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I used to work for a software company that literally had "no politics" as part of its DNA. It was in the company handbook, it was in our values, people would sa

I used to work for a software company that literally had "no politics" as part of its DNA. It was in the company handbook, it was in our values, people would say it when they talked about what it was like to work at the company. Hell, whilst I can't recall any specific instances, I guarantee that I said it and probably many times[0]. But, of course, it was never true. It might have felt true - certainly superficially - when we were a smaller company, but the reality is that it never was. We just didn't want to be grown up enough to admit that. You can only really interface effectively with reality and make good decisions when you face up to that reality rather than living in denial. Or, as one of my favourite quotes (albeit that it's now a bit overused), from Miyamoto Musashi, puts it: “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or live a lie.” So that company maintained the "no politics" value for long years after it became apparent to anyone with a working brain that it wasn't true. Wasn't even close to true. And that's poison: it bleeds into everything. Avoidance of the truth promotes avoidance elsewhere. Lack of openness, lack of accountability, perverse mythologies, bitterness, resentment, and a sort of gently corrosive low grade mendacity that eats away at everything. And all because we're lying to ourselves about "no politics". So I agree: politics is unavoidable and, if we are to succeed, we must do so by becoming politicians, and admitting to both ourselves and to others that we're doing it, because success cannot be sustained without that, and we also can't help others to reach their full potential unless we are honest with ourselves and eachother. [0] And certainly I'd say that I hated politics and wanted no part of it.

hobs 1y ago
I think the problem is that this is the core of most companies. A core lie that they tell the employees and sometimes even the customers - "we value you" - "we care about our employees" "we want to serve our shareholders" "we build community" "we try to ..." vision statement type stuff, almost always suborned to "I want the C suite to make the most money possible RIGHT NOW" or "You can never make me look bad even when I am an idiot". Anything that violates those core precepts are rejected out of hand, and often times for things that would support the companies stated principles. I have worked 20+ jobs in my life, and either petty bullshit or greed rules the top of the heap in all but the most particular circumstances. I cant even remember how many meetings I have setup with CEO's to hand feed them information and cheer them on like a toddler so they can make the obviously correct decision.
Nition 1y ago
Your Musashi quote reminds me of another relatively well-known quote from philosopher Eugene Gendlin: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."
- andrewflnr 1y ago
  There's some interesting meta futility in that statement. It's true of course, as far as it goes. But no one avoids truth because they think it's a rational strategy. They do it because it avoids emotional pain[0]. This is a sort of hard truth about why people avoid hard truths. Telling a truth-avoidant person (which is most of us on at least a few topics) things like this will have very little impact. In fact they've probably already stopped listening. [0] I was going to say "in the short term" but as someone suffering long-term emotional pain over facing relatively minor truths, well, I'm not sure that qualifier is appropriate.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ljosifov 1y ago
    Yes - so telling hard truths is not for the benefit of the listener, it's for the benefit of the speaker mostly. That's a major point: if I see, but I don't tell, if I have private truths and public lies, it's one small victory for untruths. However much I think I'm not - I'm co-opted in the big lie machine. There is quite a lot of experience with this acquired during the totalitarian communist regimes that existed in eastern Europe <1990s. And a minor point is: the listener may switch off, but a minuscule part of the message may make it's way. May implant a tiny seed of doubt, admittedly very very unlikely. But it's not totally futile. Even if the speaker may decide the price to be paid is too high, for too little gain. (lots of the time)
  - mlrtime 1y ago
