Pocket Change: Movement language in the boardroom
Pocket Change is a monthly series of notes on disruption, authored by 18 Coffees co-founder Caleb Gardner. Be the first to read Pocket Change — subscribe to the email newsletter here.
When you grow up in the Bible Belt like I did, you don’t so much come to faith as you are born into it. As a teenager, I developed skepticism about how Christian teachings were interpreted by my local church leaders, especially around social issues. Jesus didn’t want us to have piercings or tattoos, apparently. Jesus cared a lot more about whether or not I was swearing than about the poor. Don’t even mention homosexuality around him. And he didn’t want me talking to my non-believing friends, unless it was to evangelize.
The writer Frances S. Lee has written about the parallels they see between religious dogmatism and certain strands of social justice activism, including how both practice preaching and punishment. As someone who grew up in evangelical circles and then spent time in political advocacy, I’ve seen both versions of this kind of ideological shaming. Political affiliation may be the closest secular equivalent to religion we have in the United States. And whether or not they realize they’re doing it, both churches and political parties often express cultural nuances that can be other-ing to the uninitiated.
Cultural conversations bleed into our work and our workplaces more than we want to admit, affecting our always-plugged-in employees and influencing their interest in any kind of change initiative that may include culture-specific language. New research from faculty at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management suggests that bringing activism language into the workplace can actually be detrimental to the very causes the movements champion. When we ask the uninitiated to come to Jesus, they often respond with confusion, anxiety—or antipathy.
Those of us who want to make change in the workplace have to wrap our heads around how much the internet has created a massive reinforcement structure for cultural boundaries. We have to mitigate those effects with consistent internal communication, education, and engagement around social issues relevant to our company mission. And importantly, we have to support our people, not just our organizations, on a journey of transformation.
Keeping an eye on:
ASSET FRAMES — Speaking of the words we use, I’ve been a fan of Trabian Shorters’ work around “asset framing” for many years now. His conversation with Krista Tippett for the podcast On Being is a must-listen.
BEZOS DOCTORS — Amazon is expanding nationwide its telehealth program, Amazon Care, which provides a suite of in-person and virtual-care services. Health care was already primed for disruption before the pandemic; can Amazon capitalize?
HYPE LEVELS — Great read about what we mean when we say “hype”, and how the tech industry especially uses and abuses the term.
MISINFORMATION DIVESTMENTS — Loving this call to action from Comscore for advertisers to divest from the “misinformation ecosystem”, and advertise responsibility on credible news sites (while, of course, using Comscore tools to do it).
LANGUAGE GAPS — What happens when you build a massive information ecosystem across cultures and languages that gets poisoned with disinformation—and then you respond with tools and tactics that are only in English?
MONEY MOVES — Just announced: Salesforce will tie a portion of pay for EVPs and above to the company’s performance around ESG measures like pay equity and environmental sustainability.
