It is not done to call “bullshit”

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It is not the done thing to call bullshit in a professional setting.

Given, for all their pained protestations to the contrary, any commercial organisation is a self-perpetuating autocracy we should expect a great deal less licence given to untrammeled free speech in every day practice than is virtue-signaled by the boss in his daily lectures on the telescreen.

People who survive for a time in an organisation are shaped and enculturated by it. They do not so much learn not to call bullshit, but are self-selected for their disposition for it not to occur to them to call bullshit.

Such “brand ambassadors” in turn, are a crucial part of the recruitment process — almost everyone is part of the recruitment process somehow — and so they select people who are a “good cultural fit” — that is, disinclined to call bullshit or even notice it.

To be clear, “calling bullshit” is not actively repressed in the organisation — to the contrary, the executive will implore their people to do so at every opportunity, and may even mean it. For people are not punished for calling bullshit: they just don’t. It is bred out of them.

Thus, organisations thrive and flourish despite, and not because of, their internal governance.

See also

• Consultation
• Otto’s razor: don’t assume malice where incompetence is an equally good explanation.
• Thought leader