    One thing I read recently that has stuck (it seems obvious) is around hard truths that bring emotional pain. These truths (whatever they may be) will come to you at random times, mostly when you're not wanting them which makes it even more difficult to deal with. So when they come to you naturally (and they will) , you try to push the thoughts away. Better is to realize the truths and bring them up at your own time. Think about the hard truths that bring emotional pain when you have control over your personal environment. This way you may be better equipped to deal with it. I don't want to assign any words or practices for this because there are many, but framing it this way helps.
thaumasiotes 1y ago
> as one of my favourite quotes (albeit that it's now a bit overused), from Miyamoto Musashi, puts it: “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or live a lie.” From https://www.way-of-the-samurai.com/miyamoto-musashi-quotes.html https://www.way-of-the-samurai.com/miyamoto-musashi-quotes.h... : > Musashi did not say this. This comes from a less than accurate “interpretation” of Musashi’s life and work by D. E. Tarver who repeats several fictions and myths about Musashi (hiding under bodies for 3 days at the battle of Sekigahara etc). He includes this line, “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie” in the final paragraph of the Fire Scroll introduction. No such Miyamoto Musashi quotes appear in the Japanese, nor in any of the credible English translations.
- bartread 1y ago
  Thanks: that's interesting to know. However, I don't know that it erodes the value of the quote which, taken in isolation, rings true. Even, of all things, a Batman movie[0], and Battlestar Galactica[1] (!) have managed to drop some remarkably profound truths on occasion which has made me relatively unfussy about where one can find truth. At the same time I do like to give due credit so I'll be sure to reference the correct source in future. Thank you, once again. [0] "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - seen this one play out first hand multiple times in corporate life, specifically in leadership. [1] "You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore." - take heed, Mark Zuckerberg.
  - xwolfi 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - try_the_bass 1y ago
      This is a wildly antagonistic take. It's apparent that the meaning of the quote is true to the parent commenter, regardless of whether or not the attribution is accurate. The attribution being inaccurate does not rob the quote of it's meaning. > I could have said the same thing. But you didn't, and would never have, until you saw the quote for yourself. To claim otherwise is to lie, which you seem pretty passionately opposed to doing. Should I demand an apology from you, now?
jeffreygoesto 1y ago
Reminds me of "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" [0] https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
pjmlp 1y ago
Thanks for sharing, and a good example why for me all those values trainings are worthless, they are lies that get spread across meetings, placed on adversting material, told to junior employees, and hardly anyone follows them in practice, other than doing that yearly training to check a checklist.
- try_the_bass 1y ago
  This is a wild take. I think the point of the parent comment was that those "values" have to be honest to be worth anything, not that they shouldn't exist at all.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    I am approaching 50 years old, I never seen them being honest in first place during my half century, only marketing material.
    - try_the_bass 1y ago
      I'm younger than you, and have definitely seen them be honest multiple times. So apparently experiences differ!
  - nosianu 1y ago
    The question the parent commenter raises is more related to those trainings, which are 100% artificial and typical corporate checkbox ticking on the HR TODO list. Nobody disputed the value of giving an example by living and acting in certain ways.
pydry 1y ago
>I used to work for a software company that literally had "no politics" as part of its DNA I did too. It was something the CEO started saying after a particularly brutal game of thrones style purge. I think a lot of times company values are simply "things the company did and perhaps still does for which it feels shame".
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
piva00 1y ago
Was that a music streaming company by any chance?
GuB-42 1y ago
"No politics" is politics. It may even be the worst kind. Companies are all about making money, and politics is one way to achieve that. Saying "no politics" is like asking employees to not care about money, it is not going to happen, and there is an implicit "but it doesn't apply to me".

