And pours down, whether asked for or not.
This essay is focused on improving organizational cultures, as opposed to societal cultures.
I
A factory is organized by engineering and manufacturing teams, each with their own subteams and structures. The president, Andrew, is ultimately responsible for the factory's overall performance, including cost, throughput, safety violations, etc. While he assumed this role with already-established vice presidents (VP) in place, he does have the ability to subtly transform and influence others' behaviors—both direct and indirect reports—using his position of power.
Andrew uses fear and intimidation to get what he wants and imposes high expectations on his VPs, giving a veiled threat of poor performance ratings or little room for promotional growth if certain goals aren't met. As a result, the VPs are more "motivated" to achieve said goals and impose high expectations onto the VVPs they are over. This propagates down to the individual contributor (IC) role, where the V...P is constantly under the threat of a poor review or even demotion that they will do whatever they can to achieve goals, even if it means cutting corners or working their ICs to the bone.
V...Ps are quick to blame others for obvious problems because it deflects blame from themselves and improves the chances of not getting a poor review (but not necessarily a good one). ICs must fend for themselves because they have no one to blame for poor performance but themselves. Anyone pushing back against unfair or unreasonable treatment is subject to repercussions of those more powerful than themselves, and those more powerful have no reason to accept it because why would they?
II
The popular male friend group of the local high school includes Makatiel (the ring leader), Rashiel, Nathanael, Barakiel, and Badiel, and a handful of others with names that end in -el. It is exclusive and challenging to gain entry, but for good reason: they are all quite attractive with rich parents, get all of the girls' attention, and go to all of the parties. Makatiel, being the most attractive with the richest parents and the funniest jokes, calls the shots, and the others, who aren't quite as attractive nor rich nor funny yet still want to be included in the group because of its benefits, follow Makatiel's every move and order.
And because Makatiel calls the shots, he can call the shot to excommunicate any member for any reason. No one will oppose him because all must oppose him, and not all will oppose him because of the immediate cutting off of the glorious benefits. The power dynamic plays well for Makatiel and poorly for the others, leading to a culture of ass-kissing and favor-doing to get on Makatiel's good side enough that they won't get the boot if they ever fuck up. (Hint: Makatiel expects the ass kisses and favors and doesn't keep count, so any fuck up is a net negative in his book, regardless of the true magnitude and past.)
Undesirable, pour-down (there is no trickling here) cultures are often the result of power dynamics. More powerful people can impose their will onto those beneath them without fear of consequence, giving two distinct results.
First, the less powerful can now impose their will on the less-less powerful, knowing they are safe from punishment because the all-powerful being both a) does the exact same thing, and b) expects the lower level impositions because they are doing it themselves. As shown in the first example, this pours down to the lowest levels of the organization, making everyone feel the pressure an almost equal amount except the one pouring it.
Second, pushback is impossible or at least strongly discouraged due to the power dynamic. The more powerful will just remove, ignore, or criticize the less powerful.
Good culture is subjective, but bad culture is often objective. Using fear, intimidation, and beratement is bad culture. Having the knee-jerk reaction of pointing fingers at others when things go wrong is bad culture. To make improvements, bad characteristics must be eliminated, allowing good characteristics to flourish on both an individual and organizational level.
How can a sound, healthy culture be established that prevents abuse of its abiders by the issuers?
Bad culture violations should be allowed to be reported anonymously with zero risk of being identified. The panel that reviews these reports must have little to no conflicts of interest.
Some options to become a panelist:
Rigorous rules and laws should be put in place. Violations must carry appropriate and identical punishments, regardless of the offender's stature. Questionable violations (i.e., was a rule legitimately violated?) must be reviewed by a panel as outlined above.
How rules are set is tricky. Those in power have incentives to make rules lax to allow leeway in either direction without violation, so long as they aren't (severely) negatively affected when a violation occurs.
Some ideas:
Arguably the most radical of improvement options, removing the omnipresent power hierarchy and replacing it with a better alternative cuts the problem off at the source.
Some ideas:
There are still minor, individual-level improvements that can be made without an entire policy changes:
Remember that these improvements are not just for you, but your coworkers, too.
I do not think any of these improvement ideas will be implemented even if all the kinks were worked out. Modern-day organization still have a bottom line that is often directly correlated with performance, and if a bad culture still results in good metrics, then so be it. If the metrics aren't reached, then maybe something will change.
A man can still dream (and fight).