a big impact on how we experience
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ourselves and how we connect to other people at work.
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So let's break this down a little bit.
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What makes it social? That's social because it's often
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not written into a policy or in your onboarding documentation
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when you join the company. Sometimes they are or end up in
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a policy after they've been socialized for.
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For the most part, we're talking about the implicit realm of ways
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we're expected to show up and behave at work.
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And just a really quick nerd side quest, Org psychologist
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would use this language of social contracts being your
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psychological contracts. And so there's a lot of research
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on breaching psychological contracts, and they would
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actually look at that next to this idea of are you an ethical
6:08
leader or not? And ethical leadership created
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the pathway for what we know today as corporate social
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responsibility. And I think what's interesting
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about this and why I'm bringing it up is that when we initially
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were studying the idea of ethics at work, it started with the
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leader, it started with the individual person, and then it
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turned into ACSR, corporate Social responsibility program.
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Is the, is the corporation ethical?
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Is the corporation moral? And I think it breaks down the
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fact that companies are not this ambiguous thing that just
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exists. They're literally we are a group
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of people making decisions together.
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Leaders are people, shareholders are people.
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And not shocking, but indeed was studied that in Oxford.
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An Oxford study found that the leader and the top management
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must be ethical to Co create an ethical tone in an organization,
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which I obviously right like I mean, but an entire study said
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yes, indeed, the lead, not just the leader sets the tone, but
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they need to be moral to influence the ethical standards.
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And I think we're seeing this in like the realm of AI of
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depending on the ethics and morality of the leader that
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because the ethics and morality of the corporation.
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So pull me back if I'm going too far.
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But it's a whole world. It's a whole.
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World, well, I don't know about the two of you, but I have
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become it super deeply obsessed with watching these TikTok reels
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or Instagram reels where creators are pulling videos.
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What specifically what these AI CEOs say out loud at conferences
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and summits and what have you. And in particular, I've just
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been like, really deep on the Sam Altman tree.
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And he was at a summit in India a couple of weeks ago and
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somebody, you know, I think asked a question around, you
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know, what about like, the energy consumption of AI?
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And the man gave the most unhinged response, which the
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cloud was like laughing and clapping to.
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And his response was like, well, what does it cost energy wise to
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get a human being, you know, to become smart?
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It's like 20 years of like feeding them and housing them
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and what have you. And he and he basically is like,
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well, and if you compare that to AI, right, we already have
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energy efficiencies. And I just like, for me, it's
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like such a morally bankrupt response.
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It's such a morally bankrupt response to suggest that feeding
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and caring for human beings is, you know, positioned on the same
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plane as the energy consumption of these AI models, much of
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which is being used to generate C Sam and like, pornography.
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And then two weeks later there's a scafuffle with the Department
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of War, which I can't even get like that.
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Also like that, that the choice of that name also feels morally
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and ethically problematic. They leaned in open AI leaned in
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to this contract because Anthropic wanted to have guard
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reels and not have the Department of War using AI
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models to, you know, surveil American citizens.
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And so, yeah, I mean, like the study that you can see it
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playing out in broad daylight in this moment every single day.
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There's an example that speaks to this.
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Yeah, I think that, yeah, there's that translation.
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It's something a partner you said about losing a piece of
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humanity in that idea. So somehow compliance like did
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we follow Paulus? I'm not sure about where how
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they're defining morality is. Did we cause harm to people to
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humans or are we compliant with something?
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Is that is it ethical because we are compliant or is it ethical
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or moral because did we cause harm to people?
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And I just, I don't know that their criteria or how they're
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defining these terms and corporate space and for their
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leaders either like where is their threshold And it's usually
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nowhere near, you know, where, you know, humane treatment of
10:31
people or what is going to be good for our people, for our
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consumers or the people who use our products, etcetera.
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My brain just kind of went like, because I feel like if the way
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that I spoke to my friends 'cause them to develop an
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autoimmune disease, they would cease to be my friend.
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But that is not considered necessarily harmful for a
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corporation, right? Like if going to work at a place
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leads you to like to you having like severe heart disease, it's
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not the corporation that's causing harm.
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It's like you probably eating too many hamburgers.
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Right. Even though there is probably a
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really direct relationship between work and the
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physiological issues that so that just popped up into my
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head, but I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, take
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distract us from the conversation of social contract.
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I took us on this path and I think Leilani, your question is
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spot on. It's like is ethics based off of
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our compliance and is that enough?
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We know it's not and we know compliance is renegotiated all
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the time. Policies are renegotiated all
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the time. All of us have written policies
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for corporations. So and that's that's why I mean
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getting to the other side. So defining social and what
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contract means in this? Are these expected behaviors or
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enforced norms that that we just adopt?
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And I'm going to just list off a handful and just see how you
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feel as I say it. So these contracts could be your
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communication style, communication method, how long
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you stay in the office FaceTime, how long you eat lunch, where
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you eat lunch, when you take breaks, alcohol consumption,
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knowledge hoarding versus dissemination, mentorship.
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Who do you mentor? Who mentors you?
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Who are you sponsoring? Do you talk about people when
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they're not in the room? Are they talking about you?