hobs 1y ago

I think the problem is that this is the core of most companies. A core lie that they tell the employees and sometimes even the customers - "we value you" - "we care about our employees" "we want to serve our shareholders" "we build community" "we try to ..." vision statement type stuff, almost always suborned to "I want the C suite to make the most money possible RIGHT NOW" or "You can never make me look bad even when I am an idiot". Anything that violates those core precepts are rejected out of hand, and often times for things that would support the companies stated principles. I have worked 20+ jobs in my life, and either petty bullshit or greed rules the top of the heap in all but the most particular circumstances. I cant even remember how many meetings I have setup with CEO's to hand feed them information and cheer them on like a toddler so they can make the obviously correct decision.

Nition 1y ago

Your Musashi quote reminds me of another relatively well-known quote from philosopher Eugene Gendlin: "What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn't make it worse. Not being open about it doesn't make it go away. And because it's true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn't there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it."

andrewflnr 1y ago
There's some interesting meta futility in that statement. It's true of course, as far as it goes. But no one avoids truth because they think it's a rational strategy. They do it because it avoids emotional pain[0]. This is a sort of hard truth about why people avoid hard truths. Telling a truth-avoidant person (which is most of us on at least a few topics) things like this will have very little impact. In fact they've probably already stopped listening. [0] I was going to say "in the short term" but as someone suffering long-term emotional pain over facing relatively minor truths, well, I'm not sure that qualifier is appropriate.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ljosifov 1y ago
  Yes - so telling hard truths is not for the benefit of the listener, it's for the benefit of the speaker mostly. That's a major point: if I see, but I don't tell, if I have private truths and public lies, it's one small victory for untruths. However much I think I'm not - I'm co-opted in the big lie machine. There is quite a lot of experience with this acquired during the totalitarian communist regimes that existed in eastern Europe <1990s. And a minor point is: the listener may switch off, but a minuscule part of the message may make it's way. May implant a tiny seed of doubt, admittedly very very unlikely. But it's not totally futile. Even if the speaker may decide the price to be paid is too high, for too little gain. (lots of the time)
- mlrtime 1y ago
  One thing I read recently that has stuck (it seems obvious) is around hard truths that bring emotional pain. These truths (whatever they may be) will come to you at random times, mostly when you're not wanting them which makes it even more difficult to deal with. So when they come to you naturally (and they will) , you try to push the thoughts away. Better is to realize the truths and bring them up at your own time. Think about the hard truths that bring emotional pain when you have control over your personal environment. This way you may be better equipped to deal with it. I don't want to assign any words or practices for this because there are many, but framing it this way helps.

thaumasiotes 1y ago

> as one of my favourite quotes (albeit that it's now a bit overused), from Miyamoto Musashi, puts it: “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is. And you must bend to its power or live a lie.” From https://www.way-of-the-samurai.com/miyamoto-musashi-quotes.html https://www.way-of-the-samurai.com/miyamoto-musashi-quotes.h... : > Musashi did not say this. This comes from a less than accurate “interpretation” of Musashi’s life and work by D. E. Tarver who repeats several fictions and myths about Musashi (hiding under bodies for 3 days at the battle of Sekigahara etc). He includes this line, “Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie” in the final paragraph of the Fire Scroll introduction. No such Miyamoto Musashi quotes appear in the Japanese, nor in any of the credible English translations.

bartread 1y ago
Thanks: that's interesting to know. However, I don't know that it erodes the value of the quote which, taken in isolation, rings true. Even, of all things, a Batman movie[0], and Battlestar Galactica[1] (!) have managed to drop some remarkably profound truths on occasion which has made me relatively unfussy about where one can find truth. At the same time I do like to give due credit so I'll be sure to reference the correct source in future. Thank you, once again. [0] "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - seen this one play out first hand multiple times in corporate life, specifically in leadership. [1] "You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore." - take heed, Mark Zuckerberg.
- xwolfi 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - try_the_bass 1y ago
    This is a wildly antagonistic take. It's apparent that the meaning of the quote is true to the parent commenter, regardless of whether or not the attribution is accurate. The attribution being inaccurate does not rob the quote of it's meaning. > I could have said the same thing. But you didn't, and would never have, until you saw the quote for yourself. To claim otherwise is to lie, which you seem pretty passionately opposed to doing. Should I demand an apology from you, now?

jeffreygoesto 1y ago

Reminds me of "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" [0] https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

pjmlp 1y ago

Thanks for sharing, and a good example why for me all those values trainings are worthless, they are lies that get spread across meetings, placed on adversting material, told to junior employees, and hardly anyone follows them in practice, other than doing that yearly training to check a checklist.

try_the_bass 1y ago
This is a wild take. I think the point of the parent comment was that those "values" have to be honest to be worth anything, not that they shouldn't exist at all.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  I am approaching 50 years old, I never seen them being honest in first place during my half century, only marketing material.
  - try_the_bass 1y ago
    I'm younger than you, and have definitely seen them be honest multiple times. So apparently experiences differ!
- nosianu 1y ago
  The question the parent commenter raises is more related to those trainings, which are 100% artificial and typical corporate checkbox ticking on the HR TODO list. Nobody disputed the value of giving an example by living and acting in certain ways.

pydry 1y ago

>I used to work for a software company that literally had "no politics" as part of its DNA I did too. It was something the CEO started saying after a particularly brutal game of thrones style purge. I think a lot of times company values are simply "things the company did and perhaps still does for which it feels shame".

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

piva00 1y ago

Was that a music streaming company by any chance?

GuB-42 1y ago

"No politics" is politics. It may even be the worst kind. Companies are all about making money, and politics is one way to achieve that. Saying "no politics" is like asking employees to not care about money, it is not going to happen, and there is an implicit "but it doesn't apply to me".