Divide and conquer...
Who hasn't heard this statement at least once in their personal or professional path?
Who hasn't been more or less gently, more or less firmly put in his or her place on the unquestionable necessity to divide in order to reign?
Who hasn't been an actor conscious or unconscious of this 'method' in his or her way of 'reigning'?
For this is how the world in which we live works, or at least has worked until now. This is how many of the great leaders historically known for their exploits and their ability to conquer the world have maneuvered. This is part of the instruction manual for any good leader ('good' in the sense recognized by the community as performing against a defined standard).
In my experience, I have had to receive this reminder, I would even say this injunction, on several occasions not so long ago in the course of my work.
The most recent episode was during an email exchange where I positioned myself to express what was in line with my values and principles, which I thought at that moment aligned with those of my manager to whom the email was addressed. It was an ambiguous and complex situation as we often encounter in my business and in response to my email, my hierarchy made it clear to me that divide and conquer is a basic rule of any good leader. It was even expressed with a rather sufficient tone of voice that implied: I find it hard to believe that at this level of responsibility, you have not yet integrated this essential rule of management!
Logically, this email created a gap with my hierarchy, I no longer recognized myself in the values of this environment and without remembering the exact time between that moment and my departure, I know that it was one of the triggers of my decision to leave the company.
Let's go back a few years earlier to another environment. When my direct hierarchy had just changed, again in a complex and ambiguous context, the new person in charge did not hesitate to say during the first team meeting: 'I am not afraid of having blood on my hands'. These were the precise words used in the middle of the steering committee. The tone was set in what would eventually become a shortened experience for me because how could I be in agreement with this type of posture? By having blood on my hands myself? And what does 'having blood on my hands' actually mean in a 21st century corporate context? 6 months later, I had left the company, not without difficulty in asserting my right to be treated with dignity in the context of my departure (but that's another story).
We were already well into the 21st century at the time of these episodes...in the 21st century, do you realize?! And we claim to have evolved as humanity, seriously?
As difficult as it may be to receive such injunctions, they have the merit, if we decide to take them in this way, to open our eyes on the nature of the person in front of us and to incite us to position ourselves. Do we agree or disagree with the method used?
Already, at the time, these situations seemed surreal to me because my vision of things does not include the orchestration of one's own power through division. I remember thinking to myself: we are in the 21st century in a society that claims to be developed, modern and intelligent (artificially or not) and this type of practice still exists? Personally, I believe that this is simply not acceptable. Even if I don't 'reign' anymore .... this is what I finally had to decide when I felt the need to align my behaviours and actions with my values. So, on several occasions, I left a well-paying job for this reason. Because I could no longer endorse what was implicitly imposed and what was unacceptable to me.
Naturally, I came to ask myself the question of why. Why was it so unacceptable to me? So let's go and take a closer look at what the divide and rule posture implies.
First of all the expression itself. Without mentioning the allusion to a way of acquiring power far removed from the current realities of 21st century companies or other collectives, the reference to the notion of reign is far from being neutral since, in general, the reign of a king or a queen extends over a period of time, even up to a whole life. So accepting this method implies that the true intention is to remain in power as long as possible whatever the means of doing so. We no longer take the collective interest as our primary objective (no matter the size of the collective in question, a family or a kingdom, the principle is the same) but we aim to maintain power no matter what.
Another expression confirms this same posture: the end justifies the means. A phrase that introduces the rule of 'everything is allowed' to get where we want to get to. To make this motto one's own is simply to intend to abuse power, that is to say, to try to abuse others through one's own power.
In practice, the very fact of knowingly using the techniques of division to maintain control is a form of manipulation, which amounts to usurping a fundamental universal right of every human being: the free will of each individual to self-determine. When a person is manipulated, consent is obtained through biased methods that do not transparently share the information necessary for a fully informed decision. By indulging in the practice of divide and conquer, one becomes the conductor of the people in the presence of whom one uses ignorance, naivety, fear, denial, etc...in short, any cause of lack of discernment, for one's own personal interests. In other words, one consents to 'play' with others rather than take the risk of not serving one's own personal interests. One agrees not to disclose one's true intentions in order to obtain the desired result. You are willing to superimpose your personal will on the will of the other person who does not know what he or she wants, rather than taking the risk of stating and explaining your intentions in an attempt to convince the other person and then letting him or her decide.
And very often, the first defensive tactic to justify this ambiguous posture will be: 'all you had to do was ask me, I would have answered'.
A bit easy, isn't it?
Of course, everyone in the decision-making process has to identify what information is needed and how to get it. As a member of a team or a group, it is therefore essential to define the actions to take in order to act responsibly, such as asking questions when you don't have all the answers. But this does not justify the person who holds information not taking all the necessary actions to make it available. Transparency of information is not an option, it is a duty.
At this stage of reading, I would like to make one thing clear: I can easily remind situations where I have not been transparent enough in my role as a manager, a parent or a team member (the issue of transparency is a real subject that I will explore in another post). So let's put ourselves at ease: this rule of divide and conquer is so integrated in the functioning of our world, it is so implicitly presented as the inevitable golden rule whether we like it or not, that no one can affirm that at no time in his or her life has he or she used this maneuver to 'rule'. And this in all aspects of life: whether as a child, a parent, a professional, a manager, a team member, an athlete, etc., the examples are numerous.