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Language, tone, Pace of work? Your clothes?
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Specific group dynamics informed by level, Team identity?
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Location, accepted forms of humor, Competition, urgency,
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quantity over quality, conflict avoidance, gas lighting.
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Okay, I'm going to stop because it's too much and it gets ouchy.
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But the point is, is that it's everything.
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Everything that feels like an expectation.
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And it might feel like an expectation because it's been
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told to you by someone who has some form of influence relative
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to who you are. So if you're thinking about
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their seniority, social position, their identity
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compared to the majority identity in the corporation,
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perhaps it's knowledge based power, someone who is informing
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you on how to be accepted. And most importantly for
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corporate workers, social contracts are informing you on
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how you can advance, how you can have job security, how you can
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be valuable. You know, everybody is an AI
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expert now. Not me loli am not claiming.
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Leilani AI expert we're not claiming.
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I don't. I barely know Instagram.
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Remember when I had problems with Instagram?
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Just, you know, one thing as you're, as you started naming
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those things, I have like the most visceral reaction of
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running up against the norms and learning the hard way that I was
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not in compliance with the norms.
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Right. It's like when you touch
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something hot and you get burnt and you're like, oh, yeah, I
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shouldn't touch hot things because I can get burnt.
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It's from getting burnt. Yeah.
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I mean. I yeah, I'm with you.
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I mean you, you learn them quickly by by either getting
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corrected and sometimes you're not corrected.
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You're just sort of ushered into, you know, you feel less
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and less of a sense of belonging.
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But just like we all, you know, social contracts and many
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contracts govern our lives, these implicit contracts, just
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as we all agree that red means stop and green means go, that's
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we all make to maintain equanimity.
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I think that that keeping the peace at work, this is, you
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know, these these implicit, you know, agreements we all come to
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and that creates that peace or that equanimity for for whatever
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reason. Maybe it's because it's easier
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for managers, easier for HR somebody's benefiting from all
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of us sort of agreeing and there's only one position and
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there's there's a hundred of you that want it.
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So you the best compliance of that these agreements gets that
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space. You know, we all whoever
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performs this well. But in my experience, and I
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think of what I've observed is that, you know, over my 15
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years, these implicit and explicit values, what's seen on
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the wall, the DEI statements, the value statements, the things
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that are said by leaders and people that either uphold social
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contract absolutely or model social contract or, oh, turn a
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blind eye to certain behaviors as as a way of, of allowing
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certain types of things to happen.
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And seeing the sort of distance and dissonance of these explicit
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and implicit is it's exhausting. I mean, it's exhausting to
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continue to perform, to see these things come out in words
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and not be seen in action. I think navigating both
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simultaneously is usually exhausting for a lot of people
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in the workspace context. Yeah.
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And I think you're you're bringing us exactly into the why
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of why we talk about social contracts and coming back to the
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purpose of this podcast is to help white collar workers see
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their environment through the lens that pulls you out of I'm
16:27
in an individual survival mode or individual experience to it's
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a collective experience. And we're becoming so curious
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about how the people around you are experiencing work that you
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then do something about that care.
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You take action to change working conditions or changing
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the parts that, to your point, take away different parts of our
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humanity for the sake of compliance, being responsible
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and responsive, witness to harm. And in order to do that, we have
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to talk to each other about these norms.
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We literally just have to talk to each other about what social
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contracts are you engaging in? Which ones do you want?
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Which ones do you want to keep? They're fun to really make fun
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of. And to both of your points, as
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we're stepping into this conversation, we have power to
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change them too. We get to say no to them.
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So I want to bring us in to actually reading a screenshot of
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an e-mail that someone named Eric F received at work.
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Do you want me to do it? And because this do.
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You want to read that apartment? OK, Lewani.
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So this this post made its way through like a dozen Reddit sub
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threads that I'm on. I saw it in the anti work sub
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thread, the job sub thread subreddit.
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And OK, so the title of the e-mail is a new optimization
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opportunity and it's written to a guy named Eric from his boss
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Brenda. And it says, hi Eric, welcome
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again to the team. It's been great having you on
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board these last three weeks. I wanted to reach out regarding
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a small observation I've made during your lunch breaks.
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I've noticed that after you've finished eating your sandwich,
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so I know Eric is white. Probably after you're finished
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eating your sandwich, you've been spending the remainder of
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your 30 minutes sitting at your break table and looking at your
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phone. Yes, you are on your break and
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not abusing the slotted time, but the optics of taking your
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full lunch break instead of showing an eagerness to get back
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to support your work family, it's frankly disappointing.
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Most of the team finishes their lunch in about 5 to 10 minutes
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and probably has like gastro issues and heads back out to
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support their Co workers immediately.
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Let's correct this behavior and try to be more mindful of that.
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Quote team spirit, team first spirit so we can keep your
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momentum going in the right direction :) not emoji, Brenda.
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Hello, my hello. He's worse guilty to this
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company and the family and he there's it's disloyal.
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Most people only take 5 to 10 minutes to scarf down.
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I mean, what are they eating for lunch?
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Like a liquid lunch. I mean, that is wow.
