The 'Big Other' At Work

This week we are talking about 'The Big Other' in workplace culture. I assume that none of you are turning to me for a detailed explanation of what this is, but it was coined by Jacques Lacan and for our purposes we only need to consider it in two contexts:

The first is that the 'big other; is the hypothetical eye for which we perform, so it is often unwritten, unspoken rules of societies of workplaces that we all obey and while we might question them, we enter into that system and that is the way that things are done. In many cases, no one truly knows why.

The second is that we are considering it in terms of doing things the 'the greater good' of our respective employers. Perhaps in direct opposition to what may be good for us, such as working late to complete a report.

To contextualise this relationship, I wanted to look at how that relationship is sort of changed throughout the last couple of hundred years.

A Few Hundred Years Ago

200 to 300 years ago, the alignment between what is good for the company and what is good for you as an individual - is very very aligned and the reason is quite obvious. If you are blacksmith, your father was a blacksmith your son or daughter will be a blacksmith and you often have a job for life.

In many cases your employer might own the town that you work in. The property that you're living in, and s it's quite possible in that situation where the company does well and so you directly benefit.

And so it makes a lot of sense for you to work hard for your employer, to advance your skills, to invest your time because who are you passing on this work to? The next generation. This is at a time where everyone knows their place in society, the peasants don't talk to the nobles, and everyone understands their purpose, their remit and the rules which apply to them.

You may argue that in this period, working conditions were terrible, hours were long and so this alignment was maybe not so close. But this is perhaps showing us the influence of the big other whereby this was considered normal , there was a strong justification on practical reasons it was this way, and in fact a happiness index shows that in fact people were happier in 1770 in workhouses then they are today.

1940 - 2000

Personal autonomy rises. There are more employees in general. With more opportunities, the idea of 'a job for life' is dissolved. But where people can change jobs if they want, they're having a relationship with their employers that tends to be 5,10,20 years. It's still not a small portion of your life.

And so there is still this consideration that, you have to be nice to these people. You have to obey this set of rules because you're going to be around these people for a long time and interestingly the restrictions that we saw previously in the way that we work didn't go away. If anything weirdly they become more restrictive or they become more predominant.

No sooner do people start advocating for 9-5, work-life balance, minimum wage but almost out of nowhere we see a corporate culture being born with restrictive rules. There is a very specific way that people should dress, talk, send emails etc that is still prevalent in some industries today. And even where we see a divergence from this norm, it is controlled by the company. Companies invent these fake niceties such as 'casual friday' so they acknowledge to some level that what you wear bears no relation to performance, but only so long as it can be controlled by them and seen as giving you something.

But with less loyalty we see a shift to more individualism and the 'Big other' becomes more about career and less about company. If you go the extra mile, you will rise up faster. Spend your weekends on that report and you'll stand out for promotion or to a fuzzier degree, if the company is successful you will be seen as successful by association and be able to move to a better job.

In this period though, we certainly see people questioning the status quo and the rules and associations we all play into begin to be fed back to us and lampooned by the likes of Dilbert, Office Space and The Office.

Today's World

It took a pandemic to totally break us free from the norms, the rules and stipulations we had no choice but to accept. People really began to question. 'Do I need to dress smart for work? I can work from home in my pyjamas and I still get as much done. Do I need to do nine to five? I prefer to work late and so I can get all of my work done. I just don't need one to get up at 8 o'clock every day.'

And today our relationship with our employer has dissolved further, there's a lot more opportunities out there, a lot more companies being started every single day. And so now it's quite normal that you would work for an employer for 2-3 years and where 10+ years begins to be the exception and not the norm.

Companies are of course aware of this, they want you to be brought into their vision, to go that extra mile and make decisions based on this big other, this greater good of the company. But how? If you're going to treat your employer more transactionally, they can treat you more transactionally.

Here we see the 'big other' morphing again where it's partly career-driven but it's also recognition-based. Influence-based. Today the 'Big other' tells us that sharing our experience and knowledge for free on linkedin, that contributing the this collective society will in turn improve job prospects and to some degree feed our egos. I cannot speak, for here I am writing and sharing my thoughts. But quite often 'The big other' of work and the 'company big other' are not aligned any more. So how can company's promote this behaviour and encourage longer-term loyalty?

Long-Term Loyalty

We have this slightly strange relationship with our companies these days where they want us They want us to be part of the vision. They want us to go and above and beyond and do what is good for them. But we are more selfish as a people and they know that, and similarly at times when they can more easily replace us because there's more candidates out there. So what should companies do?

I would say is get rid of things that do not make get rid of these stupid rules that nobody knows why they exist or that there is not a good reason for existing. Get rid of them. There's no excuse anymore. If you are going to insist that people be in the office five days a week. what's your strong reason for that? And if there isn't a really strong reason, give people the flexibility as long as they get their work done.

The second thing would be to tell your people what is important and which rules you care about. Don't leave it unsaid. If you don't mind someone taking a short lunch and leaving early, let them know or otherwise people will fill in the blanks with their previous experiences.

The third thing is to try and find a close alignment to what benefits the company and what benefits the individual which goes beyond a bonus or a pay rise, which can be affected by things out of your control such as the cost of living.

Where do they see themselves in the future? Can your company realistically accommodate that and in many cases the answer might be no and if the answer is no, how can you make sure that they're in a position to take advantage of future opportunities with you? How can you get them to that place where they're ready to leave? How can I give them benefits that will matter to them?

Thought of The Week: Why do you go the extra mile for your company? Is it because you've been brought up to believe that it is the norm that it is just part of daily life and that by doing that you get some sort of indirect benefit? Quite possibly the answer is yes, you are unknowingly participating with the big other, a set of rules that the mass has agreed to including yourself at some point. While there will always be a balance in the ways that we work and the lengths we will go for our jobs that relationship has shifted massively in recent times and forces some big questions around matching personal ambition with company culture.