I would like to offer my deepest thanks to
my close friend and colleague, Wanda*, for allowing me to interview her for this paper.
'A lawyer is an officer of the court. He represents justice. He represents right. I'm not supposed to use my brains and try to stand between a guilty defendant and the law of the land. I'm supposed to see that my clients are protected, that their interests are protected.'
So said Perry Mason in Erle Stanley Gardner's
46th novel, The Case of the Glamorous Ghost. And with the infamous counselor's
inspiring words, so began Wanda's aspiration to become a lawyer†. And so began the
co-operative education internships she soon took at two Colorado law firms. Unfortunately,
the "manipulation, disloyalty, greed, and malingering not uncommon to modern law
practice" became intolerable for her. After a year at the first firm, and the first
few months at the second, Wanda's amour with the legal profession fizzled. As Perry
himself lamented, 'I wish people would learn to differentiate between the reputable lawyer
who represents persons accused of crime, and the criminal lawyer who becomes a silent
partner in the profits of crime.' For Wanda, it seemed that even within the profession
itself, this distinction was hard to make.
The unpleasantness of both internships,
particularly the second one, was, however, tempered by the rare opportunity Wanda got to
explore in detail the interpersonal dynamics of the workplace—and by the interest she
eventually developed in the field of organisational behaviour. By virtue of her numerous
roles and lengthy tenure at the second firm—under the expertly-crafted guise of her
'interest' in the legal profession—Wanda was able to make many observations on her
relationship to the workplace, and its relationship to her. In this paper, I would like to
comment on some of those observations, and attempt to explain them in terms of two
conceptual approaches: Dawis and Lofquist's (1984) work adjustment theory and Deal and
Kennedy's (1982) theory of 'corporate cultures'.
For four years, between 1993-1996, Wanda was
employed as a co-operative education student1 at a prominent, medium-sized law
firm in a large city in Colorado. The firm of 12 lawyers and 35 support staff specialised
in labour and employment law, with an emphasis on discrimination, wrongful dismissal, and
fair employment practices. Wanda's duties were to assist the lawyers and staff with
day-to-day tasks, including clerical work, document preparation, legal research, and
courtroom filing. In exchange, Wanda would earn credits towards her diploma and would be
invited by the lawyers to sit in on client meetings, discoveries2, and court
cases. Although her interest in the latter waned, she remained with the firm to finish her
co-operative education term; to earn money towards her college tuition; and to gain
experience in a variety of tasks and roles that her boss (the principal of the firm) felt
she would be good at. These tasks and roles included temporary secretary and receptionist,
public relations assistant, firm librarian, computer network administrator, and even at
times housekeeper and trash collector. These roles differed greatly, and, as a result,
Wanda was required to work very closely and for extended periods of time with a wide
variety of groups within the office. It is Wanda's interaction with these different groups
upon which this paper's observations are based.
Dawis and Lofquist (1984) posit that tenure on the job is an indicator of work adjustment. Tenure is the result of the degree of correspondence between the employee and the work environment. Specifically, work adjustment is determined by the employee's performance on the job (satisfactoriness) and the rewards the job provides for the employee (satisfaction). This correspondence is mediated by four adjustment styles, which determine the amount of discongruence the employee can tolerate before leaving the job3. Wanda believes her long tenure at the firm was a result of a strong correspondence between herself and the work environment.
Wanda's particular work environment, however, differed from those many others typically experience, because essentially it comprised several distinctly self-enclosed environments (more specifically, workgroups) of which Wanda had to be an integral part. The defining feature of each of these workgroups is what I will refer to as their individual corporate culture. The term 'corporate culture' was first postulated by Stanley M. Davis (Schwartz & Davis 1981) in reference to "roughly, the unwritten code of conduct that seems to govern the workplace" (Changing Times, 1985).