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I'm not surprised that that got circulated because I mean,
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everybody is seeing these things and experiencing it and saying
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that's, that's a, that's the social contract.
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Like that's real. That's the real expectation.
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Now those these are norms that are becoming tighter and tighter
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around workers. And I love that she's like, it's
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not illegal or wrong for you to take your full 30 minutes,
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right? But she's nudging him to the
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norm of their company where apparently they don't eat their
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food in peace and they just hop right back to work.
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You know which I know that for me and like so many other
20:26
people, it's frowned upon to even like sit and have lunch
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separately. Usually you just kind of eat in
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a meeting or you eat while doing something else.
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And you're not even having a carve out right for most of my
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Co workers like knowledge workers, desk workers, you just
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eat at your desk. Right, right.
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It's the, it's the, it's the gaslighting language that
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obviously this is a great example of social contracts.
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Eric is needed to the company so you can manipulate expectations
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with someone. Obviously Brenda knows that it's
21:03
wrong because she references that it's not wrong and then
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talks about optics, but using the language of you need to do
21:14
this for your Co workers. Your Co workers need you work,
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family, team first spirit. That part is what gets under my
21:25
skin so much with this. It's just the way that we can
21:30
manipulate each other with language of teamwork for the
21:35
sake of what is just. It's can't, it's really awful
21:39
and it's so funny because in a lot of ways, right, it is, it's
21:42
it's a it's a manipulation, but it's also it's a weaponization
21:45
of loyalty or those relationships that are often
21:48
false, right? Like they don't actually want us
21:51
to be in in solidarity with our fellow Co worker.
21:54
They don't want us to build real relationships with our Co
21:57
workers in ways that might compare notes right.
22:01
And and they don't like it doesn't benefit a lot of
22:04
corporations and companies for us to do that.
22:07
And yet, you know, this person is saying, you know, go, you got
22:10
to help your family and family in itself is also very, you
22:14
know, fraught, you know, in in the corporate space because
22:17
you're trading labour for money. And that is, you know, there's a
22:22
lot of problems with this, this family labeling that, you know,
22:28
HR should she should be flagged on because you know, you're not
22:34
and. She's probably from HR and
22:37
that's Brenda probably. Brenda sounds like an HR lady.
22:41
Yeah, or maybe that's that's major.
22:44
And then but still it's like there's a lot of problems.
22:47
There's so many problems with that.
22:50
That's harmful, but it's also, I bet so relatable for hundreds of
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thousands, if not millions of of people who work and and and want
23:02
to work or need to work, but deserve also to be treated with
23:08
bitter humanity and and dignity to eat their damn sandwich for
23:15
30 minutes. Well, just for 30 minutes and
23:17
like that allowed that that privilege.
23:22
Wow, what a. What a.
23:25
Wow. It's a wow.
23:26
It's a wow. And I think this is
23:29
contextualizing this already for us.
23:32
But Leilani, I'm curious from your experience how you've seen
23:37
the social contract function in the corporation?
23:39
Like what? What is it doing?
23:41
The social contract is is a lot about from from what I have
23:45
experienced, observed and and the people I've worked with, my
23:48
dear friends who've worked in in real proper and big name
23:52
corporations. The social contract relies on on
23:57
several things like it relies on disagreements that you talked
23:59
about red and stop Greenland's go and and all of that, but the
24:03
all of the nuances and politics rely on first and foremost,
24:10
silence and an ultimate ultimate agreement.
24:15
There's no, I don't know, like let's take this man who wants
24:18
the sandwich. Eric, Eric G, Eric S who wants a
24:24
sandwich. Now let's take it a step further
24:26
and say Aaron F says me and Kathy G and a purr are would
24:34
like to all eat our sandwiches and take our full 30 minutes and
24:39
they all go together. We've compared notes and blah
24:42
blah blah. That is that would presumably
24:46
against that social contract. So now what happens to Eric F if
24:51
he breaks that? So that contract that you're not
24:53
being ambitious, we value, we value, you know, ambition.
24:58
In fact, it's a virtue for you to sacrifice your lunch to give
25:03
us more labor that is not actually paid, presumably, if
25:09
you're on salary and you have a lunch break, right.
25:11
So all of that to me, you know, is, is it relies on silence and,
25:19
and total compliance, right? The minute you say I'm treated
25:22
differently because of my, my identity or I think I'm treating
25:25
differently because of my identity, that is, you know,
25:28
that that triggers a series of events in most corporations and
25:30
spaces that, that tell, tell them or signal to them that you
25:35
are now outside of social contract.
25:37
So there are things that happen and, and many stories.
25:40
I have friends who've been ousted from corporations,
25:43
corporations been overlooked for promotions, been demoted, been
25:50
treated absolutely poorly, been, you know, for a lot of different
25:55
reasons. But most of them it's because
25:57
they didn't perform absolute confiance and they weren't
26:00
silent. And so your silence, they buy
26:05
it. Their your, your complicity,
26:08
absolutely essential. And, you know, making sure that
26:12
you are, yeah, you know, you if you perform the best, you
26:16
advance and under the social contracts that they, if you
26:19
perform the best of their norms. I remember I've been in spaces
26:24
in places where I'm amongst the team, team of very gender,
26:31
racial makeup and other dynamics.
