Your Job is Not Your Family
+Podcast on Fragile Neighborhoods, Reading + Listening Recommendations + Biology and Human Formation
Photo Cred Alex Kotliarskyi Unsplash
Calling a business or school a family sounds nice but is unhelpful on many levels.
First, it is not true and everyone knows it.
Second, it undermines the meaning and function of both business and the family.
Third, instead of creating a high standard for leadership and treating people it can often do the opposite.
Podcast Updates
In this episode of the Moral Imagination Podcast I speak with Seth Kaplan about his book Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society One Zip Code at a Time.
Essay: Your Job is Not Your Family
Welcome to our company—we are a family and we’re glad you’re part of it!
You are not just a student here, you’re a member of the family.
We’re not just a business. We’re a family.
Sorry to let you go.
Businesses, schools, banks, massive corporations, even small nonprofits often speak of their organization as a family. But is this really helpful? On the positive side, it’s an attempt to show employees, students, and members that they’re valued and not simply cogs in a machine. I think it also reflects the need we all have for a sense of meaning in our work, and as family and social bonds weaken, we often seek more purpose and community in what we do for a living.
But a business is not a family—and we should stop saying so. I realize this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, but it’s a bad idea on many levels. Rather than harmless sentiment, it’s a category error that can, in fact, weaken company culture, lead to institutional disorder, and encourage failure in leadership and management. It’s true that families and businesses are groups of people, but so is a pick-up basketball game on a Saturday afternoon, not to mention a democratically elected Senate.
There are at least three reasons it is a mistake to refer to a business, nonprofit, school, or any other organization or institution as a family.
First, it is not true and everyone knows it.
Second, it undermines the meaning and function of both business and the family.
Third, instead of creating a high standard for leadership and treating people well, it does the opposite.
Sorry to Let You Go
Let me begin with the obvious. Businesses and schools are not families, and everyone knows this. One might object that, if everyone already knows it’s sentimental corporate-speak, what’s the harm?
Where do I begin? First of all, it constantly repeating something a falsehood cannot make it true. Second, creates cynicism. In every corporate event where this is uttered, truth, sincerity, and the moral seriousness of leadership is put into question. It’s a small seed, but it grows. If leaders are willing to let sentiment rule over truth on something insignificant, will they have the courage to speak truth when it actually matters?
Read the rest of the essay here:
Reading and Listening Recommendations
Non-Fiction
In addition to Seth Kaplan’s Fragile Neighborhoods, I am currently reading several things about poverty and social capital in the United States that I’ll be reviewing soon. If you have any recommendations let me know.
Fiction
I am also currently reading The Robe, a historical novel by Lloyd Douglas that someone recommended to me earlier this year. I like historical novels so I am biased, but I am very much enjoying the book. He has some great lines and insights throughout. Here is one that is especially relevant to our times and the political cultures on both left and right.
“In a time of great need, when powerful leadership is demanded, the people - confused and excited - hear only the strident voices of the audacious, and refuse to listen to the voice of wisdom which, being wise, is temperate.”
The Relationship between Biology and Human Formation
Podcast Recommendation: Andrew Huberman on Using Failures, Movement & Balance to Learn Faster
This podcast by Andrew Huberman on neuro-plasticity and learning in adults and children in very interesting. In addition to the practical action steps it has me further thinking about what it means to be an embodied and embedded person and the relationship between biology and human formation.
What we do, the things we read, the music we listen to, the movies we watch — all of these don’t just impact our soul. They don’t just impact our intellect, will, and desires. They encode our biology — especially when we are young and our brains are more plastic. So, Huberman encourages young people to study a variety of subjects — and I always encourage my children to play lots of different sports for the same reason. When we are young our brains are more plastic and we can learn faster. But it also means we need to think about our spiritual and moral life. What we watch and listen to can sensitize or de-sensitize ourselves to good and evil. And since we are embodied persons — this impacts our biology and neural pathways. This is another reason we have to pay attention to human formation and how we act. It is not just our soul that is impacted, but our entire embodied person — our will, intellect, memory, imagination and our biology and neural pathways are going to make it easier or harder to be virtuous, to live a good life, to obey the commandments, to be more productive, to be a better spouse, father, mother, etc. Huberman does not address this in the podcast — the podcast is worth listening to and I’ll be writing more about biology and human formation soon.