Mitchell Pearce. Cecil John Rhodes. Your Company. Where it all went wrong.

People say you should be tolerant.

But should you tolerate laziness, poor personal hygiene or stealing?  Should you tolerate abusers, perverts and scoundrels?

People say you should not be judgmental. But if you don’t judge, how do you know when to cross the road? If you don’t judge whether something is appropriate how do you know it is inappropriate? If we don’t judge, how do we lock someone way for their crimes?

People say you should not discriminate, but I eat certain foods every day and drink certain wines because I discriminate. I stand up for an older person on a bus because I discriminate.

When I put it like that, you will be quick to realise the ridiculousness of a blanket statement like you should be tolerant or you should not judge.

You might now start to qualify the statements:

·         You should tolerate what is good and what is bad.

·         You should use your judgement to do no harm to others.

·         You should discriminate only to improve a situation.

But that simply raises more questions, so I am not sure it is at all helpful.

How do you know something is good or bad? Who decides? What it if it is good for me but bad for you?  Who gets to decide what is harmful and not? If a child gets punished are they learning discipline or are they abused? Where is the line drawn and who draws it?

In the news is a campaign under the hashtag #rhodesmustfall. Rhodes, an Oxford man, was a major figure in British colonial history with a vast legacy of achievements. An outstanding scholar and entrepreneur and major philanthropist, he was also racist in his politics. The campaign aims to topple statutes etc. and effectively erase history because his view of race is out of sync with the times.

People who speak in favour of maintaining the status quo are shouted down by social justice warriors.

And this is the ironic position that relativism inevitably brings about: People who believe someone (in this case Rhodes) was intolerant and discriminatory should not be tolerated and should be discriminated against.

There are arguments for and against – and both sides will passionately argue for their views. Both are right and both are wrong.

The fox of relativism just chased a rat up the fox’s own arse, killing both.

That is what happens when you believe everything is relative. You may argue that this is just the way it is - and humans will be ingenuous enough to resolve it.

The problem is that history proves conclusively that humans are not able to settle their differences amicably when it really matters. And the other problem is that the belief that everything is relative does not accord with the reality most people experience.

Do you really, really believe there are no right and no wrong? Do you really believe there aren’t things/ behaviours that are simply universally, eternally wrong?

You know it. Innately. And if you are smart enough to realise that accepting this is not compatible with a naturalistic philosophy, you may well still iterate that there is no right or wrong – just better or worse – and that humans must make the best of it we can.

Of course, if you are smart enough to realise that, you should also realise that saying that there is no right or wrong is in itself an absolute claim which disproves itself – so it is not a logically coherent view to take.

Philosophically speaking, religious people will argue that God provides the metaphysical ontic point (of reference) by which you can judge absolute truths – and so be able to judge right and wrong.

From a management point of view in corporations, we also need a similar ontic reference point. On what basis do you hire and fire people? On what basis do you promote? How do you facilitate certain behaviours that are ‘right’ and discourage others that are wrong?

Of course your country’s legislation is one such objective reference point – you fire someone for stealing because it is against the law. But there are many situations where the law won’t help you decide. The law won’t make your organisation more innovative or improve the customer experience.

Fortunately, there is another law – the law of ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE. This is not usually written down completely, but there are of course POLICY documents that may be used. And there is usually a clearly set of articulated values that may apply. But, like the proverbial iceberg, the biggest part of culture is below the surface. It is captured by that umbrella phrase: “the way we do things around here.”

The clearer it is to everyone, the better and more effective it is at guiding people. The more stringent its enforcement, the more consistent its impact and the more successful a company will be at living up to its aspirations.

If values are hard to interpret – even if the source is well-known and accepted as the ‘truth’, then it leads to confusion. The Bible is the source of truth for the Christian and it says ‘love thy neighbour’ – and there is confusion in the ranks as to whether neighbour includes a refugee on a boat who may or may not be a terrorist. Even if the ‘truth’ is written clearly – there is always room for interpretation. But it is worse if it is not written down.

Cultures are not written down, but employees observe very acutely because their survival depends on it.

Organisations may claim that the customer is number one or that customer service is important, but if the CEO never visits a customer, doesn’t demonstrably support the customer service improvement project and so forth, then no one will take the claim about customer service seriously.
Employees judge right and wrong by refereeing the cultural mandates of the organisation. These cultural reference points are built up over time.

When an employee ‘crosses the line’ at the Christmas Party, chances are that the types of behaviours that were tolerated long before bordered on abusive and bullying and sexism, and you can hardly single out that incident for punishment.

I am not condoning Christmas Party shenanigans; but I am saying that people take their behavioural cues from the organisational cultural, and therefore the problem may well be bigger than one rogue employee.

A football club may have a ‘no dickheads’ policy but their captain is the biggest dickhead of them all. Nobody is going to take that ‘policy’ seriously.

Currently in the news is Mitchell Pearce at the Sydney Roosters. It is well-documented and he is universally condemned. But I would also hazard a guess, based on what other players at that club have been up to over a long period of time, the problem is not Mitchell Pearce only, but that it runs much deeper.

They have an issue where the culture is not a strong, objective point of reference. Right and wrong is relative: one man’s harmless prank is another’s outage.

Have I mentioned the fox and the rat?

Relativism kills decision making. Relativism kills culture. Relativism kills justice. It is a modern day disease that people innocently accept because it is a prerequisite to a lifestyle where people demand to be tolerated, and insist on not being judged.

The irony of not tolerating the intolerant is missed as they grapple to solve issues that can only be solved by accepting that there are laws, fixed and immutable (absolute) truths by which we should judge and should use as the basis of discrimination.

I believe it is an absolute, universal truth that people should do the right thing.

In order to do this, you need a reference point by which to navigate. In the absence of having a bible and the doctrines to explain it, organisations must create their own reference point in the form of a strong culture.

It all starts going wrong when you lack the firm, I'd say absolute, reference point by which you judge and discriminate and tolerate.

Do you have that in your life? In your club? In your university? In your organisation?