26:34
And, you know, some of them on the team were able to yell at
26:39
people. They just weren't able to yell
26:41
at people and as part of their it was excused as part of their
26:45
personality, part of who they are and and what they do so.
26:50
And it was probably expected that they there would be times
26:55
where they would yell so me. Coming in and I'm like, oh,
26:59
we're raising our voice here. We're that's how we do it.
27:01
We can be really flammable about I come and I don't yell very
27:05
often and just as I I don't. But you know, anybody else, you
27:10
know, might say, if they don't pick it up pretty quickly, like
27:13
I knew I was not if I yelled like that.
27:16
Not, not OK, probably not cool based on my identity, based on
27:22
my position, based on my tenure, based on a lot of different
27:25
things. So, you know, there's just
27:27
different ways that these agreements and contracts show up
27:30
and then also can be extremely confusing because they apply
27:33
differently to different people that show up differently.
27:36
Yeah, well. I think as I'm listening to you,
27:39
I'm just thinking that like, silence is one of the most
27:44
conscious and notable of the social contracts and most
27:49
organizations that you're not raising your voice to complain.
27:53
You know, you're not bringing up issues that don't really work
27:56
for you. You're not doing any of that.
27:58
Like you're just kind of humming along that you're not leaving
28:01
the bad glass door reviews, right?
28:04
Like you're, you're not doing, you're not supposed to be doing
28:06
that. And just how corrosive silence
28:10
is in any in any space, right? Like be it your family, be it
28:15
your community, be it the team that you work on.
28:19
It serves such a corrosive function.
28:21
But it is it is the one social contract that I think almost
28:25
everybody you know can agree is like is expected.
28:31
Like that is one. Yeah.
28:34
Absolutely. What social contracts do you
28:37
think we are avoiding naming the most and why are we avoiding
28:46
talking about them? I think that like that, the
28:48
silence is definitely something that we don't talk about and
28:52
there's there's a lot of context behind that.
28:55
But I'm curious what comes to mind for you too about the ones
28:58
that we actively avoid naming are happening.
29:04
I could start my partner. Do you have something off the
29:06
table you can tell me what? Well, I just helped.
29:10
Yeah. You know, like, the ways in
29:14
which our work is hurting our health is one that we're not
29:19
supposed to talk about. And in our last episode, we
29:22
spoke with Doctor Dalia Perez, who told the story of women on
29:27
in her organization at Microsoft experiencing perimenopause.
29:31
And but like, you couldn't talk about it.
29:34
You couldn't talk about it. And you know, I, I feel like I'm
29:38
at, at that age where a lot of my friends are now, like having
29:42
their kids, older millennials and fertility issues, challenges
29:49
with not being able to get pregnant easily or autoimmune
29:52
health issues where almost every woman I know has some autoimmune
29:56
health issue that's like flaring up because they're in a pretty
30:00
toxic work environment. And, but we, I think that's one
30:05
that like, we don't talk about the health issues that we're
30:07
having other than the acceptable health issues, which is like my
30:10
toddler gave me the flu. Like that's acceptable but my
30:15
work stress is causing infertility is not acceptable.
30:18
Yeah, that's a huge one. I think also too there, there
30:23
are there are a few that we avoid name in the most and the
30:27
most insidious ones are those that implicate people with
30:32
power. And I see that more often than
30:37
not, it is the hardest one to break that social contract for a
30:42
lot of reasons, even when the harm is very clear and I've seen
30:49
people protected. And it is, it is, it is
30:54
absolutely really insidious. And then the agreement that
31:01
competence, whiteness and maleness look like the same
31:05
thing. Nobody really says like people
31:09
do say that in a lot of series, I mean, in social justice and
31:12
social non profit spaces. But I think that, you know, it's
31:18
being enforced every single day. Who gets interesting projects?
31:21
Who gets, you know, who gets benefited out, who's getting
31:23
promoted, who's on the boards? And a lot of people will work
31:29
really hard not to name it, but naming it requires would require
31:32
a lot of accountability, a lot of people.
31:35
And then loyalty to your company.
31:39
And I talked a little bit about this earlier, being a virtue and
31:45
loyalty to your core, like your Co workers being more of a
31:48
liability. I think that's hard.
31:52
Like we're taught to go to HR, not to each other.
31:56
You know, we're told, you know, that, you know, we manage up and
32:02
not across. And I think that when you
32:07
atomize or we look at it structurally, when you atomize
32:10
workforce, it's a more compliant workforce.
32:15
We don't get to build relationships with each other.
32:18
And I don't think that's an accident.
32:19
So it's hard to name it when you're in it.
32:23
I think it's easier when you're out outside.
32:28
But yeah, I, I think, you know, having nonprofits have, have
32:32
their own flavor of this. They do so.
32:38
Yeah, they yeah. Mr. German orgs, they're like,
32:42
oh, you know, you care about the cause.
32:45
Like you might accept being underpaid and being underpaid is
32:50
part of part of the deal, right? But it's, it's pretty insidious
32:55
because you know, it weaponizes your values sometimes, you know,
32:58
against your material needs. And it's.