Deal and Terrance (1982) postulated four
different corporate cultures, each determined by two factors: the degree of risk
associated with the job (typically financial risk), and the speed with which employees
receive feedback on their performance (see Appendix 'A'). To my mind, the law firm
employees within each of these cultures achieved work adjustment by the degree to which
their individual interests, abilities, personality styles, and values (concepts delineated
by Dawis and Lofquist) matched the abilities and values required by their workgroups'
specific corporate culture. Wanda's work adjustment appeared dependent upon the
degree to which she could adapt to all of these cultures. This adaptation was in
turn dependent upon two factors: Wanda's wide range of interests, abilities, personality
styles, and values; and her ability to work successfully within each of these groups and
their cultures—without alienating herself from any of them and even by
actively fostering healthy relations between them. Alienation could take many
forms: making different workgroups angry with and therefore militant towards her; ignoring
specific workgroups out of her own anger; being too tired or disinterested to understand
the culture of each workgroup and thereby segregating herself socially; and so on. This
ability to work within each group without alienating herself I will refer to as cross-pollination4.
(Changing Times, 1985).
The secretaries in Wanda's firm adopted a
markedly 'work hard, play hard' culture, in which "[f]un and action are the rules. .
.Employees take few risks and get quick feedback; to succeed, the culture encourages them
to maintain a high level of relatively low-risk activity" (Deal & Kennedy, 1983).
Wanda easily adapted to this corporate culture. She had no difficulties filling in
temporarily for secretaries because her own abilities, values, and personality style were
fully consistent with those of this environment. Not only did she possess the requisite
clerical skills, but the steady stream of often mindless clerical tasks reinforced her
needs for comfort (namely, money) and her occasional needs for an immediate sense
of achievement. Finishing typing a large brief provided an immediate sense of
achievement that made up for the sense of achievement she would have to wait for much
longer while doing a large computer programming project in another workgroup. More
importantly, Wanda's personality style was such that she could work quickly and at a
steady rhythm—which the 'work hard, play hard culture' rewarded her with
long lunches, extended gossip sessions, and extra time to have fun with the secretaries by
playing computer games.
In Wanda's roles as the firm's librarian,
computer network administrator, and occasional accounting assistant, it was necessary that
she adapt to the process culture that surrounds these jobs. For Deal and Kennedy, a
process culture is "a world of little or no feedback where employees find it hard to
measure what they do; instead they concentrate on how it's done." In this
case, Wanda's skills and personality style allowed her to take process culture jobs that
satisfied her values not only for achievement (the jobs were an opportunity to use her
varied computer and research skills) and comfort (in the form of independence and
task variety), but also status. For example, as firm librarian, Wanda
relished being known as the woman who could find anything through meticulous, systematic
research (thus fulfilling her needs for social status), and as network
administrator she could (sometimes sadistically) tell people what to do by obsessively
enforcing very specific computer user rules (thus fulfilling her occasional needs for
authority).
In her role as a research assistant for
various of the firm's junior lawyers, Wanda was required to acculturate to a 'tough-guy,
macho' culture, which Deal and Kennedy define as "a world of individualists who
regularly take high risks and get quick feedback on whether or not their actions were
right or wrong." Being insistent, loud, overbearing, and sometimes even rude in the
process of finding the right information (and finding it fast), were keys both to Wanda's
successful relations with these 'got get `em' lawyers and to her job as their researcher.
In relating with these lawyers, her value for autonomy was reinforced by the sense of responsibility
she achieved in making her own decisions as she did whatever was necessary to get these
associates what and when they needed it.
Wanda's experience at this firm was very
unique in that few people her age are lucky enough to get the opportunity to collaborate
with senior lawyers on issues related to long-term planning. Her boss—the principal
of the firm—regularly solicited her opinions on such issues as new equipment and
software, office procedures (e.g., new accounting systems), and the firm's image (e.g.,
public relations materials). To successfully engage with these senior lawyers, Wanda had
to use what Dawis and Lofquist refer to as her general, verbal, spatial,
and form perception abilities, and that she adopt to a 'bet your company'
culture. In this culture, big stakes decisions are made and a long time passes before it
is known if decisions have paid off (Deal & Kennedy, 1983). Since engaging in creative
discussions was often time-consuming and involved looking to the future and waiting a long
time for feedback, Wanda was required to engage her endurance personality style.