It is therefore acceptable to find situations in one's life where we have reigned thanks to the use of division. It is not only acceptable, but also essential to take them up in order to become fully aware of them and use our magnificent analytical abilities on ourselves, in order to understand our own mechanisms of functioning and gradually move towards a new way of being. What is not acceptable on the other hand, is to do nothing by gently putting what is not pretty back under the carpet, for fear of what we are going to discover.
So the question we come to ask ourselves is: now that I am aware of it, how far am I willing to go to keep myself in power? which leads us to explore in all humility and integrity what power means to us: how did we come to have all this power? And what does it trigger in oneself?
Once you become aware of this very important trait of your own leadership (again, no matter what life "hat" you look at), what do you decide to do with it? What actions will we decide to take to correct it?
For the consequences of persisting in such behaviors can be important, numerous and harmful. For oneself and for others.
Inevitably, when manipulation occurs, a hostile climate of toxic adversity spreads throughout a group. Whether it is said or not.
Let's keep in mind that a group or collective of any kind exists and is balanced by common codes, conventions and beliefs. This is what will constitute the group norm to which each member will more or less adhere.
Now, we know that thinking something, feeling an emotion emits a wave, a frequency that gets stronger according to the intensity of the thought, the number of times we let ourselves be carried by it (at an average rate of 60,000 thoughts per day for each person, that makes many occasions to broadcast such a frequency...) and according to the number of people coming into resonance with these thoughts or emotions. Whether they are said or not. Expressing them orally will give them more weight, but thoughts already exist as frequencies.
The norm, implicit or explicit, will therefore influence each individual's thought and emotional patterns and the group itself will be influenced and nourished by the contribution of each individual according to the degree of individual alignment.
It is therefore understandable that when based on manipulation, this whole mechanism will generate a form of toxic frequency pollution.
Living in this type of environment on a daily basis can only weaken the individual balance and will, at best, require each person to put a lot of attention and energy in order not to feed the pollution and not to enter into the forced dance desired by the manipulator or, at worst, create imbalances that, depending on the strength and stability of the people present, could have repercussions on their health (physical, emotional or mental for example). So much potential suffering! While the human being is a marvelous energy factory, it can just as easily go in a destructive direction and produce an enormous waste.
At the collective level, management practices using manipulation, even subtle manipulation, which will arrange for conflicts or disagreements to organize themselves 'naturally' between each other, without necessarily intervening but letting it happen (passive manipulation) will inevitably end up sabotaging the group's confidence, annihilating its sense of unity, reducing creativity by siphoning off the capacity for intuition, which will have a strong impact on the group's ability to innovate, and therefore to strengthen itself. This can be seen as a lead screed placed on the group that prevents them from moving forward while benefiting from each other.
And what about a larger group such as a company made up of several layers of management: when such practices take place from the top, how will they be cascaded at all levels of the organization? Because the repercussions will be significant, individually and collectively, as will the indirect costs associated with these behaviors. What about the culture of the company or collective in question that allows such practices? In such a context, what are the real reasons that encourage employees or members to stay? Why do we so often observe that companies have to find more and more financial solutions to retain talent and prevent them from leaving instead of being able to retain them through the actual quality of the work environment?
Tell me, you have a taste of déjà vu? I do!
All this seems so obvious to understand that it is unthinkable that the experience acquired over time does not bring this part of wisdom to any parent, manager or leader confronted with the field. And yet...we are soon entering 2021 and we have to admit that there are still too many examples.
I have often asked myself: how is this state of mind of manipulation and orchestration simply possible? How is it possible to lose sight of the responsibilities one has taken on by accepting the power that goes with it? Because power doesn't work without responsibilities. And why do such practices continue to be the case?
I have my own systemic answers which I will not go into here, the purpose of this article being to encourage each person to do their own introspective work to revisit situations in all aspects of their lives and thus make their own honest personal analysis with regard to their own value system.
However, I encourage HR leaders to dare to openly address this topic with the community of managers they support. It's not an easy subject: when you start pulling a thread to untangle a knot that has appeared in the middle of the organization, you often find that the causes are also to be found higher up in the hierarchy. But hierarchy means power and success: what interest will a manager who is known for his (her) results have in questioning himself (herself) and what has made him (her) successful? And yet, in my vision of a high-performing organization, it is one of the challenges of the HR function to mobilize to help the organization evolve towards its full potential. And that requires having the courage to put certain issues on the table.
Whether at an individual or collective level, the practices of power management to 'divide and rule' are legion and the repercussions are numerous. It is therefore essential, as we begin a decade that promises to be full of transformations of all kinds, to dare to look at one's own experience in order to cleanse in oneself any affinity with this motto that is certainly ancestral but so little adapted to the emerging world.
So let's start with self-transformation:
In what areas of my life do I persist in these practices?
Why do I persist in these practices? What are my exact intentions in my desire to gain and maintain power? Am I able to face these true intentions?
What does this way of leading seek to compensate within me? What do I need to become aware of to end these patterns and transform myself?This is a very promising program of reflection which, even if it begins by being uncomfortable and demanding, then brings an important self-liberation to bring out the deep nature of one's leadership outside of old and obsolete codes and conventions. This is what I propose to explore together and you will see, it is exciting!
"Le brame du cerf" of Momoly is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0
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