PC Mall and the Milgram experiment.
In 1963, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram first described in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology an experiment held in 1961 on our willingness to obey an authority figure asking us to perform acts that conflicted with personal conscience.
The results of this study were both influential and disturbing: While most tested subjects claimed a strong sense of ethics, in fact a wide majority (65%) ended up following orders to a severe extreme, though many were very uncomfortable doing so.
The moral implication has serious impact: In general, we are quite willing to injure or even kill just as long as a figure of authority orders us to do so.
In their 1981 best seller book, “In Search of Excellence”, Tom Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr wrote that The Milgram Experiment and the later Zimbardo Experiment at Stanford University were frightening in their implications about the danger lurking in human nature’s dark side.
What does all this has to do with PC Mall? Well, for one, being aware of the above means that I understand how the path to extreme is made of small concessions, and that the simplest way to prevent falling into such a situation is to know where the line is, and not to cross it. To never cross it.
Most of us, setting aside the 5% of the population who are sociopaths and psychopaths, know the difference between right and wrong. When we cross that line, it’s either by mistake, or because a stronger imperative compels us. A thief often knows stealing isn’t a good thing but is driven by need or greed for money and material goods. He may even have strong moral qualms about the action and do it anyway if the forces are strong enough – stealing food when starving is a good example: The drive for survival is strong. Peer pressure and the need to belong. Or low self esteem, envy and the need to outshine.
As any good spy-master will tell you, once you start making small concessions on your ethics and have rationalized your behaviour to preserve your sense of self worth, the next small steps come a lot easier, until little remains of your original intentions to “cheat, just a little bit.”
So I was asked to do something I consider unethical – to cheat to achieve preset goals – and refused. That many coworkers do this is irrelevant to me: it’s up to them to be comfortable with their life choices, and I pass no judgement. Furthermore, there is little doubt that most would avoid doing it if they could; but a higher imperative, the need for security and stability, to keep a job in which they have invested much, is compelling.
That these goal were designed unachievable on purpose, with the expectation that most employees are cheaters, anyway, is both perverse and deplorable, insomuch as it creates the situation and opens the door to a lot worse: Once an organization starts condoning and even encouraging unethical behavior from its staff, there is no way to predict how far this will lead. It is also quite insulting.
But in the end the company does not care to change things. It’s making loads of money. Floor managers got promoted based on meeting these same preset goals in this same old ways. There is little perceived value in making any changes, and much risk perceived in doing so.
In the end I am the odd peg. I received an email from my managers that was quite clear: Meet the goals (which can only be done by cheating, which I will not do, something he already knew); meet another goals (sales $, which is entirely unachievable in the delay granted); or get fired on March 1st.
(He actually did not say get fired: He said he would terminate me, which takes an interesting meaning from a large man prone to loud outbursts.)
I’m not going to start placing blame on anyone; who knows how all this got started, and I expect it was all done wit the best of intentions – at least for shareholders. It is also clear by the length at which HR tried to conciliate that the did value my contributions and potential within the company. They really tried hard an it was appreciated.
But, in the end, that message I got was constructive termination, insomuch as the only possible outcome was termination, no matter how strongly that intention may be denied after the facts. I don’t believe I am being obtuse or obstinate, and altogether I would have loved to remain there, but there are certain thing I will not do, and do willingly act in a way I now is wrong, when I know it is wrong, is simply not an option open to me, this even when a figure of authority orders me to do so.
So, yes, I am an idealist, and shamelessly so; yet, one has only to look back to WWII Germany to get a gruesome idea of where “following orders” may lead.