In exchange, such interactions reinforced her values for security (her boss always wanted
her around for her opinions); status (this lowly member of the secretarial pool was also a
'high-profile' consultant for the boss!); and autonomy (she could experiment with her own
ideas).
What I find most remarkable about Wanda's
time at this firm was her ability to move between all of its cultures, and still remain a
bona-fide member of each one of them without risking being labelled 'disloyal', a
'snitch', a 'spy', or a 'hypocrite'. I consider these to be derogatory terms that are
sometimes applied to individuals who are strongly affiliated with more than one workgroup.
As will be discussed later, I think Wanda was also able to foster positive relations
between these groups. In other words, I think she was an effective 'cross-pollinator'. For
this, I credit the relatively equal importance Wanda places on all of the values and
personality styles as identified by Dawis and Lofquist.
It might be argued that instead of being an employee with wide and varied abilities, values, personality styles, and interests—a 'Renaissance Woman' of sorts—Wanda's ability to willingly, successfully, and enjoyably adapt to the firm's various corporate cultures was a result of sophisticated self presentation and impression management. These terms refer to the process of controlling how one is perceived by others (see Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Schneider, 1981; Schlenker, 1980). The primary goal of self presentation is to influence others to respond to us in desired ways (Jones & Pittman, 1982), which often involves changing behaviours so they are perceived positively by others. Individuals who are skilled at monitoring their own behaviour to create the desired effect in any given situation are referred to as high self-monitors (Snyder, 1987). Individuals who are high self-monitors for the purposes of manipulating people and situations are sometimes colloquially referred to as disingenuous 'chameleons'.
One could argue that Wanda succeeded in the firm because she was a clever chameleon. However, I counter that her success was due to other reasons—namely, her effort to be a genuine cross-pollinator, a hallmark of which is an ability to empathise with and put oneself in the shoes of the different people with whom one works. For instance, even though Wanda would act aggressively in carrying out her research duties for associate lawyers, she did not conduct herself in this fashion when dealing with the secretarial pool, which she personally knew to be the backbone of the firm: hard-working, dedicated women on whom lawyers often placed excessive or unreasonable demands. Being a substitute secretary herself, Wanda was well aware of their plight; and since she often functioned as her boss's temporary secretary, he was able to see firsthand a secretary's stressful job, especially since he repeatedly invited her to comment on everything Wanda did in the firm. As another example, in Wanda's private discussions with senior lawyers, she was called upon to offer opinions on changing the firm's accounting practices and software. However, in personally experiencing the difficulties process staff experience in adapting to changes, particularly when those changes might lead to changes in their jobs or to lay-offs, Wanda often felt it necessary to quietly discuss with these staff the possibility that changes were on the horizon.
It warrants mentioning also that high self-monitors typically differ from low self-monitors in that they are less externally guided; more internally guided; and that their attitudes and values change across different situations (Zanna & Olson, 1982). In Wanda's case, her attitudes and values remained the same regardless of which group she worked with—they just manifested themselves at different times, across different situations. And Wanda's fellow employees were aware of this. In fact, one of the central values which remained stable across all situations was that for altruism and her desire to be helpful to and understanding of all groups within the office. In fact, opportunities for this type of cross-pollination replaced the Perry Mason-style of lawyering as the reinforcer for Wanda's needs for altruism!
Snyder and DeBono (1989) suggest that high
self-monitors' changing attitudes help them adapt to new jobs. In Wanda's case, a
deliberate change in attitudes across workgroups would actually have made it difficult to
adopt all the roles she did. Should she have tried to actively change her attitudes with
each job she performed—such as forgoing her need for altruism so she could help make
decisions that would cause hardships for the staff (e.g. bringing in new equipment and
trimming staff)—I think her transition from one role to the next would have been more
difficult. In essence, Wanda would have expended more energy in changing her attitudes and
values (to become a ruthless decision-maker, for instance) and less energy doing the work
at hand.