33:00
Really well, or, or you hear about the cause.
33:03
So you're not going to criticize a leader who's making, you know,
33:09
programmatic choices that are actually not going to create the
33:12
impact that is in the mission of the organization.
33:17
Yeah. And, and if you are, then you're
33:20
a rabble rouser or, you know, you haven't done your time.
33:24
And I just, I mean, I just remember being like a young
33:28
person in my 20s working at a nonprofit and having this
33:33
interaction with a foundation program officer where they, you
33:37
know, they were going to give us like $150,000, which even 15
33:41
years ago was not a lot of money, right.
33:44
And they were like, we want you to serve 2500 students this
33:48
year. And I said, well, how did you
33:50
come up with that number? And they were like, well, we
33:53
think that that's an appropriate number of youth that you should
33:56
serve in a year. And I said for $150,000, one FTE
34:03
and two AmeriCorps, you think we should serve 2500 young people
34:08
in this community? How did you get that number?
34:11
And they couldn't say anything. And I had my wrist slapped, you
34:15
know, after that interaction. And I was just like, yo, like,
34:20
that's first of all, that's not reasonable.
34:23
That's not reasonable. Second of all, if they can't
34:25
justify how they came up with their number, then like, you
34:28
know, that's, that's not, that's not an acceptable thing.
34:31
And she said, and she told me that she basically had agreed to
34:35
the grant terms and that when it came time to write the report
34:40
that like we would just make it up because we needed that
34:42
funding. And I was like, well, like the
34:45
25 year old me just could not like really struggled with it.
34:50
And I never did advance in that organization.
34:53
And that's, you know, that's that, you know, it's not social
34:56
contract like donors like we got it.
34:59
And I'm going to say something really controversial and
35:01
generalize something that and I don't even care.
35:05
I know, but I but I do know what I'm saying.
35:08
I will bet you that if all and I'm nonprofit, we're all has
35:14
been. You know, that's a big part of
35:15
my work experience that there is one employee in every single
35:20
nonprofit, especially small and mid sized nonprofit, who if they
35:25
just took one leap and one choice to break a social
35:28
contract would sink the whole ship.
35:31
Like with with the knowledge that they knew about either
35:34
finances or, or are there a leader or, you know,
35:38
inappropriate, you know, behaviors or, or any I think
35:42
that happens in it's so I believe it's it's everywhere.
35:48
I think it's like a serious, you know, a serious issue that that,
35:53
you know, nonprofits are not exempt from that kind of that
35:57
kind of thing. Like there were, you know,
35:59
where's the money going? Where's the money going in
36:01
ethics, morality, the stakes are different the, the, the donor
36:07
dynamics. But in corporate space, you
36:09
know, it's a, you know, especially large corporations,
36:11
you could be 1 of 40,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 people and
36:18
you're dealing with a manager and your team and, you know, to
36:22
break a social contract, the stakes might be just for you
36:26
high, but you're not going to sink the whole ship.
36:29
And I think that's, you know, understanding that and also that
36:35
that that might give you some space to do that sometimes to,
36:39
to break it. But I wish that it did.
36:42
But, but I do wish that it did. I think it might be.
36:45
Maybe it's not. It's not any safer.
36:48
I mean, have you guys read Careless people?
36:52
Because we've talked about silence, but I think secret
36:54
keeping is another social, it's an implicit social norm, right?
37:01
Because of course by law we have protections if we want to be
37:04
whistleblowers. And by law we have protections
37:07
if we want to organize our workplace to surface some of
37:11
these issues and negotiate a different contract, right?
37:14
Legally it's like the 30 minute lunch break for Eric.
37:18
Like legally we have supposedly we have these protections, but
37:22
at big corporations, I just, I'm like, how much corruptness is
37:30
kept secret by the workers of that corporation and I think
37:34
careless people, right? Like she talks about how
37:38
Instagram and Meta, like the parent company knew the
37:42
psychological harms being experienced by young women and
37:45
like the rise in societality of young women.
37:48
And I was like, holy crap, do we not care about our kids?
37:53
Like do these goals that run these companies and really not
37:57
care about our children that for making a buck or like more like
38:02
10 billion bucks, they're ready to sell out teenage girls like
38:06
that? I think it's a really like the
38:11
way that you both are talking about this.
38:14
And I know I was started off in kind of a nerdy place, but
38:17
there's a parallel here where if you are subscribing to the
38:21
social contract that the person next to you is a liability and
38:25
that you are also a liability. Like you are navigating your own
38:30
internal compliance. There's no world where you can
38:34
go see the the people who are managing your company or the
38:39
shareholders who are making decisions and place your
38:42
morality in that. Because we're already accepting
38:44
that in ourselves. Like we've already, we've
38:48
already made that decision in the way that we interact with
38:51
others. And like, yes, whistleblowing
38:54
and truth telling can have a really, really big impact
38:58
depending on the size of the organization.
39:01
And it also doesn't have to be that way.
39:05
Like we can be able to. There's a world where we can
39:09
talk to each other about what's going on and it doesn't blow
39:12
everything up like we are in the social conditions and contracts
39:16
that mean like me saying something is going to blow
39:20
everything up, but that's not real either.
