Turtles & Puppies.
How quick come the reasons for approving what we like! — Jane Austen
The foible of favoritism in the workplace still somehow gets a pass.
We know it when we see it, but its awkwardness makes it difficult to handle. It gets registered and goes unconfronted. We freeze. If you challenge it, you are bound to lose the argument. If you swallow it, you gradually lose respect for — and grow resentful toward — the organization and its leadership. The battles you avoided wear you out as much as those you lost.
Even if your perception of recurring favoritism is illusory, its impact on you is real.
The signals of being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of favor are obvious to everyone around — even if they look the other way. The fact that nobody says anything should not lull you into complacency if you happen to be the one granting and withdrawing favors. Silence is not consent. Underneath, people are adjusting their trust, loyalty, and tactics.
Not outrage. Not rebellion. Adaptation.
People can see that the little wrong done by the one ‘out’ becomes a mountain of wrong, while the little right done by the one ‘in’ becomes a mountain of right.
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They see that, as Leo Tolstoy observed, ‘it’s too easy to criticize a man when he is out of favour, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes.’ And that, as Alex Haley quipped, ‘Anytime you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.’
It is unrealistic to expect favoritism to disappear. It is a natural human impulse. We tend to like people who like us and are like us. The reasons come quickly. And nobody is fully immune to brown-nosers, sycophants, and suck-ups — even if we know they are feeding us with an empty spoon.
It is equally unrealistic to expect people to remain unmoved when they see that brown-nosing often pays.
What we should expect, though, is greater recognition that favoritism stealthily poisons organizations. However subtle and polished it may be, favoritism is discrimination. The fact that it’s socially tolerated does not make it less so.
Marshall Goldsmith advises us to reflect on how we distribute and ‘color’ attention toward certain people on our team. How we distribute warmth and attention — often inadvertently. He also compares suck-ups to puppies: affectionate, enthusiastic, undemanding — always happy to see us and never complaining. The metaphor is amusing, but it risks trivializing the issue.
Its greatest damage is not unfair promotion decisions — many favorites may work out perfectly well — but the silent reprogramming of everybody around it. The anticipatory adaptation.
Good people become cautious. Independent thinkers become diplomatic. Some become cynical and corrosive. Some implode or explode — and leave. Yet most commonly, people adapt and start raising puppies and lifting turtles themselves.
Quietly. Incrementally. Without drama.
Once people realize merit is not the real currency, they adapt. They stop orienting themselves toward competence and contribution and start orienting themselves toward favor.