Aside from being able to do the jobs that are common to each of these cultures, Wanda's 'cross-pollination' had an impact on the various work environments themselves. This is consistent with Dawis and Lofquist's belief that the relationship between employee and environment is constantly in flux.
Foremost, I think that through 'cross-pollination', Wanda was able to bring members of separate workgroup cultures closer together, such that there was an overall increase in the congruence between the values of members of specific workgroups' members and the firm as a whole. By moving between different workgroups and acculturating to their norms and values, she acknowledged and supported their values, which in turn helped members from other workgroups appreciate the importance of the different corporate cultures in the firm.
Furthermore, I think Wanda helped increase
other employees' own cross-pollination between different workgroups. When she was able to
describe to senior lawyers the stress the secretaries experienced, the lawyers were more
likely to mingle with and appreciate this part of the office. Conversely, the secretaries
started mingling more with the lawyers, as when they felt more comfortable sharing with
them their suggestions and ideas on how to improve efficiency in the office.
Cross-pollination was also encouraged as Wanda demonstrated its ability to reduce
frictions between different workgroups. Furthermore, her experiences with the different
workgroups allowed her to share with new employees insights into the firm's different
corporate cultures, which in turn probably helped them to acculturate to the firm as a
whole, and in turn increased their own work satisfaction and the firm's satisfactoriness.
"Where the whole man is involved there is no work."
—Marshall McLuhan5
In essence, I think that cross-pollinating
between different groups within the firm allowed Wanda to experience herself as a whole
person—as a person with varied interests, abilities, values, and dispositions. In
this sense, I would have to agree with Mr. McLuhan that the work Wanda did at the firm was
not really work at all. It was an act of self-exploration, personal development, and for
lack of a better term, diplomacy. Wanda's differing interests, abilities, personality
styles, and values were congruent with those inherent to many of the firm's widely
different corporate cultures. Her ability to 'cross-pollinate', or work successfully
within each of these cultures, not only without alienating herself from any of them, but
also by helping facilitate relations between them, gave her a rare opportunity to observe
the exciting dynamics of a workplace environment.
Despite having lost interest in the field of
law per se, Wanda's experiences at this Colorado law firm helped her look at work in
general and her dynamic relationship to it in a completely different light. I think in
this sense, her co-operative education experience was a patent success—and she would
probably be glad to experience it all over again.
*The name of the participant in this case study has been changed to protect her anonymity.
†Please note that some facts and details described in this paper have been slightly modified in order to highlight specific concepts and to facilitate critical discussion of career development issues.
[1] From 1993-1996, Wanda was a high school co-operative education student. After her term was finished, she was hired by the firm, and until 1997 remained a paid intern while attending university.
[2] Semi-formal, in-office process by which lawyers verbally examine witnesses for the opposing litigants.
[3] These styles include flexibility (how much discongruence can be tolerated before the employee makes changes within him/herself or the environment); activeness (changing the environment to meet personal values), reactiveness (changing personal values to match the environment, and perseverance (how much discongruence can be tolerated before changing jobs).
[4] In the context of corporations, 'cross-pollinators' are employees who travel between workgroups with different cultures, and who consequently know more about the interpersonal dynamics of that corporation than anyone else. These employees help tap new employees 'into the grapevine'. I have adapted the term 'cross-pollination' for my own purposes. See Changing Times, 1985.
[5] Marshall McLuhan (1911-80), Canadian communications theorist. Understanding
Media, ch. 14 (1964).
Changing Times (1985, September). Corporate culture; cracking the code. Changing Times, 39, p. 64.
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| HIGH RISK + FAST FEEDBACK = Tough-Guy / Macho Culture e.g., stock brokerage |
HIGH RISK + SLOW FEEDBACK = Bet-Your-Company Culture e.g., oil exploration co. |
| LOW RISK + FAST FEEDBACK = Work-Hard/ Play Hard Culture e.g., sales company |
LOW RISK + SLOW FEEDBACK = Process Culture e.g., government office |
Copyright © 2001, by Eddy M. Elmer
Permanent URL: http://www.eddyelmer.com/articles/worksfu.htm