39:23
Like we can problem solve together.
39:25
And obviously when we're talking about corporations at scale,
39:28
when you get to a certain size like these social conditions
39:31
become kind of untenable. There are other ways, and maybe
39:36
we can transition our conversation into talking about
39:40
that other side, what we like and what we want to change.
39:52
I, I mean, I have some thoughts about this.
39:54
I mean, I, I do, but a partner, what do you think?
39:57
What do you want to keep? What do you want to create?
39:59
Yeah. So I'm thinking of like the
40:01
places that I've worked in or you know, like clients that I've
40:04
worked for and OK in when I worked at Teach for India, one
40:11
of the explicit norms now. Many problematic things about
40:17
that organization, but one thing that I really loved was that
40:22
everybody in leadership was expected to spend one day a
40:26
month in a low income school observing, participating, being
40:32
a full part of the school day where the fellows were being
40:35
placed. And that, yeah, that was just
40:40
like such an incredible part of my experience of working there
40:44
is that as a leader, as a director, I was not exempt from
40:50
liking in community like that. And that was like a one day was
40:54
the Band-Aid. Like you could do more time.
40:56
And many of us did spend more time in school.
41:00
But that was one that I really, yeah, that was one that I really
41:05
loved. In one of the nonprofits that I
41:07
worked in in Seattle right after grad school, implicit contract
41:12
was actually eating lunch together and like being
41:15
something to share on a regular basis.
41:18
You know, there wasn't like a chore chart or anything, but it
41:21
was just kind of did that people eat together.
41:25
You try other people's food, right?
41:27
You're not just like eating sandwich in a corner by yourself
41:29
like a little rat. You're like sharing your food
41:33
with other people. And I really loved that contract
41:38
as well. There's another organization
41:40
that I worked with met in construction and one of their
41:46
implicit contracts was that you don't jump to the worst possible
41:49
conclusion about another person. And so and I saw it play out
41:53
where in a meeting an older employee, an older worker, in
41:58
talking about people of color, he used the language of colored
42:02
people. And I can see in a lot of
42:04
scenarios, videos, this person would get written up and like,
42:07
people would have a lot, lots of big feelings about this.
42:11
But at this organization, he wasn't shaved.
42:14
And one of the managers kind of just gently nudged him and said,
42:18
hey, like, the language that we use now is people of color, can,
42:24
you know, let's try and use that.
42:26
And it was just such great modeling for the 60 year old
42:31
man, white man who's worked in construction his whole life, not
42:35
gone to college, that he's not bad by virtue of using outdated
42:39
language. Yeah.
42:41
So those are some things that I've really enjoyed.
42:44
But I would say any time I've worked with or for an
42:47
organization that models transparency, you know, should
42:51
be models of vulnerability like sharing with employees, the
42:55
financial, household organization.
42:57
Yeah, those are things like norms that I want to see
43:00
propagated. I love that.
43:03
I love that, I love that. Like, you know, you know,
43:07
bringing people in and like sharing time together.
43:09
I think that that's that's a big deal.
43:13
And kind of along that same line I remember, you know, being
43:19
together, like having or seeing each other as human, not just
43:23
like workers is so important to, to keeping us, you know, keeping
43:30
around and keeping us a little bit, you know, happier, at least
43:34
where we are. And it doesn't have to come.
43:36
It doesn't need to come from the entity that you work for.
43:39
It can be built with each other. And that's sort of a beautiful
43:42
thing. But one of the work human
43:45
studies that is from 20/23 showed that people who
43:53
celebrated life milestones showed just, you know, I think
43:59
it was like much higher. It was like 8640 started at 43%,
44:05
half, you know, happiness in the surveys and like jumped to 86%
44:09
when they started implementing their own.
44:12
Like is this worker LED at their own celebration sort of
44:16
protocols? So they were celebrating each
44:19
other's milestones and celebrating birthdays or doing
44:22
something like having that togetherness and seeing others
44:26
really, really important. And I'd like that more.
44:28
Like I would love to see that for employees and for people who
44:32
are working and spaces with teens.
44:35
That's so beautiful. I actually had a client for many
44:37
years where they had like an FTE, like A5 FTE devoted to
44:42
doing the celebrations. And when they became my client,
44:46
they told me about that. I was like, wow, what a waste of
44:48
time. Like how many times a year are
44:49
you eating cake? But it was like a well
44:53
orchestrated, well orchestrated celebration situation at this
44:58
organization, and people really loved it.
45:02
Yeah. Operation and I want to like I
45:05
think it's not soft work until you put it to partners and also
45:10
calling back to you lawyers when you talked about early on in the
45:14
in our session, you'd like to engage in disagreement.
45:17
What I would love. I think the performance of
45:19
ferpitants has but so much fear and people that they can't say,
45:23
hey, I need help with this budget or this problem is
45:28
complicated because they're so fearful of showing this
45:32
vulnerability that they end up doing it not well.
45:35
And then they end up, you know, there's residual effects of that
45:38
because of that fear. And as somebody who has said, I
45:41
just like I reject it, like I don't want to know everything
45:45
all the time, all at once. And I don't want to be expected
45:48
to, but I also don't want to be, you know, people have been
45:51
shamed for not knowing everything, especially, and I
45:54
will say this, especially people who identify as women or present
45:57
as women and female bodies. I want to make sure like like
46:00
people can ask for help and also disagree about healthy argument
46:06
and what healthy discourse in workspaces where people can do
46:12
that and not and everybody walks away hole And I did DEI for a
46:16
long time. I'm not into utopian fantasies
46:19
of, you know, in this realm and and and work.
46:23
I don't I don't care for that. I care for like robust, healthy
46:28
discussion, push back interrogating ideas,
46:31
interrogating the action like what what you know, making sure
46:35
that we're doing things that we that are essential to, in my
46:39
case, serving people, serving other humans and and other
46:43
places. It might be like making the best
46:45
damn widget. Like I want to make it.
46:47
I'm going to tussle about how to make the widget and make the
46:51
widget that's going to like rock the people's world or the other
46:55
that goes into the other widget like whatever that is.
46:59
It's a widget. It's a widget that goes into
47:02
another widget that goes into another thing that creates, you
47:06
know, I don't know, a wheel, like, I don't know, but but you
47:10
know, like that doesn't have to be somewhere where I've got to
47:13
protect my salary. Like, oh, my people can't know
47:17
how much I make and people might can't tell my boss like I'm
47:20
having widget issues, you know, like, I don't want that.
47:23
Got it you. I want that norm.
47:26
I want this sort of broken open space and I feel like there's
47:30
some world, my mind fantasies that there's some world where we
47:34
can be, you know, there can, there can be capitalist and and
47:37
there can be transparency, openness and and workers rights
47:42
all in the same, all in the same bed.
47:44
But I don't know that they can sleep together.
47:47
I don't like, I don't presume to know either, but I do know that
47:52
I'm, I will, I'm veering toward and I would fight for this world
47:56
where at least the people get to be human at work.
47:59
That's my vision, anyway. Yes, yeah.
48:05
May it be so. May it be so.
48:07
OK, I want to switch gears a little bit.
48:11
We want to do a rapid response round with you rapid fire
48:16
section. I have 5 prompts and I am going
48:21
to ask Leilani you to go first. You can do it, You can do it.
48:26
It's not high stakes. OK, the first prompt is this.
48:32
It's to finish the sentence. So the white collar workers
48:36
greatest superpower, if they choose to use it, is blank.
48:44
Collective legibility. The moment we start talking to
48:47
each other about what we're actually experiencing, then we
48:51
break the illusion and that that could be really powerful.
48:55
Then we can fly together. Love it, Lars.
49:05
Last episode I said verbal influence, and I feel, I feel
49:09
the same. And now I'm going to say
49:10
something just to be silly, which is a really good
49:13
presentation, very compelling, very compelling.
49:16
Let's let's bring those skills into civic engagement.
49:20
Let's bring those skills out on the streets and let's convince
49:24
some people some stuff because we're good at it.
49:26
Yeah, you know what? I actually was thinking the same
49:29
thing. I was like, we can make amazing
49:32
decks. Let us fucking arm people with
49:35
amazing, brilliant decks. Go tell a great story.
49:39
OK, Second prompt, what is your favorite corporate phrase?
49:45
Favorite corporate lingo? I liked.
49:47
Can I tell you the ones I don't like?
49:50
OK, Because I don't like a lot of them.
49:53
OK, I'll tell you the ones I like.
49:54
OK, I like, I like touch base. And of course I love circle
49:58
back, but I like touch base because it involves physical
50:01
touch or it doesn't actually. It actually doesn't.
50:05
It implies it. I'm sorry, it doesn't involve
50:07
it. Maybe I haven't used your car
50:09
like this whole time, Ding. Ding, Ding, some char gets
50:11
called in. Yeah.
50:13
No it does not. Bleeding.
50:15
Not a liability do not to actually touch these, but no
50:20
yeah, I I like touch base Lars favorite.
50:25
This week I am loving. We're building the plane as
50:29
we're flying it, you know. Building the plane as we fly.
50:33
OK, third prompt. What is a corporate phrase that
50:36
white collar workers use that actually mean I'm scared or I'm
50:42
worried? There are two that I that come
50:45
to mind. One is, well, let's make sure
50:47
we're set up for success. So I think that like that can
50:50
mean anything, but I think sometimes it means like, let's
50:53
slow down, Let's not do this thing.
50:55
Like let's say we're moving too fast for me.
50:58
And then the other one is edge. I think it's kind of violent and
51:01
they don't like don't like it. But I think it means like, let's
51:04
not boil the ocean or like, let's not eat the whole
51:09
elephant. Both of them kind of violate and
51:12
odd phrases, but also to me mean like they're overwhelmed by a
51:17
large body of work or project. Signals fear, Lars.
51:25
We need to get some eyes on this.
51:27
Let's get some eyes on it. Got to get.
51:30
Some eyes on it. That's terrifying.
51:32
Like somebody's terrified if they say that, yeah.
51:36
OK, here's the 4th one. What one?
51:39
What's one thing the system never told white collar workers
51:43
about their own power? What has been withheld from
51:47
white collar workers about their own power?
51:52
So in my opinion, honestly, I think it's that your employer
51:54
needs you more than you've been conditioned to believe.
51:59
The whole apparatus, performance management rates, probation
52:03
periods, culture that is designed to make you feel like
52:07
you're replaceable. I just, I don't think talent is
52:11
interchangeable or like relationships are not
52:12
interchangeable and institutional knowledge walks
52:16
out the door. And so you have more, you do
52:20
have more leverage than they want you to know.
52:23
And so that's that's the way. Yeah, I have one more Leilani
52:29
and this is this is for you. If you could say one sentence,
52:33
one thing directly to every white collar worker listening to
52:36
this right now about what is possible on the other side of
52:41
breaking or renegotiating social contracts, what would it be?
52:51
No, no, build your own community with your coworkers.
53:07
OK, that is the perfect thing to almost end on build your own
53:12
community with your own Co workers.
53:14
So we do end every episode with one take away each and one thing
53:19
that you can actually do. Lars, I'm wondering if you're
53:23
ready to go. Yeah, episode from this
53:26
conversation. I think the the simplest
53:29
reflection is can we normalize talking about social contracts
53:35
so we can actually start taking accountability for them?
53:38
We're so good at complaining about work, but what are we
53:43
saying when we're actually doing that?
53:46
And you know, so much of this podcast is was talking about
53:51
what we want to change, what is painful.
53:54
And yeah, I also recognize that like there's some things we
53:57
really like. Maybe we like the people we like
53:59
the the way of working, the purpose.
54:01
It's important to talk about that too.
54:03
There's no shame in the social contracts and social conditions
54:07
that we're experiencing. The system is designed for it.
54:11
And I think when we get overly focused on competition and
54:17
performance, we're actually moving into a place of
54:20
dishonesty because we're not talking to each other about what
54:24
we're doing, how and what we're accepting is normal.
54:28
So that means that there's a lot of room for hard to happen if
54:31
we're so focused on compliance, we're not going to to react and
54:36
step up for the person who's next to us who needs our help,
54:40
for Eric F, who needs to just eat his sandwich for 30 minutes.
54:45
You know, like what Aparna didn't say is when he posted it,
54:49
his caption was so I quit today, right.
54:52
Something like that. Yeah.
54:54
That shouldn't that, you know, we should just say, you know
54:56
what? No, Brenda, no.
54:59
So this week play with talking to your Co worker and you can
55:04
just you know, you can ask them. Do you see me as your
55:07
competition? What does that feel like?
55:10
Are you afraid of retaliation? Are you doing work that you
55:14
don't understand its impact on the world?
55:17
How do you perform at work? What does that look like?
55:19
Just get curious and talk about the conditions together and see
55:23
what happens. Leilani, any takeaways?
55:28
Any invitations? You know, there's so many things
55:31
I can say, but you know, I really do understand that it's
55:35
it, it is a privilege to be able to leave your job even when it's
55:38
hard that you really, really want to.
55:41
And all I know and all I really know and, and you know, and in
55:45
the spirit of what Large just said is that when you have
55:48
people and you can commiserate with the people that you work
55:51
with or other people who are working, you really you at least
55:55
have some relief. And so at the very least, if you
55:58
can't leave, you can always be a really good sort of relief to
56:02
someone else maybe or or they can be a relief to you could
56:05
stand together and you know, maybe if they're in your
56:10
organization, you can tell them how much you're making.
56:12
They can tell you how much you're making.
56:13
You guys can start the conversation get get normalized
56:17
and being transparent and caring for each other.
56:21
I mean, you both know that I love data, and one of the things
56:27
that is highly correlated to our health is having friends, right?
56:34
You, you probably already know this, right?
56:36
But having friends helps with longevity.
56:38
Having friends leads to, like, having fewer diseases, and the
56:43
same is true at work, even if you're in a place that feels
56:46
like a toxic waste pit they were going to carry in.
56:49
Some of like, I feel like now in my early 40s, some of the some
56:53
of my closest friends are people that I was in the trenches with
56:56
in my 20s. Yeah.
57:00
I feel like we've had a really, really good conversation.
57:03
Leilai, thank you for being here.
57:04
Thank you for. Thank you.
57:06
Yeah. Thank you.
57:07
My pleasure, my pleasure. OK folks, on our next episode we
57:11
are going to talk about the myth of being the ideal or the
57:14
perfect worker and the material cost that trying to live out
57:19
this ideal has on other people. Oh, we yes and circle back Club,
57:28
that is all of you. We want to hear from you.
57:31
We are collecting stories from your Co workers who are sharing
57:35
their ICS, their hopes for corporate work, your experiences
57:40
and they influence the way we tell stories and incorporate
57:44
your stories into our episodes. So we all know that we are not
57:49
alone. So if you have a story about
57:51
work you want to share with us, send us an e-mail or audio
57:54
recording to Hello at Circle Back Club.
57:59
I'm Lars. I'm Aparna and we'll see you
58:01
next week.